
Dev Degree: Behind the Scenes - a-priori
https://engineering.shopify.com/blogs/engineering/dev-degree-behind-the-scenes
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kache_
Met some of the kids of the first cohort doing the dev degree as I majored in
CS at Carleton U. It was right before an exam. It seemed to me that most of
them were just gaming the tests the best they could because they had
absolutely no time in between working & their course load.

Obviously this thing was an experiment, so I'm sure they're going to
reevaluate based on the feedback. Also, this was an anecdote of only meeting
them once. I did not see them in any classes because I wasn't going to any
(was working full time). Their insane load hardened them for sure.

>20 hours a week for 3 course load

20 hours a week with 3 CS courses at carleton? If you're going solo dolo on
everything it's much more time than that

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MattGaiser
> just gaming the tests the best they could

I am a recent grad and have lots of friends still in university. That really
just describes a lot of students in general. We had resumes to build outside
of class, so yeah, a lot of us are just reading past tests, memorizing the
answers, pouring the answers back onto the test, and repeating for the next
course.

I certainly would have considered dev degree were I applying today, but I am
sure that I would treat that degree as no more than a credential to be won.

~~~
Sindrome
First, game the SAT. Then this. Then game leetcode.

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graham_paul
What's the catch?

Are they legally obligated to work for Shopify after graduation? Are the grads
forced to work for Shopify and accept whatever Shopify wants to pay them?

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runawaybottle
It’s a regular old software job while you work through college. Plenty of
companies big and small have students working for them (not just summer
interns, year long work, for years while they study).

It’s cool, but there’s a lot of PR here that’s dressing up a pretty common
thing in the verbiage and marketing of ‘dev bootcamp’ stuff.

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alphakilo
Great to see more dev degree info being shared. It has worked well for the
students in the program that I know[1]. I think that this framework will be
used with other partners at York's Lassonde School of Engineering such as IBM.
Hopefully this can be expanded to the engineering program in the future as
well.

[1] I study at the Lassonde School of Engineering at York U

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alexashka
Simple question: why would _anyone_ need a degree to be in web development?

It defies all sense. This entire field is built upon online tutorials. Sadly,
I predict a bunch of people who don't know any better wasting 4 years of their
life and paying tuition to learn what can be had completely for free, studying
from home, while working a part time job to support a ramen-basement-lifestyle
for a year or two.

To be fair - most University degrees are equally worthless, so I guess all
this does is speed up the inevitable collapse of University as an institution?
People have really lost their way, even the ivory towers have rotted from the
inside...

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falcor84
There is web development and there is web development. To be able to
contribute effectively to systems at the scale of something like Shopify (or
anything resembling FAANG levels), there's a lot of value to a good
theoretical foundation. You obviously don't have to do a degree to acquire
that, but it can definitely help.

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alexashka
Feel free to judge the tree by its fruits.

Feel free to tell me what FAANG has accomplished in the past 10 years besides
monopoly status, global surveillance and serving ads?

All that good theoretical foundation - you mean leetcode for 6 months right?

All that good theoretical foundation - you mean React and Angular? What great
accomplishments...

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joefourier
I'm not a fan of the Javascript front-end framework trendwheel, but the back-
end and infrastructure of Facebook, Google, Netflix and Amazon is fairly
impressive. Building those systems and scaling them to billions of users is no
mundane technical feat.

~~~
runawaybottle
Ah yes, the dev caste system. Python devs don’t like Java devs. They both hate
PHP devs, and eeeeveryone hates Javascript devs.

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temptempLISP
Well, some languages are inferior while others are superior. It's not about
the people, but the languages - LISP is better than all of the shit that
people are using today.

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ukyrgf
Was this translated, or is my reading comprehension just terrible right now?

~~~
thaumasiotes
I don't see a problem with the language; I'm pretty sure it was written in
English by a native speaker.

