Appreciate your insight. I believe you're speaking accurately from your own experiences, but I do have another anecdotal countering viewpoint.
Like many on HN I went to a top engineering school. there I saw about 2/3 of my colleagues drop out within the first two years. At least half of them worked tirelessly and efficiently to pursue their goal, and still failed. This was a large public school that will admit basically everyone with a pulse into engineering, with the expectation most will fail out as unfit and filter into some of the programs my college was less known for.
I did not have a particularly exceptional upbringing, and went to a middle of the road country school without any special preparations that would advantage myself over these other middle-class white people I saw. I'm not saying this to brag, because no doubt many of these people are far more successful than me in other fields (one I know went on to become a doctor for instance) but there is definitely something at play that different people are 'wired' for different tasks. I could almost sleep through much of the engineering curriculum and remain near the top while I saw many smarter people than me struggle tirelessly with engineering; something else was going on in our minds.
Engineering programs especially in top schools are way too hard for what's required to learn programming. And by top school I mean a top school that admits less than 10% of applicants. These programs are way more challenging than normal. Failing one of these programs does not mean you can program.
Also when I say anyone can do it, I mean anyone with around an average IQ or above. Obviously if you're mentally challenged it's a different story. Obviously new born babies don't have the IQ to learn programming.
I've went to schools where they admit anyone with a pulse and I've also been to actual top schools that are highly selective. I can tell you these programs that admit anyone feel significantly easier because they are. Doing well in one of these schools is not an achievement. I remember coming out top of the class at these schools simply studying for a test the night before.
But the reasoning as to why people fail in these "easy" schools is not what you think. It's exactly what the other replier said but more. Learning programming is not easy, and many people don't have the discipline or the study habits necessary to achieve it in a class room environment as well. They may look like they're studying hard... but a good number them aren't doing the necessary studying to succeed. They may not even be interested in programming. But make no mistake, if you make the curriculum longer and easier or if these people spend the time to grind, most people will succeed in learning programming.
> Learning programming is not easy...discipline or the study habits...necessary studying to succeed... spend the time to grind...
Programming is what I did obsessively as a teenager. I didn't need any discipline or study habits. It was and still is exciting and creative. This is aptitude and interest, which obviously, few have.
Much less people have the aptitude for quantum physics which is way harder. Programming is so easy that even as a teenager you have sufficient background to learn it.
I assure you that as a teenager, it's very unlikely you had any aptitude for quantum physics or any of the hard mathematics required to understand general relativity.
That's funny, because I loved quantum physics and general relativity so much that I majored in physics, not computer science. I didn't find QM very hard, either. Having done both, I wouldn't say one is harder, only that QM requires more prerequisite knowledge, and I didn't have that as a teen.
I find doing advanced math relaxing and meditative during commutes. That's aptitude. It's probably much the same aptitude as finding programming enjoyable, but software is a much better career, so most of us end up there than in physics anymore.
Not many people have this aptitude, though. Most people would name hundreds of activities they'd rather do than either of them.
But let me put it this way. Much much much much much More people have done programming since they were teens but much less have done QM. You will find tons of examples of programmers and relatively few people who know QM or advanced mathematics.
That's the dichotomy I'm talking about. Programming is easy. QM requiring pre-requisite knowledge is part of what makes it so much harder.
It does. You have 20 minutes to mow the lawn or shoot a deer, starting now. Which task can you actually accomplish? Far more people will be able to mow the lawn.
You analogy is bad. But I get your point.
Let's put it this way. Something that is commonly done is LIKELY to be far more easier than something that is not commonly done. Full circle back to our other point on probable causes.
Pointless debate when you do not define the level. Anyone can be surgeon, if you define 'surgery' as being able to 'remove mole'. Many programmers just remove moles. Some do coronary bypass surgeries.
Claiming that if everyone programs the normal average person will achieve the average is claiming nothing. You're simply saying average is average. A lot of words without saying anything at all.
No I'm saying the average level of adequate programming for a software engineering job. The average for the job is higher than the average skill level for the population.
This is obvious. Your diving into technicalities of language, which is unnecessary.
My claim is that most of the population can achieve the average skill level held by an average developer.
Would it be easier or harder for the average person to reach the bar of 'average software engineer', since 'average person' is a less-selective barrier. Your selectivity theory yields the unintuitive result that it's actually easier to meet the bar of 'adequate for average software engineer' when starting from general population than starting from a selective group of software-engineer material. Or maybe, just maybe, it's possible to hold every cohort to an objective standard.
Harder than what? Harder then a smarter person? Then Yes.
I also wouldn't call it a "selectivity theory." It's more common sense. You select a group of people with a record of great past performance they are more likely going to have an easier time. It's actually your ideas about selectivity are counter-intuitive.
>I've went to schools where they admit anyone with a pulse and I've also been to actual top schools that are highly selective. I can tell you these programs that admit anyone feel significantly easier because they are. Doing well in one of these schools is not an achievement. I remember coming out top of the class at these schools simply studying for a test the night before.
Lol K bro, I didn't say this to brag, I said it because of what I witnessed. I don't think being good at engineering school is an 'achievement' or a sign of superiority, I just think it means you may be wired differently than some other people -- that's it. The school in question I'm referring to is ranked in the top 10 of US engineering programs, with much lower grade inflation than many of the private schools, and no one takes you seriously when you say this school is 'easier.' I lived with several of these people who were trying, and they were doing everything right and taking the necessary steps, with full family support, and working tirelessly and still just couldn't cut it. One of them I spent time with daily ended up becoming a doctor instead; these were not dumb or undisciplined people.
Many of the more 'highly selective' private programs are actually easier because they milk you dry in tuition and they want to keep the dollars flowing, so they will coddle you along.
Believe it or not there are public schools that will take essentially anyone with a pulse into engineering, and a handful of the more challenging and highly ranked engineering programs are included. These are not 'easy' programs, and attrition rates far exceed other programs at the same university. Personally I approve of this approach because it allows anyone to try their hand rather than depending on BS criteria like standardized testing or high school performance, or other dumb factors like whether your parents had the strings to pull in a non-profit to make you look like mother teresa. The kind of person who succeeds at engineering is often not the kind who has an impressive background coming out of highschool.
>I remember coming out top of the class at these schools simply studying for a test the night before
The number of people who received, or would be able to receive, an ABET accredited engineering degree at the top of their class from any of say the top dozen engineering schools while simply 'studying for a test the night before' is a much rarer trait than you think. Either you're unaware of your exceptional aptitude or you were blind to your surroundings.
>I don't think being good at engineering school is an 'achievement' or a sign of superiority, I just think it means you may be wired differently than some other people -- that's it. The school in question I'm referring to is ranked in the top 10 of US engineering programs
Bro, I went to a top 10 as well, and it's also not a private school. I'm telling you that it doesn't matter. Doing well in a school that has zero selectivity is not an achievement because you're competing with many people who don't even have the drive to succeed. Of course a huge number will be fodder for you to step on. Sure you're school is hard.. but that's a different kind of hard.
At a selective school, every student you're with has drive and has consistently placed number 1 at every previous school they've been at. The classes and challenge are normalized so that just being number one is now average or even below average. This is hard on another level.
>Many of the more 'highly selective' private programs are actually easier because they milk you dry in tuition and they want to keep the dollars flowing, so they will coddle you along.
Not true at all. Again, Selective programs normalize what is easy among top students. The curve becomes insanely steeper. Schools allow you to change majors to keep milking the dollars but they still fail you out of the class.
>Believe it or not there are public schools that will take essentially anyone with a pulse into engineering, and a handful of the more challenging and highly ranked engineering programs are included. These are not 'easy' programs, and attrition rates far exceed other programs at the same university. Personally I approve of this approach because it allows anyone to try their hand rather than depending on BS criteria like standardized testing or high school performance, or other dumb factors like whether your parents had the strings to pull in a non-profit to make you look like mother teresa. The kind of person who succeeds at engineering is often not the kind who has an impressive background coming out of highschool.
I never said it's easy. But it certainly is easier. Let's do a quantitative analysis then. Anyone with a pulse and let's say they fail out 75%. That's equivalent to a 25% pass rate. Then take a look at a selective school with a (in my case 20% failure rate and 10% acceptance). That's about 8% pass rate assuming anyone with a pulse applies (of course this is not the case, better performing students tend to apply).
By that number alone you know how much harder it is in a selective school. And the 20% failure rate is just a random guess, could be much higher than that as tons of kids switch majors after their first weeder class. Realistically I give it 50% failure rate if you count people who switch.
>The number of people who received, or would be able to receive, an ABET accredited engineering degree at the top of their class from any of say the top dozen engineering schools while simply 'studying for a test the night before' is a much rarer trait than you think. Either you're unaware of your exceptional aptitude or you were blind to your surroundings.
Let's caveat something here. I passed top of my class and studied the night before in a non-selective school. The other school I transferred to, (a top school) I could not do this. Also ABET is garbage, let's be clear about that. Many top engineering schools have certain programs that are ABET accredited, and many schools with ABET accredited programs are easy.
>I never said it's easy. But it certainly is easier. Let's do a quantitative analysis then. Anyone with a pulse and let's say they fail out 75%. That's equivalent to a 25% pass rate. Then take a look at a selective school with a (in my case 20% failure rate and 10% acceptance). That's about 8% pass rate assuming anyone with a pulse applies (of course this is not the case, better performing students tend to apply).
>By that number alone you know how much harder it is in a selective school.
You really don't. All you proved was that 80% (or whatever) of those who the school selected would pass. You know nothing of what percent of those who they didn't select would pass. You can't possibly make the assertion it would be lower than 25% example you gave for the "anyone with a pulse school."
I don't doubt you probably went to a more rigorous, challenging, and renowned school than me. I don't doubt you are more intelligent than myself or many who did well at my school. The fallacy comes when you conflate entrance selectivity with difficulty.
> I passed top of my class and studied the night before in a non-selective school.
Can you help explain to me why you went from a top non-selective public school to a different top selective school? In my experience after the first couple years everyone but the cream was filtered out, so by junior year it was effectively like I was in a 'selective' school. Or are you comparing a lower tier non-selective engineering school to a top selective school? My point of reference here is one of the handful of non-selective top-10 schools.
>Many top engineering schools have certain programs that are ABET accredited, and many schools with ABET accredited programs are easy.
Agreed. Was just providing some baseline for roughly the curriculum that was covered. You're right that ABET on its own doesn't speak thoroughly to the program, which is why I used a variety of other qualifiers beyond ABET.
>Can you help explain to me why you went from a top non-selective public school to a different top selective school?
Transfer. And change of major. I would say I went to an top 50 school initially, with average selectivity and the same amount of weeder classes in every engineering program. Then went to a top 10 public school with an even more selective engineering program.
The weeder classes for your school filtered everyone out but the people remaining are still only 25% of anyone with a pulse. I'd wager this school has an extremely low amount of high achievers joining, so while you're dealing with smart competition, it's nowhere near the level of what you'd be facing at a selective school.
At a selective school, you have the top 10% of kids from the entire nation, who again get weeded out by about 50%. Yes that's effectively the smartest kids in the country getting cut in half. Nothing here is statistically rigorous but you can't deny that this back of the napkin estimate says something about how hard these schools are.
>You really don't. All you proved was that 80% (or whatever) of those who the school selected would pass. You know nothing of what percent of those who they didn't select would pass.
The kids who were selected overall have a higher chance success and higher work ethic and higher intelligence then those not selected. There are definitely scenarios of people who are great at programming but can't do well in school but these are generally in the minority. Google for example doesn't hire people based off of school, but the majority of their hires have degrees from top schools. It correlates with IQ and general programming ability, but I would say google sort of over selects. They don't need people that strong.
>I don't doubt you probably went to a more rigorous, challenging, and renowned school than me. I don't doubt you are more intelligent than myself or many who did well at my school. The fallacy comes when you conflate entrance selectivity with difficulty.
Never claimed any of these things and who knows? Maybe you went to the better school. I simply stated my credentials to show you that I have anecdotal experience from both types of schools. The difference in hardness is palpable and can only really be truly known by someone who went to both types of schools.
In the first school I attended my mindset was like you. I thought I had a talent and that most people were stupid. That changed when I got into a top 10 highly selective school.
But we did kind of get side tracked here. My main point is that my experience with schooling is more extensive then yours. And from that experience I derive that anyone can learn programming. It wasn't mentioned before, but programming is much easier than school.
I should also mention that this experience is from both extensive experience in school AND work. School experience provides sort of a bubble, a partial picture but not the full thing..
You compared a top 50 school to a top 10. Of course it was different, and quite possibly more rigorous.
I'm comparing a (my non-selective public) top 10 engineering to other top 10s [engineering]. Near peer selective to near peer non-selective. You compared a top 50 to a top 10 ranked engineering, far from peer schools. Starting with 10% says nothing about the difficulty of the program. You don't even know that they were the best 10% of engineering material, just that they were the top 10% of what the school thought were picks as candidates. Selectivity does not confer difficulty. High (50%+)success rate of your selective cohort does not confer low (25%-) success rate of the non-selected group.
> My main point is that my experience with schooling is more extensive then yours.
It seems we have the same amount of experience with top 10 schools, where N=1 for both. I have been to a 'lower tier' school but not for engineering so I didn't even bother to mention it, and yeah I agree it was a joke comparatively.
>Starting with 10% says nothing about the difficulty of the program. You don't even know that they were the best 10% of engineering material, just that they were the top 10% of what the school thought were picks as candidates. Selectivity does not confer difficulty. High (50%+)success rate of your selective cohort does not confer low (25%-) success rate of the non-selected group.
It does. Like I said the the smarter kids the tougher the courses. Because smarter kids normalize easiness. The difficulty of the program is set by the kids who attend. The school absolutely cannot fail the entire class, they have to set the hardness so that a certain amount pass. It is absolutely a factor especially if most schools grade on a curve. So if any Tom Dick or Jane can join the curve however steep it is, will reflect the quality of those who join.
"Best engineering material" is a misnomer. the smartest kids from other schools correlate with best engineering material. I already stated that sure you can have some miracle kid that succeeds at engineering but bombs at school, but this is rare. Kids who do well in school tend to do well in engineering. Any other thing you see is likely to be an anomaly.
You're basing your argument off the erroneous notion that engineering talent in school is completely separate from all other subjects and therefore selectivity is completely irrelevant. That doesn't make any sense. I'm saying it's not completely separate at all. There is a strong correlation that if you graduated top of the class in your high school you have a higher likelihood of better performance in engineering at a top school. It's not always the case but the correlation exists.
>It seems we have the same amount of experience with top 10 schools, where N=1 for both. I have been to a 'lower tier' school but not for engineering so I didn't even bother to mention it, and yeah I agree it was a joke comparatively.
Sure it's N=1. But read my paragraph above. That's a common sense figure. Person A gets all F's in your classes and Person B gets straight As and takes a bunch of AP courses... by probability person B will be the better engineer. Common sense. We can make a good estimate based off of common sense logic without the need for statistically rigorous data. So based off of that logic, my reasoning goes beyond a N=1 sample size as we can use common sense induction to arrive at a broader conclusion.
>It does. Like I said the the smarter kids the tougher the courses. Because smarter kids normalize easiness.
False. There is no requirement that the course be made easier, nor that the non-selective school refrain from creating a much harsher curve to reflect a like-achiever performing similarly to like-achiever at a different school.
>The school absolutely cannot fail the entire class, they have to set the hardness so that a certain amount pass.
They absolutely can, and in fact most of the courses I took REQUIRE the teacher to fail everyone who fails to achieve certain ABET designated criteria, regardless of what percent fails to master the material. Although in practical case, this means the non-selective school just fails a lot more people than the selective school at freshman/sophomore level.
>It is absolutely a factor especially if most schools grade on a curve. So if any Tom Dick or Jane can join the curve however steep it is, will reflect the quality of those who join.
Only on the basis of the fallacy that curves cannot vary from school to school.
>That doesn't make any sense. I'm saying it's not completely separate at all. There is a strong correlation that if you graduated top of the class in your high school you have a higher likelihood of better performance in engineering at a top school. It's not always the case but the correlation exists.
How the top 10% or whatever n% performs doesn't say anything about how the bottom 100-N% perform, (other than the top performed better). It merely provides a maximum, which in your example was 50% passing. We've been over this fallacious assertion many times now.
>You're basing your argument off the erroneous notion that engineering talent in school is completely separate from all other subjects and therefore selectivity is completely irrelevant
Selectivity DOESN'T CONFER DIFFICULTY. Say that in your head 10 more times. That 50% of your selective cohort passes doesn't prove that the non-selective cohort will be below say 25% of your baseline "only with a pulse" group. A t best it suggest that they won't exceed the 50% of the favored cohort. I didn't make an 'erroneous notion' about selectivity or talent because I never claimed selectivity increased nor decreased difficulty, in fact that was your 'erroneous notion.'
>Sure it's N=1. But read my paragraph above. That's a common sense figure. Person A gets all F's in your classes and Person B gets straight As and takes a bunch of AP courses... by probability person B will be the better engineer. Common sense. We can make a good estimate based off of common sense logic without the need for statistically rigorous data. So based off of that logic, my reasoning goes beyond a N=1 sample size as we can use common sense induction to arrive at a broader conclusion.
I see no reason why person A and B alike couldn't be held to similar standards regardless as whether they went to a selective vs non selective school.
Your selective program is not more difficult on that basis alone.
>False. There is no requirement that the course be made easier, nor that the non-selective school refrain from creating a much harsher curve to reflect a like-achiever performing similarly to like-achiever at a different school.
>They absolutely can, and in fact most of the courses I took REQUIRE the teacher to fail everyone who fails to achieve certain ABET designated criteria, regardless of what percent fails to master the material. Although in practical case, this means the non-selective school just fails a lot more people than the selective school at freshman/sophomore level.
Of course no official requirement exists. But all schools must do this. Failing an entire class or most of the class is grounds for a lawsuit. It's also extremely bad for business as schools are basically businesses.
The only thing schools can do is grade on a curve and this curve must let a percentage of people through. The quality of that percentage depends 100% on the quality of the group that is in that class. Thus selectivity effects difficulty. If every student scored 99%, then 99% is now a C grade. See the logic? Selectivity is causative to difficulty in classes with a curve AND that is a quantitative inductive conclusion which is incredibly hard to counter with qualitative anecdotes.
I also don't know why you're bringing up ABET when we agreed it's trash and irrelevant.
>Only on the basis of the fallacy that curves cannot vary from school to school.
Curves are different, so are the students going in. But when you look at the whole, by the law of large numbers (aka basic probability) a pattern emerges. Selective schools have smarter people and are therefore harder overall because of these curves. The generality is true despite exceptions that may exist. You can say on average, what I say is more likely to be true.
>How the top 10% or whatever n% performs doesn't say anything about how the bottom 100-N% perform, (other than the top performed better). It merely provides a maximum, which in your example was 50% passing. We've been over this fallacious assertion many times now.
It already does. The top 10% indicates that the bottom 90% failed to perform at the level of the top 10%. That is something right there. Failure to perform. If you fail to be part of the top 10% then you're more likely to fail at other things INCLUDING an engineering curriculum. Correlation and probability. Your assumption which imo is much more far fetched is stating that this correlation DOESN'T exist. Think about it. It's much more logical to assume high performers in high school are more likely to be high performers in university.
>Selectivity DOESN'T CONFER DIFFICULTY. Say that in your head 10 more times.
Say it as much as you want. I am literally telling you that IT DOES.
I said two things that by induction leads to higher difficulty. Literally. Selectivity leads to higher performers in a class. Higher performers effect the intrinsic curve EVERY school has. THEREFORE difficulty increases. As I stated before this hinges on the correlation between performance before entering the university with actual performance at the university in an engineering curriculum. That's the basis of my thesis right there. It is unreasonable to deny that correlation.
>I see no reason why person A and B alike couldn't be held to similar standards regardless as whether they went to a selective vs non selective school.
You hold the standard too high, then nobody passes the course. A certain percentage has to pass, therefore, for a non-selective school the curve MUST be lowered for more people to pass. As I stated before, although there's no official rule stating that schools can't fail everyone, it's pretty stupid for a school to fail everyone. Bad for business and various other things.
Thus by this logic a non-selective school MUST lower the bar or too many people will fail. Keep in mind, selective schools also have high attrition rates, so we can do the math on this if you have statistics about your school. I'm guessing something like Georgia Tech which is like 40% percent dropout rate (could very well be a BS statistic as I've only heard people regurgitate what the dean says) and 75% acceptance, versus my school which is 11 percent acceptance and dropout is 10% (highly inaccurate as this is the overall dropout rate of the entire school... Engineering is MUCH higher).
This leaves Georgia Tech with 45% and my school with 10% of the initial group of people that applied. Assuming that both schools have the same distribution of talented people applying, there's no logic that can justify Georgia Tech being easier than my school. More people of the same level of talent out of this distribution make it through Georgia Tech than they do at my school. Therefore my school is harder.
Of course it should also be noted that my school is prestigious enough that most mediocre students don't bother to apply. So my school weighted towards a group with greater talent.
I don't know which school you went to but Georgia Tech is the only top 10 CS school that I know of that has a reputation for letting "anyone with a pulse" into their online masters program, so I'm using that as my model.
>Your selective program is not more difficult on that basis alone.
Certainly there are exceptions aka Anomalies, but the generality is impossible not to be true. It's an axiom of probability. You could very well be a genius of unparalleled talent that came out of a non-selective program.
In fact by probability, it is actually highly unlikely for anomalies not to exist. Somebody eventually gets struck by lightning.
>If every student scored 99%, then 99% is now a C grade. See the logic? Selectivity is causative to difficulty in classes with a curve AND that is a quantitative inductive conclusion which is incredibly hard to counter with qualitative anecdotes.
No I don't. The center of the curve ('C') doesn't need to be calibrated around the median. 'F' can be chosen as the median, or you can choose an objective scale (this did happen) rather than a subjective curve. I've seen 'qualitative anecdotes' that the curve isn't centered around 'C' and I reject the notion this anecdote is impossible. I don't know why you can't understand the curve can be adjusted so like-performers across schools get a similar grade, resulting in higher GPAs at selective schools and lower GPAs (initially) at non-selective ones.
>I also don't know why you're bringing up ABET when we agreed it's trash and irrelevant.
Because you made a false assertion everyone couldn't be failed, when in fact at least in the institution it was REQUIRED that everyone be failed if everyone fails to meet ABET designated criteria. It supports that your claim is specious.
>Curves are different, so are the students going in. But when you look at the whole, by the law of large numbers (aka basic probability) a pattern emerges. Selective schools have smarter people and are therefore harder overall because of these curves. The generality is true despite exceptions that may exist. You can say on average, what I say is more likely to be true.
False. Again you depend on the fallacy the curves can't be calibrated around something like 'the average student fails and the course follows the difficulty of <selective school>.' If I give an IQ test to a cohort to a group of lower intelligence people, the 'curve' looks bent and biased towards lower score. If I give it to people of upper intelligence, the curve 'looks' bent towards biased towards higher score. But in the end it is the curve that is objective across cohorts (schools), despite higher intelligence in one cohort ('school') than another. The difficulty is unchanged, even though selectivity is introduced.
>The top 10% indicates that the bottom 90% failed to perform at the level of the top 10%.
That only sets the ceiling. If the 'top 10%' have a 50% pass rate, that doesn't stop the bottom 90% from having a 49% one, well above your 25% threshold for 'anybody with a pulse.'
> Your assumption which imo is much more far fetched is stating that this correlation DOESN'T exist.
My assertion is that all we know is it's likely the top picks may tell us the ceiling for expection of the bottom, but not the floor. And it tells us little to nothing about how difficult the cirricula is, unless we compare to like-kind top picks at another cirriculum (which without selectivity, could be difficult to compare in practice.)
>You hold the standard too high, then nobody passes the course. A certain percentage has to pass, therefore, for a non-selective school the curve MUST be lowered for more people to pass. As I stated before, although there's no official rule stating that schools can't fail everyone, it's pretty stupid for a school to fail everyone. Bad for business and various other things.
> said two things that by induction leads to higher difficulty. Literally. Selectivity leads to higher performers in a class. Higher performers effect the intrinsic curve EVERY school has. THEREFORE difficulty increases. As I stated before this hinges on the correlation between performance before entering the university with actual performance at the university in an engineering curriculum. That's the basis of my thesis right there. It is unreasonable to deny that correlation.
Fallacious reasoning, the two schools could have the exact same cirricula, teacher, everything and merely different students and when graded against objective criteria, or appropriately calibrated (shifted down/up) shaped curves, they can have both equal difficulty and grade parity for performance. The university I went to is NOTORIOUS for having the least grade inflation, much lower than many 'selective' schools, which also helps fix the exact problem you are worried about.
>Thus by this logic a non-selective school MUST lower the bar or too many people will fail.
Not at all. They just didn't give a fuck. Engineering drop-out is their feeder program to the other programs; better to keep the rankings high to bait people in than make engineering easier resulting in lower rankings and lose the bait. Engineering drop-out commonly became successful engineering tech or even successful doctor, lawyer, etc via side-channeling of people who were baited into the university via engineering rankings. They would have happily failed out everyone from what I can tell, and if you didn't meet ABET designated objectives they were REQUIRED to fail you. You can't just wash this away with your vendetta not believing that this can be true -- I saw people with excellent performance fail merely for missing a single ABET criteria. Moreover recall at least one class where I believe the majority failed or dropped out, making the median an 'F' or 'D'. Apparently where you went, you implied the median was a 'C', so there's a difference already. This is a public school that couldn't give a flying fuck if most the undergrads failed out.
> Selectivity leads to higher performers in a class. Higher performers effect the intrinsic curve EVERY school has.
Having higher performers doesn't change the curriculum or necessary even the grading, it simply means those individuals may be better prepared to tackle equal difficulty found at both non-selective and selective schools. If I bring in the population at random to do 10 pull-ups each and seperately bring in a bunch of professional football players to do same, the difficulty is the same despite a massive change in selectivity.
>More people of the same level of talent out of this distribution make it through Georgia Tech than they do at my school.
I'm not terribly familiar with Georgia Tech or your school, and it's possible, I dare say probably even likely, your school was more challenging than both mine and Georgia Tech, but we can't say the delta in difficulty was BECAUSE of the selectivity. I'm guessing the university I attended didn't show up on your radar because you swapped us into the sciences (computer science) instead of engineering, and my university is not so remarkably ranked in computer science. In fact it would be impossible to gain a CS degree there without acceptance into an entirely different college of science (for which I have no basis for comparison).
> only top 10 CS school
I thought we were talking about engineering. I guess we can stop here. At the school I attended, CS is not engineering but rather science (which is in the name) so we don't even have a basis for comparison. It's a bit pedantic on face but it drastically changes everything to be in college of science instead of engineering from the bottom up where I went to university. Are you sure CS was in the college of engineering where you attended?
>Certainly there are exceptions aka Anomalies, but the generality is impossible not to be true. It's an axiom of probability. You could very well be a genius of unparalleled talent that came out of a non-selective program.
Having more qualified people attempt to complete the degree is not same as being more difficult. Moreover, attrition could be so high at the 'anybody with a pulse' institution that by the time junior year comes around the quality of cohort looks the same as at the selective school.
>No I don't. The center of the curve ('C') doesn't need to be calibrated around the median. 'F' can be chosen as the median, or you can choose an objective scale (this did happen) rather than a subjective curve.
What do you mean F is chosen as the median. The median is not chosen it's determined by events.
The curve isn't subjective. It's a probability distribution determined by scores from students. Nothing can be calibrated or adjusted here.
>Because you made a false assertion everyone couldn't be failed, when in fact at least in the institution it was REQUIRED that everyone be failed if everyone fails to meet ABET designated criteria. It supports that your claim is specious.
ABET requires it in name, but no institution does this. Think of ABET like the FDA. It has some oversight but there's also holes everywhere. School rarely fail an entire class. If a curriculum causes an entire class to fail the curriculum will be toned down otherwise students complain, launch lawsuits and eventually nobody attends the school. You need to work some common sense into your argument here, just because ABET has a stupid rule in name doesn't mean that rule is followed to the letter.
>False. Again you depend on the fallacy the curves can't be calibrated around something like 'the average student fails and the course follows the difficulty of <selective school>.' If I give an IQ test to a cohort to a group of lower intelligence people, the 'curve' looks bent and biased towards lower score. If I give it to people of upper intelligence, the curve 'looks' bent towards biased towards higher score. But in the end it is the curve that is objective across cohorts (schools), despite higher intelligence in one cohort ('school') than another. The difficulty is unchanged, even though selectivity is introduced.
First off the curve looks the same, it's not bent in anyway, it's usually symmetric, especially with student scores. The only difference is an offset of where the hump is.
Second your not understanding the argument. Imagine two groups of people. A high IQ group and a low IQ group. Both groups are given the exact same test. However both tests are graded differently based off a curve generated by the probability distribution of scores for each test.
The High IQ group has a mean score of 95. The low IQ group as a mean score of 50. So taking the same test among the high IQ group getting a 95 gets you a C taking the exact same test among the low IQ group and scoring the SAME score of 95 gets you an A. So by logic it's EASIER to get an A among a group of lower IQ people (aka a group of the same people from a less selective school). The test is harder among the high IQ group. This is definitive man.
>Fallacious reasoning, the two schools could have the exact same cirricula, teacher, everything and merely different students and when graded against objective criteria, or appropriately calibrated (shifted down/up) shaped curves, they can have both equal difficulty and grade parity for performance. The university I went to is NOTORIOUS for having the least grade inflation, much lower than many 'selective' schools, which also helps fix the exact problem you are worried about.
Fallacious reasoning my ass, your introducing qualitative speculation on specific attributes of your individual school and thinking that's enough data to generate a broad conclusion. That's the most fallacious style of reasoning in existence. I'm just axiomatically going off the law of averages. On average a less selective school will be easier. It's probability.
>Not at all. They just didn't give a fuck.
So they fail everyone in the class and the angry students take their outrage to the media? Then the parents come in and start a lawsuit which leads to a PR nightmare. Less students join the next year because nobody wants to be part of a school that failed an entire class.
Of course they give a fuck man. Don't be unreasonable. Schools are businesses and while they have to have a certain level of integrity when grading they ALSO need to be reasonable or they don't get business.
If this type of failing a majority of a class ever happens at all, it would be super rare. The subsequent class will for sure will be adjusted and the professor changed or reprimanded.
>Having higher performers doesn't change the curriculum or necessary even the grading,
You understand that curving a grade is based on average scores right? You realize that this is the topic and what I mean by easier? A curve. Higher performers score higher and influence the average making the curve higher. Basic math. The curriculum becomes harder because math works in this reality.
Here's some resources if you never dealt with this concept:
The difficulty rises not in the test itself, but in the grading of the test. To pass the class you need to perform much better.
So given your NFL player example. Let's say on average they do 20 pullups and regular people on average do 8. The grading for NFL players is much more strict as 20 pullups is an average score. So an NFL player who does 10 pullups which is above average for the normal crew fails because he's below average for the NFL crew.
>I'm not terribly familiar with Georgia Tech or your school, and it's possible, I dare say probably even likely, your school was more challenging than both mine and Georgia Tech, but we can't say the delta in difficulty was BECAUSE of the selectivity.
That's not the point. The point is on average, selectivity influences difficulty and by difficulty I mean grading on a curve. If all else is held exactly the same selectivity fucks up the curve by making it harder for everyone.
>I thought we were talking about engineering. I guess we can stop here. At the school I attended, CS is not engineering but rather science (which is in the name) so we don't even have a basis for comparison. It's a bit pedantic on face but it drastically changes everything to be in college of science instead of engineering from the bottom up where I went to university. Are you sure CS was in the college of engineering where you attended?
Doesn't matter. CS or engineering... the bell curve and the rules of probability don't change when you change majors. I thought we were talking about CS because my original post is saying "anyone can program."
>Having more qualified people attempt to complete the degree is not same as being more difficult.
It is if the school grades on a curve. Most schools do grade on a curve especially the harder schools. The curve makes sure that only a small percentage of people get an A and guarantees a percentage of people fail.
> Moreover, attrition could be so high at the 'anybody with a pulse' institution that by the time junior year comes around the quality of cohort looks the same as at the selective school.
Except I just did the math that shows this does not occur when comparing my school to Georgia Tech. Like I said assuming everything else is roughly the same, out of all the people who applied to my school, only 10% graduate. In Georgia Tech 45% of people who applied graduate.
This is assuming both groups that applied have the same talent distribution for engineering or CS or whatever. This means 35% of people of the SAME LEVEL of TALENT who would've graduated at Georgia Tech couldn't even get into UCLA.
Look even with the raw numbers there's a lot of fuzziness and leeway here. The story could go either way with a more detailed and well thought out measurement. But given the available quantitative data, this is the best possible estimation we have so far:
> So taking the same test among the high IQ group getting a 95 gets you a C
This is the source of your confusion.
Your whole argument about the curve centers around the flawed and bizarre presumption that the curve has to center around a C. It doesn't always work that way, I don't think you understand some curves are different including the median score possibly being an 'F'. You're depending on some standardized curve, when in fact there's no requirement that be the case (and it often isn't). In the example with the footballers, every footballer gets an 'A' and with the random population the average gets an 'F' because the curves are compensated so that effectively there is an objective-like standard to maintain parity across like-performers.
>It's a probability distribution determined by scores from students. Nothing can be calibrated or adjusted here.
Of course something can be adjusted. you can make 'A' top 1%, B next 1%, C next 1%, D Next 1%, and fail the bottom 96% for instance. Not everyone has to grade to make sure most people pass, which apparently was the case at your selective school. At non-selective school the whole point is to fail every unfit person possible; it's even better for the school because engineering program was mostly bait to get these people into broader programs within the university.
You can go to the media, sue, or whatever. In my case it would look like this in the media "middle-class white man slightly less successful after being held to high standards" -- yeah that'll sell great! A few foreign students committed suicide after failing out of engineering paid for with their families 3rd world life savings and even then no one cares.
Good luck telling the judge that you didn't like the grade the professor gave you. Maybe your selective school mostly filthy-rich people with money to waste on lawsuits tying up the courts with cases that are meritless but wear down the college enough that they eventually relent.
>You understand that curving a grade is based on average scores right
Your curve may have been based around C being average. I have seen 'curves' where the average was F or D. I have seen courses where there is no curve as well, and isntead an objective system. A non-selective school can introduce a 'curve' where like performers get the same grade as in a selective school.
> The curve makes sure that only a small percentage of people get an A and guarantees a percentage of people fail.
Yeah our 'curves' weren't always like that. They were adjusted to compensate for non-selection present in our program. I.e. all people may fail or in a group of top performers no one may fail.
>Selectivity influences difficulty. Period.
Tell yourself your deranged and confused lie over and over, and tell me more about how you don't understand how different schools may grade differently (to objectively obtain same grade results as 'selective' school) even while maintaining SAME difficulty with a selective school.
> I thought we were talking about CS
Programming isn't equal to CS. Did you even study engineering or CS? Even chemical engineers program. These are all basic concepts you've missed, it's really hard to believe you have any experience at all in ABET accredited engineering program.
>ABET requires it in name, but no institution does this.
Maybe your institution acted fraudulently, but I saw people fail or incomplete a class for failing to meet ABET requirements. You're simply lying on this point to support your pathological obsession with denying selectivity does not confer difficulty.
>So they fail everyone in the class and the angry students take their outrage to the media? Then the parents come in and start a lawsuit which leads to a PR nightmare. Less students join the next year because nobody wants to be part of a school that failed an entire class.
No they fail almost everyone, the engineering rankings go up even further because any survivors are more impressive, and the rest filter into different programs. Everyone wins when almost everyone fails. The school uses engineering program as bait to draw people into other programs as much as anything. Failing almost everyone out is a win-win because it strengthens the bait and feeds money into other programs to broaden the school.
> The test is harder among the high IQ group. This is definitive man.
You have no understanding of an IQ test. It's meant to provide an objective outcome so that no matter the subset in a group taking the test, the measurement of the individual is the same. Taking the test with a group of fellow high-performers doesn't give you a lower IQ score. It's not harder no matter how selective you make the group taking the test. Universities can provide like feedback in grading. back to the analogy, the IQ score is the grade, get it?
>Your whole argument about the curve centers around the flawed and bizarre presumption that the curve has to center around a C. It doesn't always work that way
That's where they usually center the curve. This is where MOST schools set the average. It's not bizarre it's actually bizarre if a school doesn't do this. There is no requirement for this to be the case JUST LIKE there's no requirement to grade people off of A,B,C,D, or F grades. But people do it anyway because of culture and ubiquity.
If your school doesn't do this, then your school is clearly outside of what is normal. Any school that doesn't grade off of a curve tends to be an easier school, because these schools don't have an absolute requirement for a certain amount of people to fail.
>Of course something can be adjusted. you can make 'A' top 1%, B next 1%, C next 1%, D Next 1%, and fail the bottom 96% for instance.
No dude. A probability distribution is AN OBSERVATION. You cannot adjust data that's observed. You clearly were talking about the shape of the curve, but now you seem to think we're talking about the grading policy. Clearly I marked a delineation here.
>Good luck telling the judge that you didn't like the grade the professor gave you.
It's a jury. Not a judge. And telling the judge that the ENTIRE class failed is a valid argument bro. You don't even have to tell that to a judge. Tell it to the dean and the dean will have a talk with that professor. It's absolutely insane for a whole class to fail.
>Maybe your selective school mostly filthy-rich people with money to waste on lawsuits tying up the courts with cases that are meritless but wear down the college enough that they eventually relent.
I went to a public school buddy. None of BS affirmative action by race or money. So the school is loaded with Asians. Meritful to the point where it shows disparity among race. Asians rate highest in academic achievement and scoring, if your school isn't by population rated most heavily by Asians then your school is most likely performing meritless admissions.
>Your curve may have been based around C being average. I have seen 'curves' where the average was F or D.
Setting the average score to an F or a D is a one way ticket to retaliation. If it occurs at all it's fucking rare. I'm more inclined to believe you're lying here. But whatever.
>Yeah our 'curves' weren't always like that. They were adjusted to compensate for non-selection present in our program. I.e. all people may fail or in a group of top performers no one may fail.
Send me a link to your "curve" rules. Is it a standard or is it special to your school? If it's a standard methodology there should be some information or wiki on it somewhere.
>Tell yourself your deranged and confused lie over and over, and tell me more about how you don't understand how different schools may grade differently (to objectively obtain same grade results as 'selective' school) even while maintaining SAME difficulty with a selective school.
Of course schools grade differently. But there is a generality and a norm that schools tend to cluster around. That's the Bell curve normal distribution and A,B,C,D,F grading scale centered around the center of the curve. MOST schools do this and therefore you can make a GENERAL statement about all schools that says: "Selectivity influences difficulty. Period."
Any school that doesn't do this is outside of the norm. You're using outliers as your evidence.
>Programming isn't equal to CS. Did you even study engineering or CS? Even chemical engineers program. These are all basic concepts you've missed, it's really hard to believe you have any experience at all in ABET accredited engineering program.
This is just pedantic. You're getting knee deep into language issues. Nobody is even sure if CS should be engineering or even a science. It's clearly closest to math. But why get into this BS? It's off topic. Nobody cares bro. I don't want to argue about this shit. Stay on topic.
I don't need to study the intricacies of ABET. I don't even care about that garbage. My school was ABET accredited that's all they told me, I believe it, but I don't advertise it on my resume because the name of my school is more famous then ABET itself. Nobody puts ABET on their resume and nobody cares. We both agreed it's trash. I don't understand why you're bringing it up if YOU AGREED it's garbage.
>No they fail almost everyone, the engineering rankings go up even further because any survivors are more impressive, and the rest filter into different programs. Everyone wins when almost everyone fails. The school uses engineering program as bait to draw people into other programs as much as anything. Failing almost everyone out is a win-win because it strengthens the bait and feeds money into other programs to broaden the school.
Nobody in that thread agrees with you. But fine. Keep your opinion. The way you talk about it almost seems like you didn't even go to university. I know you did though, but your opinion is so far out there that you would benefit in knowing that barely anyone else shares it.
>You have no understanding of an IQ test. It's meant to provide an objective outcome so that no matter the subset in a group taking the test, the measurement of the individual is the same. Taking the test with a group of fellow high-performers doesn't give you a lower IQ score. It's not harder no matter how selective you make the group taking the test. Universities can provide like feedback in grading. back to the analogy, the IQ score is the grade, get it?
Dude. This is just pedantic again. Replace IQ with whatever you want to indicate a higher performing group, or more intelligent group. I just used the word to indicate that the POPULATION of people that were applying was overall superior.
The detailed intricacies of an IQ test are irrelevant. I am well versed in what an IQ test is and what an IQ score means. BUT WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT IQ TESTS.
First off different universities do provide different hardness levels in tests. Most of them try to make it hard enough so that 75% is the average score. Failing to make that number the score is curved. Generally more selective universities DO HAVE more challenging tests, but this is anecdotal and is hard to objectively measure.
What can be measured is curving. ASSUMING all else is the same and we follow the STANDARD methodology not used by garbage outlier schools When all else is the same other then selectivity, selective schools are more difficult.
>Selectivity doesn't confer difficulty. Period.
You're just being stubborn. When you reach for outlier evidence that's how you know you're searching for evidence to support a premeditated conclusion rather than using evidence to construct a conclusion.
Clutch those pearls harder. Your program wasn't more difficult because it was more selective. Stubbornness is refusing to believe difficulty can remain constant across varying degrees of selectivity of cohorts. You're making the assertion it can't, I'm simply calling bullshit on your unsupported and specious claim.
>Clutch those pearls harder. Your program wasn't more difficult because it was more selective.
I never claimed such. I only know the hardness relative to another school I went too. That's as far as the anecdotal evidence goes for MY individual school. Still, we're not even talking about our respective schools anymore, I don't even care for that. I'm talking about a generality.
The numbers illustrate a generality that is axiomatically true. I'm not going to restate it, but I think you know already that it's true.
OK so selectivity is causal to difficulty, everywhere but at the school you attended? Are you sure you didn't study law, because this kind of insane logic is something I've only read in legal briefs.
I made no statement about my school or your school specifically in reference to how hard they are in general. We both did however use our schools as anecdotal supporting evidence for each of our respective opinions though.
But anecdotal evidence is worthless. That's why I moved to numbers. This is what the numbers say:
Selectivity is causal to difficulty in general.
Your school could be an exception and my school may be an exception as well. But given my statement above, by probability, it is highly unlikely.
In short, it's more probable that my school is harder than your school and this probability is only escapable if someone who attended both can give us a more accurate first hand comparison.
OK so selectivity is possibly causal to difficulty and possibly not? So 99.9% of non-selective schools could be as difficult as peer selective schools while the rare exception isn't? You may be on to something.... At least you finally admit you don't get to feel special about going through something more 'difficult' on account of whatever idea your school had of selectivity.
>OK so selectivity is possibly causal to difficulty and possibly not? So 99.9% of non-selective schools could be as difficult as peer selective schools while the rare exception isn't?
Where the hell are you getting that 99.9% number? I would think someone who went to a good school wouldn't pull random numbers out of thin air.
Selectivity is causal to difficulty. Period. But the causal connection like all things in reality is a connection built upon probability. Think of the luck stat in RPGs. On average the more selective the school the harder. If there's any school that breaks the model, that school is an exception and a minority. Your school might be an exception, but by probability it is most likely not and it is more likely you just think your school is harder.
>At least you finally admit you don't get to feel special about going through something more 'difficult' on account of whatever idea your school had of selectivity.
I never said my school was special or commented about how I feel. If you look at the initial posts, I was telling you that going to a non-selective school ISN'T anything special, because you were the one talking about it.
This was my experience as well. Another interesting point here is that a top programmer can singlehandedly do tasks that would take a dozen or a hundred regular programmers working together.
I'm confident that if you took a super-rare race condition in a web service and set me to figuring it out in parallel with a team of a few dozen random web coders off Reddit, I'd figure it out first
With factors like that at play you really can't commoditize software engineering. If all the local companies decided to put the squeeze on workers, new companies would spring up, poach the best workers, and crush the old companies. It's happened before, it's happening now, and it'll happen again.
Like many on HN I went to a top engineering school. there I saw about 2/3 of my colleagues drop out within the first two years. At least half of them worked tirelessly and efficiently to pursue their goal, and still failed. This was a large public school that will admit basically everyone with a pulse into engineering, with the expectation most will fail out as unfit and filter into some of the programs my college was less known for.
I did not have a particularly exceptional upbringing, and went to a middle of the road country school without any special preparations that would advantage myself over these other middle-class white people I saw. I'm not saying this to brag, because no doubt many of these people are far more successful than me in other fields (one I know went on to become a doctor for instance) but there is definitely something at play that different people are 'wired' for different tasks. I could almost sleep through much of the engineering curriculum and remain near the top while I saw many smarter people than me struggle tirelessly with engineering; something else was going on in our minds.