tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post7775285886498249742..comments2024-01-13T18:57:18.243-05:00Comments on Information Processing: OW! Learning can hurtSteve Hsuhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02428333897272913660noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-59575536927040805602011-11-12T20:03:39.000-05:002011-11-12T20:03:39.000-05:00I think I am in the top 1% of clever and hard work...I think I am in the top 1% of clever and hard working. I would guess that you are too. How is this relevant?<br /><br />Do you have a preference for how to map income to percentile of "clever and hard working"? If you do, I respect it. I don't claim to know how to do it myself. But people here in the U.S. of A. in the 50th percentile sure seem richer than elsewhere ...LondonYoungnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-6930738368856197172011-11-07T19:47:08.966-05:002011-11-07T19:47:08.966-05:00I think the nerd is an Anglo-American invention. P...I think the nerd is an Anglo-American invention. Perhaps it originated in the class prejudice of Britain's public school men.<br /><br />Do Koreans and Germans talk about engineers without people skills? By US standards S Korea is an entire nation of social retardates.<br /><br />Angela Merkel has a PhD in P-chem. <br /><br />The closest the US has come to a technical prez are Hoover and MtMorunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-92195165734817728902011-11-07T19:40:13.140-05:002011-11-07T19:40:13.140-05:00You are a "system guy" are you not LY? B...You are a "system guy" are you not LY? But you make 8 figures per year or at least make much more every day than the median household income in the US?<br /><br />I'm sure you are a very clever and hard working guy, but are you that much more clever and hard working?MtMorunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-16052913527368573082011-11-07T19:30:49.056-05:002011-11-07T19:30:49.056-05:00"no one, except taxpayers, will pay you to mo..."no one, except taxpayers, will pay you to model the expansion of the universe or prove the Riemann hypothesis."<br /><br />Good on ya!<br /><br />But there is plenty of applied research going on at unis. All of the research at med schools is applied, and I suppose almost all of the research in engineering departments. The NIH has a budget 10x the NSF's. As it should be.MtMorunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-89254406456400001942011-11-07T19:27:24.983-05:002011-11-07T19:27:24.983-05:00Right!
The category STEM is "useful" o...Right! <br /><br />The category STEM is "useful" only to mush brained journalists and politicians none of whom were themselves STEM majors and none of whom have any idea how things work. MtMorunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-19216797085972576342011-11-07T19:24:49.815-05:002011-11-07T19:24:49.815-05:00Steve doesn't need the money. He says teaching...Steve doesn't need the money. He says teaching is like push ups but he likes it.<br /><br />His father was a professor. <br /><br />Steve "teaches" because he gets recognition of a kind he cannot get elsewhere. What is that? Maybe he thinks of professor as a "high-class" occupation. Just a guess.MtMorunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-37459670671415811382011-11-07T18:34:40.060-05:002011-11-07T18:34:40.060-05:00"well, we already have more than there are jo..."well, we already have more than there are jobs for, or so I'm told."<br /><br />We have more _doctoral_ students than there are jobs for them, because the private sector has virtually no need for individuals with doctoral degrees in STEM (no one, except taxpayers, will pay you to model the expansion of the universe or prove the Riemann hypothesis.)<br /><br />At the bachelor level,esmithnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-48854395453312992362011-11-07T17:02:43.801-05:002011-11-07T17:02:43.801-05:00Three further thoughts:
1. My first reaction to t...Three further thoughts:<br /><br />1. My first reaction to this article was to blame the high attrition rates on lack of adequate preparation at the secondary and primary level...but how accurate is this? I remember an old Chemistry professor (started teaching in the late 50s/early 60s IIRC) say that modern students, on average, were better-prepared in terms of knowledge, lab skills etc. than Guy_Brodudenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-79758450914063826892011-11-07T13:23:16.186-05:002011-11-07T13:23:16.186-05:00I don't buy the claim about the lack of incent...I don't buy the claim about the lack of incentives in STEM, and especially that prospects of 7 figures in finance matter for anyone but the tiniest majority. Attrition from STEM occurs towards majors in humanities, which tend to pay less and make one's employment prospects worse.esmithnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-57172391130469430352011-11-06T20:00:28.038-05:002011-11-06T20:00:28.038-05:00I know for a fact that starting software engineers...I know for a fact that starting software engineers at Google/Microsoft make more than their counterparts in management consulting. For a 22/23 year old, a CS degree with a high GPA from a reputable school/program can be parlayed into a damn good job...initially. 10, 15, 20 years down the road though, it's a different story (relative to other opportunities for somebody at a given ability levelGuy_Brodudenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-83558023996354069112011-11-06T14:55:06.757-05:002011-11-06T14:55:06.757-05:00Regarding the incentives for hard engineering cour...Regarding the incentives for hard engineering courses. The returns to a CS degree suffered for a while after the dot com bust but now we seem to be in another mini bubble driven by social and mobile apps. This post just appeard on HN:<br />"Programmers Salaries at google $250k (and up)" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3202661 <br />Similar things are probably going on at Facebook,tc_2noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-903935871677333052011-11-06T10:20:51.214-05:002011-11-06T10:20:51.214-05:00It's more about being able to sucker punch you...It's more about being able to sucker punch your best friend, I fear. Not everybody has those skills either.5371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-3661494012937760852011-11-06T09:31:00.693-05:002011-11-06T09:31:00.693-05:00I agree with your sensibilities. I would add furt...I agree with your sensibilities. I would add further that just a few decades ago you wouldn't have been numbed-up to the point where you accept this even of media and sports types. Ty Cobb, perhaps the greatest baseball player of all time, played for the modern equivalent of $250k per season (give or take a factor of 2 depending on your inflation measure). Television came along and brought LondonYoungnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-53666695972247754092011-11-06T09:21:11.640-05:002011-11-06T09:21:11.640-05:00I wouldn't so quickly conclude that the hard s...I wouldn't so quickly conclude that the hard skills had nothing to do with how he made his money. Hard skills exist is a world where you are taught there is a right answer amidst a sea of wrong ones. Where if A=B and B=C, you dare to say A=C even if it is impolite ...LondonYoungnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-89260434637581298722011-11-06T07:02:35.992-05:002011-11-06T07:02:35.992-05:00Berezovsky had some hard skills, but they had noth...Berezovsky had some hard skills, but they had nothing to do with how he made his money. Probably not a unique case.5371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-22234531012066596672011-11-06T05:07:25.118-05:002011-11-06T05:07:25.118-05:00Soft skills and people skills matter a lot. They d...Soft skills and people skills matter a lot. They do. They really do, that's why American business culture is still among the top in the world<br />Legacy effect, more likely.5371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-41021313144259615332011-11-05T21:55:35.089-04:002011-11-05T21:55:35.089-04:00Well I know many engineers and none of them had to...Well I know many engineers and none of them had to to anything of the sort for their jobs. Sam Hhttp://profiles.google.com/samh550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-42923658358750463332011-11-05T21:53:54.885-04:002011-11-05T21:53:54.885-04:00"Generally speaking, there are a lot of thing..."Generally speaking, there are a lot of things in biology that require calculus (e.g.: how do you think is diffusion described? what do you think is used in ecological models such as prey-predator?"<br /><br />So why not just have this type of math at the Phd level for biology? There are the ones who get to be biologists and actually think about that stuff -- and most Phds in biology Sam Hhttp://profiles.google.com/samh550noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-11025058982706243732011-11-05T20:37:50.908-04:002011-11-05T20:37:50.908-04:00Apropos of nothing, 'the pursuit of seven or e...Apropos of nothing, 'the pursuit of seven or eight figure pay.' hits my sensibilities hard. That one could be employed in a 'job' where there are at least several years where one could collect that as a compensation package as a 'system guy' [apart from the media and sports type systems] is weird. That kind of money, even in the inflation adjusted now, feels like it David Coughlinhttp://twitter.com/dscoughlinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-48786631506271655672011-11-05T20:02:28.591-04:002011-11-05T20:02:28.591-04:00I don't know what study this is, but IIRC pre-...I don't know what study this is, but IIRC pre-meds do not actually have the strongest SAT scores or HS records among science majors. At UO it's the physics and math majors.steve hsuhttp://duende.uoregon.edu/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-80207430894525081722011-11-05T19:45:42.500-04:002011-11-05T19:45:42.500-04:00Also, does anybody have access to the exact number...Also, does anybody have access to the exact numbers from this study?<br /><br />"Studies have found that roughly 40 percent of students planning engineering and science majors end up switching to other subjects or failing to get any degree. That increases to as much as 60 percent when pre-medical students, who typically have the strongest SAT scores and high school science preparation, are Guy_Brodudenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-39173592508445921992011-11-05T19:33:58.089-04:002011-11-05T19:33:58.089-04:00I took one of these standardized tests of reasonin...I took one of these standardized tests of reasoning ability as an undergraduate and found it extremely odd. Every question required a written response (no multiple choice), and because I wrote an overly-expansive response to the first question I didn't have enough time to fully answer the subsequent questions and had to paraphrase my initial response. I don't OK score, high 80th Guy_Brodudenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-60056285772935952662011-11-05T16:46:02.284-04:002011-11-05T16:46:02.284-04:00GenerallyGenerallyNano Nymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-72844395881742452422011-11-05T16:07:02.741-04:002011-11-05T16:07:02.741-04:00Calculus isn't really "high-level" m...Calculus isn't really "high-level" math. Or maybe it is nowadays, I don't even know anymore. Since when is a knowledge of differential equations not relevant to engineers (real ones, not software engineers)? tc_2noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5880610.post-59695847266932231012011-11-05T15:23:53.038-04:002011-11-05T15:23:53.038-04:00I am far from convinced that lacking hard-skills d...I am far from convinced that lacking hard-skills doesn't handicap one in the pursuit of seven or eight figure pay. Scanning across "the one percent" I would guess that hard-skills are disproportionately more common that among even the 95-99th percentile ...LondonYoungnoreply@blogger.com