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Old 11-01-2013, 11:45 AM   #61
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Yeah, but once upon a time most employers hired people first and pieces of paper second. These days it's the other way around in many cases.
Yup. I got started in the software racket with a physics degree and a background in naval nuclear power operations. The employer was quite willing to take a chance on me and train as needed. The job posting for my replacement on retirement 3 decades later specified a Masters Degree in Computer Science along with a variety of interesting skills, including programming languages utterly inappropriate and not used in the software I authored. Naturally all those requirements went into the automated resumé screening software the HR people used.

Nobody gets to the interview stage without all the whacky and often not entirely appropriate keywords being satisfied.
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Old 11-01-2013, 11:50 AM   #62
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Yup. I got started in the software racket with a physics degree and a background in naval nuclear power operations. The employer was quite willing to take a chance on me and train as needed. The job posting for my replacement on retirement 3 decades later specified a Masters Degree in Computer Science along with a variety of interesting skills, including programming languages utterly inappropriate and not used in the software I authored. Naturally all those requirements went into the automated resumé screening software the HR people used.

Nobody gets to the interview stage without all the whacky and often not entirely appropriate keywords being satisfied.
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Old 11-01-2013, 01:37 PM   #63
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Ah, even in engineering schools here, I observed that math classes for engineering students were dumbed down versions of the material that a math major would learn. Hence, most of my fellow colleagues that I encountered later on failed to appreciate the finer aspects of mathematics, as it applied to engineering of course.

Back when I was in school, an EE had to take classes in thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, material science, etc... Conversely an ME or CE had to take classes in electrical network, electromagnetics, and basic electronics. These poor ME's and CE's had a much tougher time understanding the difference between a NPN and PNP transistor than my dealing with fluid flow boundary. Heh heh heh... I had A's in all my engineering classes, except for thermodynamics. Heh heh heh... Still, I was happier when in post-graduate when I could take all EE classes such as digital signal processing, modern control theory, microwave, communications, optimal control theory, error correcting codes, etc...

You want more humanities classes? Where's the time? My son who is a recent ME graduate was not taught a thing about electronics anymore. Schools now have to teach more specialized classes that they already have to delete interdisciplinary engineering classes. Those are the times.
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Old 11-01-2013, 01:41 PM   #64
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Back when I was in school, an EE had to take classes in thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, material science, etc... Conversely an ME or CE had to take classes in electrical network, electromagnetics, and basic electronics. These poor ME's and CE's had a much tougher time understanding the difference between a NPN and PNP transistors than my dealing with fluid flow boundary. Heh heh heh... I had A's in all my engineering classes, except for thermodynamics. Heh heh heh... Still, I was happier when in post-graduate when I could take all EE classes such as digital signal processing, modern control theory, microwave, communications, etc...
I started college in the Computer Engineering department in 1983. (I later changed to pure computer science run by the Math department when I could never get my core engineering classes.) There was a "core" engineering curriculum that all Engineering majors had to take, with intros to EE, mechanical, chemical, civil, materials and industrial engineering. That was on top of three semesters of calculus and physics.

So I don't know the difference between NPN and PNP, but I know the difference between P and NP.
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Old 11-01-2013, 01:47 PM   #65
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Literature Ph.D. here, with a very rewarding university academic career. My life has been so deeply enriched by my immersion in literature, history, and the arts in particular. My avocation and vocation have blended to an extraordinary degree. Yes, the humanities are not much valued by Americans (they are valued, to a much higher degree, in Europe) but they have inspired and ennobled many, many of my students throughout my years of teaching. Is it worth it to keep the flame alive? Of course.
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Old 11-01-2013, 01:50 PM   #66
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So, for humanities, it has been a life-long pursuit for me. I have been making a slow progress. To learn the American history, I took my son one summer to visit Youngtown, Jamestown, KittyHawk, so we could experience it together.

It's too tough for me to appreciate fine arts, as in painting, sculptures, architecture. I could appreciate the beauty of a fundamental theorem in real analysis or complex analysis. Would that make up for my other shortcomings?
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Old 11-01-2013, 01:57 PM   #67
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So, for humanities, it has been a life-long pursuit for me. I have been making a slow progress. To learn the American history, I took my son one summer to visit Youngtown, Jamestown, KittyHawk, so we could experience it together.
I think of all the iconic American history sites, the only one I've been to is Gettysburg. This was in 1993 when we were visiting my new in-laws in PA, and DW and I went to see it. It was in March and they had just had a snowfall the day before. It was eerily quiet peaceful walking and driving through the site with 3-4" of snow covering the ground and very few other visitors around.

A couple days later we had to fly home to California and I had to change our flight reservations to the afternoon before we were supposed to leave, getting the last two seats on the last flight out of Philly before the "Blizzard of '93" shut down that airport for 3-4 days. We had to spend a night in St. Louis (TWA!) and then about 8 hours waiting in the airport before catching our previously scheduled segment from St. Louis to San Jose. Ah, good times.
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Old 11-01-2013, 02:05 PM   #68
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I have been to Gettysburg, and we have also been to Philadelphia. Yes, we stood in line to see the "cracked bell".

One thing I like to continue to do is to tour the US by RV. We get to spend more time that way to learn about the local history. In reading RV'ers blogs, I stumbled across a woman RV'er blog, whose devotion was to Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture. She had to visit as many of his creations as she could, both public buildings and private homes that were opened for tours.

There's so much in life for one to pursue. How can we learn and know it all?
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Old 11-01-2013, 02:32 PM   #69
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It's too tough for me to appreciate fine arts, as in painting, sculptures, architecture. I could appreciate the beauty of a fundamental theorem in real analysis or complex analysis. Would that make up for my other shortcomings?
Ah, I might just be selling myself short here.

One must be a caveman to not appreciate Michelangelo's work, or that of the Dutch Masters, or the French Impressionists. No, I take that back. Even a caveman would be in awe of Mikey's masterpieces.

It's the others out of mainstream that I have some problems understanding ... I have been to a museum dedicated to Picasso, and I was slowly seeing something there, but it was not easy.
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Old 11-01-2013, 02:39 PM   #70
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Being a lifelong sales guy I can appreciate a well rounded education. While I work with and appreciate the tech and engineering guys I work with, a little exposure to the world and a well rounded education would help.
Today, while on a hot deal with a new guy I asked a simple yes or no answer to one of our engineers. His email reply was a series of pdf files of prints and diagrams. Basically a data dump of all the crap he had at his disposal. No answer to the simple question.
Yes, a basic education helps. To continue it through college would help more.
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Old 11-01-2013, 02:45 PM   #71
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Yeah, but once upon a time most employers hired people first and pieces of paper second. These days it's the other way around in many cases.
We/I always screened using "pieces of paper" and then hired the best person. May be picking nits.

But in my discipline at least (Engineering), it was that way in 1976 when I began. How was it done people first and paper second when hiring external candidates? Not being a wisea__, I've never seen it done any other way...
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Old 11-01-2013, 02:45 PM   #72
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Working in the tech and computer fields for nearly 26 years, I reflected on what I thought was my most valuable skill. Was it troubleshooting? Nope. Analytical skills? Nope. Programming skills? Nope.

All of those were useful and important in my career development. But the one skill I had, the one I know helped me stand out, the one that many managers valued? The ability to translate "geekspeak" into English so upper management could understand it.

Seriously. The ability to take highly technical concepts and explain them in ways that mostly non-technical executives could understand was a huge asset.
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Old 11-01-2013, 02:50 PM   #73
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We always screened using "pieces of paper" and then hired the best person. May be picking nits...
Same idea, but different order. This is still hiring pieces of paper first in that the "right" degree and the "right" certifications are still prerequisites to being considered.

Obviously "human factors" come into play in the hiring process once someone "makes the cut" with HR and the software that screens resumes. But I think my point is that once upon a time, you didn't have processes in place that immediately weeded out 90% of the applicants based on their application and resume details. Someone could be technically "unqualified" but demonstrate an ability to work well and learn quickly. In decades past they could be hired and excel with OJT. Those days are gone.

The closest thing I can think of to this well into the past was when my mom was a supervisor at K-Mart in the late 1970s into the 1980s. They (obviously) didn't have online applications and software to screen applicants, but if someone submitted an application when they had "red flags" based on their appearance or attitude when they submitted the application, that application was folded before it went into the file. And the fold told the hiring manager that you don't want to consider this applicant. In other words, it was the equivalent of today's software screening out someone who only has three years of some obscure or arcane experience when the job requires four years.
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Old 11-01-2013, 02:52 PM   #74
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An older gent (late 70s+) I've worked with/around who has a PhD and designed transistors at megacorp and helped grad students and doctoral students at the mega-university had to take two years of foreign language in college. Of course, that was back in the olden days... Still speaks semi-fluent German. I grew up in southern Indiana, and until I took two semesters of college-level US history, I didn't know that (a) US citizens of Japanese and German ancestry were imprisoned during WWII, let alone that (b) one of the camps was in Louisville, KY. Thanks to Ken Burns and PBS, I've learned even more about that subject.
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Old 11-01-2013, 03:00 PM   #75
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Yup. I got started in the software racket with a physics degree and a background in naval nuclear power operations. The employer was quite willing to take a chance on me and train as needed. The job posting for my replacement on retirement 3 decades later specified a Masters Degree in Computer Science along with a variety of interesting skills, including programming languages utterly inappropriate and not used in the software I authored. Naturally all those requirements went into the automated resumé screening software the HR people used.

Nobody gets to the interview stage without all the whacky and often not entirely appropriate keywords being satisfied.
My dad was a pilot in the Air Force and he left it in 1966 at age 31; he was grounded by high blood pressure, and while today he could have kept flying with medication to control it, in '66 that wasn't an option. And if he couldn't fly, he didn't want to be in the Air Force. So instead of taking a desk job and "putting in his 20", he left after 12 years in the service. (That would likely be a huge mistake today, but at the time it worked out.)

We lived in Nebraska at the time, and I was still in diapers. He took one computer programming course sponsored by Florida State, at the time when only the huge, weak (by modern standards) IBM mainframes and COBOL programs ruled. He was hired by Lockheed to become a programmer and we moved to California, and later he became a project leader as he worked there for 26 years until taking an irresistible early retirement incentive (including an extra five years of service for pension purposes, six months pay and 100% paid health insurance until age 65) in 1992.

That could never happen today, especially in the private sector. None of it, neither the hiring nor the early retirement incentives he received.
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"Hey, for every ten dollars, that's another hour that I have to be in the work place. That's an hour of my life. And my life is a very finite thing. I have only 'x' number of hours left before I'm dead. So how do I want to use these hours of my life? Do I want to use them just spending it on more crap and more stuff, or do I want to start getting a handle on it and using my life more intelligently?" -- Joe Dominguez (1938 - 1997)
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Old 11-01-2013, 03:02 PM   #76
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...I grew up in southern Indiana, and until I took two semesters of college-level US history, I didn't know that (a) US citizens of Japanese and German ancestry were imprisoned during WWII, let alone that (b) one of the camps was in Louisville, KY. Thanks to Ken Burns and PBS, I've learned even more about that subject.
Though I did not go through high school here, I would venture that it was not taught in HS history class to avoid scarring young gentle minds. A more adult college student can take it better.

Here's a cynical view of the US early history: The Life and Deeds of Uncle Sam by Oscar Ameringer. I think the work is in public domain, as I was able to download a pdf file of it. I thought it was good reading, as I finished it in one sitting.
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Old 11-01-2013, 03:39 PM   #77
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Ah, even in engineering schools here, I observed that math classes for engineering students were dumbed down versions of the material that a math major would learn. Hence, most of my fellow colleagues that I encountered later on failed to appreciate the finer aspects of mathematics, as it applied to engineering of course.

Back when I was in school, an EE had to take classes in thermodynamics, fluid dynamics, material science, etc... Conversely an ME or CE had to take classes in electrical network, electromagnetics, and basic electronics. These poor ME's and CE's had a much tougher time understanding the difference between a NPN and PNP transistor than my dealing with fluid flow boundary. Heh heh heh... I had A's in all my engineering classes, except for thermodynamics. Heh heh heh... Still, I was happier when in post-graduate when I could take all EE classes such as digital signal processing, modern control theory, microwave, communications, optimal control theory, error correcting codes, etc...

You want more humanities classes? Where's the time? My son who is a recent ME graduate was not taught a thing about electronics anymore. Schools now have to teach more specialized classes that they already have to delete interdisciplinary engineering classes. Those are the times.
That is a continuing trend when my grandfather got an EE degree in 1916 he had several shop classes including machine shop as part of the requirements. Of course then there was almost no electronics in EE, it was almost all power engineering (he ended up designing transformers for a career). Recall that the triode was invented about the time he graduated.
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Old 11-01-2013, 03:47 PM   #78
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Ah, talk about motors! I was among the last wave in school that graduated under the old curriculum that included electromechanics. This was in the late 70s. No vacuum tubes though.

However, I grew up playing with vacuum tubes as a kid, and already knew all about triodes, tetrodes, and pentodes (besides PNP and NPN transistors).

PS. The electromechanics class was deleted to make room for more digital circuit design classes.
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Old 11-01-2013, 04:25 PM   #79
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Seriously. The ability to take highly technical concepts and explain them in ways that mostly non-technical executives could understand was a huge asset.
+1

That was one area where I turned out to be a shining star. When I was doing computer forensics (basically data recovery from a hard drive combined with a detailed knowledge of search & seizure law) I had to write search warrant applications reconciling 18th century law with 21st century technology to judges who still wrote everything out longhand on yellow legal pads.

As of a couple of years ago they were still using blocks of text from warrant applications I wrote 12 years ago.
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Old 11-01-2013, 06:02 PM   #80
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Stating that intellectuals are rooted exclusively in the liberal arts would be the equivalent of stating that likes of MLK and W.E. Du Bois were somehow "elitists". That label hardly seems appropriate for individuals who struggled and sacrificed for the causes of equality and social justice. William F. Buckley on the other hand......
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