
Big Tech’s Hot New Talent Incubator: Community College - rbanffy
https://www.wsj.com/articles/big-techs-hot-new-talent-incubator-community-college-1530277200
======
oflannabhra
My state has a network of community and technical colleges. There is a program
that allows one to get their Associates degree through community colleges,
then transfer to a state school and continue paying community college tuition.

10 years ago, this allowed for earning an engineering degree for $2k a year,
or $8-10k.

In my experience, community colleges were very much viewed as remedial. I’d
guess that many of the classes were taken by students who had failed the
equivalent class at university.

I took Physics at both the community college and university (I was afraid that
the community college class would not prepare me for later classes). The
differences were stark: At university, lecture was 3x a week by the professor
(who did not speak English), recitation by a TA (who did not speak English),
and lab by another TA. There were 3 sections with 400 students per section.
The professor had one hour of office hours for all 400 students in my section.
At community college, my professor lectured, ran the lab, ran recitation. He
went to a top 5 school, was an American, and was a great teacher. The class
had 2 sections of 30 students. He ran weekend reviews for tests, if needed,
and had open office hours all day. His tests were very difficult and required
mastery of the subject matter.

I dropped the university class after I realized it was of much lower quality
than what I had already received, for 1/5th the price, no less.

~~~
ransom1538
This.

I took a course for fun at a local community college: physics. There was
_nothing_ more fascinating learning physics from someone that did accident
reconstructions for 30 years. It is a different feel than being lectured to by
someone that hasn't finished their graduate program. Then for fun I tried
again: Oracle. My teacher? A former executive at WellsFargo and Oracle. He was
extremely wealthy, and taught for fun - he did not publish some book or beg
for grants.

~~~
drpgq
Yeah but how much did the community college teacher publish?

~~~
eanzenberg
How is publishing relevant to teaching?

~~~
taneq
I think that was the point. University lecturers are judged on their
publication rate, not their teaching, so their teaching is sometimes awful.

~~~
noxToken
This hit a little too close to home. Interestingly enough, those professors at
my alma mater who were abysmal at teaching and lecturing but pulling millions
in grants listened to the course feedback cards. They took it to heart that we
had been uninterested* in the way the course was presented, couldn't grasp the
material from the lessons, etc. We could see how their teaching methods
evolved as we had them for upper level courses and electives.

According to interns, those are some of the best professors that are currently
on staff.

 _Irrelevant note: I originally used disinterested, but those words do not
have the same meaning:

> _An uninterested person is bored, unconcerned, or indifferent; a
> disinterested person is impartial, unbiased, or has no stake in the
> outcome.*[0]

[0]:
[https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/disinter...](https://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/disinterested-
versus-uninterested)

------
finaliteration
I attended community college for a few years before transferring to a 4-year
university. During that time I took a variety of technical and non-technical
courses that I really enjoyed and felt I got a lot of value from due to the
small class sizes and ability to connect with professors outside of class
fairly easily. I would have stopped after getting my Associate’s degree as I
felt like I had learned a lot and I had next to zero debt from my education,
and it was around that time I really got into programming and software
development which is what I now do for a living.

The only reason I went on to a bigger school was familial pressure and the
idea that I’d be pretty much doomed without a Bachelor’s degree or better. I
left with a large amount of debt (my family fell into the space of too much
for grants and not enough to pay out of pocket) and honestly didn’t really
like my 4-year experience nor do I feel like it added much to the value of my
life, either in practical or intrinsic terms. I get that my experience is
anecdotal but I wonder how many other people would have been in the same boat.

~~~
freehunter
Community colleges really are underrated. In a world where increasingly a
bachelor's degree does not guarantee a job, university education is super
expensive, and especially in fields where a bachelor's degree is not necessary
(I've never had an interview where they asked about my college education),
vocational schools are the place to be.

Four-year universities put big emphasis on well-rounded educations, so you're
taking humanities and physical education and biology and math classes in order
to achieve a business degree. Community colleges cut away the "well rounded"
part and often just tech the skills necessary to get a job at a local company.
Oftentimes the instructors actually work at these local companies as their day
job, so they know what to teach to.

If your goal is to get a job that leads into a career, go to a CC. If you need
continuing education past that, many CCs have programs that let you transfer
your credits into a local state university at extremely generous rates. My
local CC has a 3+1 program where you can take 3 years at CC and one year at
the state university and get a bachelor's degree from the university. The cost
per credit hour at the CC is literally half the cost for the university, so
you're paying $35k for your bachelor's compared to the $50k you'd be paying
for four years at the state university. It's a no-brainer.

~~~
mixmastamyk
> (I've never had an interview where they asked about my college education.

They don’t ask, but many places throw your resume without a bachelors into the
trash at the first step in the hiring process. Ask me how I know.

~~~
toomuchtodo
> They don’t ask, but many places throw your resume without a bachelors into
> the trash at the first step in the hiring process. Ask me how I know.

I'm very understanding of this sentiment. I have suggested to people to get
around this by simply lying about having a bachelors degree on their resume.
If the employer verifies, you're out nothing. If they don't, you have a job
you otherwise wouldn't have had. You have to be able to do the job though.

~~~
themodelplumber
Don't do this. I have a client who did this, and he now wonders how many
interviews he _missed out on_ over a 3-year period because the employer was
interested but the college screening came up lie-positive.

Many, many employers public & private do verify. And some people will start
rumors if you are in a small community, or if they know someone you know. And
if the employer later finds out that you lied, the lie will cost you the job,
not the lack of education.

IMO if you are low on experience like education, your best bets are things
like formal networking events or informal events (parties, concerts with
friends, etc.), or even informal walk-ins to companies where you want to work.
For some, the biggest problem is that they won't talk about wanting a job
around their friends, for fear of appearing incompetent.

~~~
toomuchtodo
What is your suggestion for OP where their resume is immediately discard
because of no education? Networking and meetups won’t get you passed HR
filters and corporate requirements.

As I mentioned, even if you don’t get the job or lose the job, you’re still
ahead of not trying. And you now have experience to put towards your next
employer (and your old employer will only verify employment dates, as they
don’t want to be sued).

This is the unfortunate reality of an asymmetric labor market where employers
can make demands with no cost to themselves. Fake it until you make it.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _As I mentioned, even if you don’t get the job or lose the job, you’re still
> ahead of not trying._

I fail to see how poisoning your own reputation comes out as "still ahead";
that is absolutely guaranteed to get your résumé silently discarded. The tech
community isn't that big, even in the tech hubs, and word does eventually get
around both among engineers and recruiters.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Rumors are a quick way to get sued. Are you ready to pay a settlement as an
employer because someone’s resume has an inaccuracy on it? Sometimes there are
benefits of living in a litigious society when it works in your favor.

~~~
skookumchuck
You won't have a case if you're fired for lying on your resume. Lying about
your education is not merely an "inaccuracy".

~~~
toomuchtodo
I’ve seen lesser cases win. You’d be surprised. Your tight knit industry
community isn’t the general public.

~~~
ThrowawayR2
> _I’ve seen lesser cases win. You’d be surprised. Your tight knit industry
> community isn’t the general public._

[citation needed]

Court cases are a matter of public record and, given your, ahem, open advocacy
of falsehoods, it's unclear why we should believe your unsupported assertion.

------
kaycebasques
Community college was one of the smartest moves of my life.

The IGETC program ensured that my education was equivalent to what I would
have gotten at a UC as a freshmen and sophomore.

My teachers were mostly Stanford and Berkeley PHDs. They were dedicated to
teaching. Not trying to balance research and teaching. 30 people per class,
maximum. Arguably, I got a better education than UC students.

And obviously, cost. My mom raised me and my brother. On paper, we were rather
poor. The financial grants for students from low-income families essentially
paid for all costs. If I had been really savvy with my money, I actually could
have saved a few grand each year.

I transferred to UC Berkeley after 2 years, right on time.

~~~
drawnwren
I have the same story. Except, I'm attending Harvard instead of Berkeley in
the fall. Guess what, the credits still transfer. It's pretty jaw-dropping
that the credits that cost me about $2k a semester will be used as a
replacement for credits that cost $38k a semester.

~~~
ha99
Would you mind sharing some insight on what elite schools are looking for in
transfer students? I'll be starting community college this fall and it's hard
to picture what the criteria are for these schools with 1-2% transfer rates.

~~~
drawnwren
To be honest, I'm a vet and got lucky on that. The best way to think about
transfer to an elite school is that you can only disqualify yourself with
academic work. You should have a compelling essay about what you bring to
their community, and apply to at least 4-5 schools. If you took time between
high school and now, what did you do? If nothing, do you have a compelling
reason to be back in school? If so, can you support this with evidence. Keep
in mind that these schools see lots of essays about dreams. They prefer to see
evidence of you having already moved the needle in that direction. I got
denied from 4 schools, wait listed at 2, and into 2.

TLDR; Academic performance is necessary but not sufficient. Figure out why
you're unique, what you can bring to their student body that they might not
have, and kill the essay.

~~~
drawnwren
I'm not the best person to talk to about this, but if you have more questions
-- feel free to email me. Username at Gmail.

------
analognoise
Silicon Valley needs to get ahead of the curve: high school incubators!

Then some bright spark will come along and beat them to the punch: Jr High
incubators!

We'll eventually have a system where you're born right into a desk, and a
machine is hooked up to your head to suck all the originality, youth and zeal
straight from the nape of your neck and provide it in pill form to people who
have lost touch with reality, at the cost of your childhood, to those who can
afford it.

We'll call it "authentic".

~~~
henriquemaia
Isn't that kind of what they do in sports? I know that they do a softer
version of that, hooking very young kids to the coffee clubs' training schools
and facilities, in order to change guarantee a constant supply of raw talent.

------
samcheng
This is an interesting reaction to the "bootcamp" trend (and subsequent
implosion).

I think it has a better chance of succeeding: you might not need four years of
university education to become an entry-level developer, but a few weeks of
intensive "bootcamp" training isn't enough.

~~~
finaliteration
I think the other advantage is that at most community colleges you are
required to branch out from technical topics and take at least a few
humanities and liberal arts courses. You end up coming out slightly more well-
rounded which can be hugely beneficial both career and life wise.

~~~
jgh
you're not required to do humanities/liberal arts at US universities?

~~~
barry-cotter
Outside the USA and its cultural appendages, Canada, South Korea and the like,
it is assumed that anyone who goes to university has studied the liberal arts
at secondary/high school. Given the low quality of secondary education in the
US in the formative period of its third level system this could not be assumed
so what would in Europe be considered (grammar school) high school classes and
subjects are taught at university.

~~~
learc83
The big differences in Universities between the US and Europe developed over a
century ago and were the result of philosophical disagreements about what
qualifies as a liberal education. It had nothing to do with poor quality
secondary education.

Parts of the US have world class secondary education and parts don't--just
like Europe. Even taken as a whole the US education system ranks higher than
many countries in Europe.

>South Korea

The South Korean education system is nothing like the US education system.
It's hard to think of a large country more different from the US in this
regard.

------
sakopov
Perhaps this is a bit unrelated, but when I was in High School I participated
in a program called A+ which provided HS graduates with free tuition for any
community college in the state. The program was very easy to complete - I
believe it was about 50 hours worth of tutoring sessions with kids at your
school. When I graduated in 2003, I ended up getting 3 years of free Community
College as long as my GPA was above 3.5. This was a fantastic way for me to
save money. I even milked the 3rd year just to take up courses I found
interesting, but had nothing to do with computer science. As far as I know
this program is still offered in several states.

------
yontherubicon
Archive Link: [http://archive.is/nmoqk](http://archive.is/nmoqk)

To get around the paywalls.

------
rdlecler1
I took a circuitous route to a Yale PhD as a high school dropout entering a
community college as a ‘mature student’ (Canadian term). In general the
teaching at CC was much better with smaller classes. Many of the instructors
really enjoyed teaching and were not burdened by research. Of course
university has it’s own magical appeal, but for me it was the perfect on ramp.

------
sonabinu
Was inspired to take up programming by a community college teacher. I attended
his lectures 8 years back. He kept insisting we learn how to program our TI
calculators and said programming was a vital skill. I was scared of breaking
my laptop if I downloaded software. Downloaded R as a result of the confidence
I felt from the success with the TI. Went on to do a second masters focusing
on data. From a math class for kicks to a career change! All thanks to the
inspiration from a community college teacher.

------
tombert
One of my biggest regrets in life is how dismissive I was of community college
back when I was applying to schools as a teenager. If the school didn't have
"university" as part of the title, then I wasn't interested.

I went to a university, paid a ton of money, dropped out, and then found work
as an engineer. If I had done community college, I would have probably gotten
the same quality of education, but not have to spend the first year and a half
of my post-dropout years paying back loans.

------
shinymoon
I find it very unfortunate that university is so expensive in the US. I grew
up in a country where university education is mostly free and even students
from low-income families get to go to best universities. I don't get how US
cannot get university education cheaper.

------
forapurpose
I think community colleges are great, but they also are used to reframe the
issues away from the real problems and solutions:

First, employers are only interested in what you can do for them, immediately.
They are not interested in you or the rest of your life either 'horizontally'
(the very many other aspects of your life, from individual to parent to
citizen to homeowner to intellectual to whatever) or vertically (the rest of
your life after you work for them, after you retire, if you get sick, have
kids, go to grad school, etc.). For example, many employers will repeat the
trendy mantra that all you need is community college skills, but they won't
hire you for management without an MBA.

Second, the distribution of education is not based on capability and need, but
on the wealth of parents. Wealthy kids without academic talent or effort get 4
year degrees or more; poor kids who are smart and work hard get community
college or less. It's just as good, the wealthy people say, but somehow not
good enough for their kids or to hire or pay well.

Finally, the demand for 4 year college is overwhelming, which we can see based
on the ability to raise tuition without impacting attendance. The demand in
the labor market is overwhelming, based on salary differences. Let's meet the
demand and stop finding second rate substitutions.

~~~
srtjstjsj
I don't understand your argument. You can get an MBA after community college.
MBA programs are for people who already have work experience.

College tuition increases astronomically due to bad govt subsidies and poorly
--financially-educated teenagers making purchasing decisions.

Community colleges aren't "second-rate" compared to the plethora of for-profit
and low-quality private universities.

2-year Community colleges are a stepping stone to 4-year degrees.

Do poor kids deserve better K-12 education so they can succeed in the same
4-year programs that rich kids do? Sure, but _colleges_ can't fix that. It's
crazy to _also_ deny college education to kids just because they already got
screwed over in K-12.

~~~
forapurpose
> You can get an MBA after community college.

I wonder if you can get an MBA that's worth anything. I doubt any top tier
program accepts many CC students.

> College tuition increases astronomically due to bad govt subsidies and
> poorly--financially-educated teenagers making purchasing decisions.

They are due to making tuition more market-priced, and according to research
I've read, due to a reduction in public funding. It's also due to colleges
raising tuition rather than focusing on their mission of educating people;
nobody is forcing them.

> It's crazy to also deny college education to kids just because they already
> got screwed over in K-12.

Nobody suggested that. I said quality college education availability should be
expanded.

------
ourmandave
Back in the mid-80's my local CCs were teaching COBOL, JCL and Fortran.
Probably because of that mainframe they had chilling in the server room.

Personal computer courses were non-existent, except for one day "How To Use
Your PC or Apple" class.

~~~
im3w1l
What are you trying to say? I lack context here.

That community colleges were behind the curve? Ahead of the curve? Or is there
even a message?

~~~
srtjstjsj
Behind the curve; not up to date on the latest tech advancements. This is
common criticism of the "lower-tier" schools generating "business process
automation" coders for old industries like healthcare and manufacturing.

------
montrose
If this trend is real it will be really good for social mobility.

~~~
ss2003
I don't think so. Having a degree from CC marks you as from the lower class.
Upper level and prestigious positions tend to be filled with people just like
those already there. There was a good study on this
[http://www.asanet.org/journals/ASR/Dec12ASRFeature.pdf](http://www.asanet.org/journals/ASR/Dec12ASRFeature.pdf)

~~~
tehlike
But doest it mean lower class is much higher than it'd have been otherwise?
That's still a win.

~~~
zeth___
If the last 50 years have taught us anything it's that the middle class will
be pushed lower, the lower class will be pushed lower still and the upper
class will take all the winnings.

The economy has been a zero sum game for the majority for a very long time, so
zero sum game strategies is what they employ.

------
dgbarnes
As someone who's attended a community college both in my undergraduate career
and again in preparation for grad school, this is something I think about
quite a bit. Overall I'm pretty happy with my experiences studying at
community college, and I'm of the mind that for most subjects, you can get a
good education there. While I think it might be possible to get a decent
education in preparation for a software development career at _some_ community
colleges (like the technically-focused ones mentioned in the article), I
suspect that's not the case generally. I think that has to do with two things:

One, part of the problem is that I've found "computer science" and "software
development" get shoved under the umbrella of the "computer technology"
departments of community colleges, rather than the math or engineering
departments. Consequently there's a sense that software development is an
extension of IT rather than an engineering practice. That might be true in a
lot of settings (e.g. making VB widgets), but I'm not sure it's great for
producing generalist developers. Frankly, I think it also lends to unqualified
people leading departments, hiring instructors, and designing a curriculum.
Anecdotally, one semester I took a discrete math class (through the math
department) and a data structures class (through the CIS department); I ended
up learning a lot more about data structures in the math class, and the
programming project I did for the math class was much more instructive than
any of the projects in the CIS class.

Two, across all institutions (boot camps, community colleges, universities)
there doesn't seem to be a coherent curriculum on how to teach this stuff [1].
With math, english, economics, etc. the lower division classes are basically
the same everywhere. Even if you think the way we teach subjects is kind of
weird (as I do with math), everyone knows what "Calc II" means, or what's
taught in an intro to microeconomics course. With software, there's no
consensus on where to begin. Is it an infusion of theory and practice ala the
SICP-based courses (MIT and Berkeley)? Intro to programming (Stanford)? A
class where you learn how to use an office suite (a lot of community
colleges)? Git and HTML/CSS (bootcamps)? [2] As a result, it's not surprising
that individual classes don't line up. Maybe this is fine for the case where
students will only ever study at one school, but for a lot of students
indenting on transferring to a university (or anyone trying to evaluate a
curriculum) it's quite cumbersome.

Not being an educator (and being mostly self-taught for software development),
I'm not sure what the best approach is. Personally, I think a combination of
theory/assignment based classes supplemented with longer-term project courses
is probably the way to go. The former helps in presenting a general area or
class or problems, and how to solve them, and the latter might help with
exposure to the diversity of practical software development.

[1] I say "stuff" intentionally. Even the scope of "software development" is
huge and hazy

[2] I could be wrong with the specifics on schools here :)

~~~
throwawayjava
I wish I could upvote this a million times.

Your first point is 100% spot on.

Your second point deserves a caveat: CS _does_ mean something at
colleges/universities. they almost all follow the ACM model curriculum:

\- CS I -> CS II -> Data Structures

\- Discrete Math and Calculus I

\- A smattering of available electives from a few fairly uniform buckets
(SE,DB,OOP; OS,PL; ML/AI; theory,algorithms).

Contents of courses change (true in Math also! Biz Calc vs. Eng Calc vs.
Honors/Advanced Calc). But overall shape stays the same. Can't guarantee
outcomes, but can guarantee intent.

Unlike colleges/universities, at the national level, CCs have a serious cruft
issue in CS/IT. It's totally impossible to tell what someone might know from
the name of the degree program alone. Not even overall shape of curriculum is
obvious.

IMO there's a simple solution: CCs nation-wide should pare down everything
into a few specific named degrees:

1\. Associates in CS Foundations: basically ACM without electives. Designed
for transfer to a BA/BS.

2\. Associates in Software Development: the non-math portion of ACM + some
pragmatic courses (e.g., databases and web dev). Can have various version of
this marketed as "AS in SD with Emphasis in ___" where ___ is chosen according
to local/regional labor market. E.g., most bootcamps are somewhat like "AS in
SD with an Emphasis in Web Development using <stack here>".

3\. Associates in Information Technologies: catch-all for the stuff that
doesn't even fulfill the non-math, non-elective portion of the ACM model. So
"VBA scripting", "Networking aka CISCO certs", "Database Administrator aka
Oracle&MS certs", "Applications aka MS Office+Web publishing", etc. degrees
currently offered by CCs. Again, various versions can be marketed as "AS in
Information Technologies with Emphasis in ___"

These issues might not be recognizable to folks in states like California with
_amazing_ CC systems, but in most of America, just figuring out which of the
half dozen similar-sounding "IT/CS" associates degrees you want is a serious
problem. And very often the answer is "none" because all gazillion of them fit
into bucket #3 and you're really looking for bucket 1 or 2.

~~~
srtjstjsj
You don't really need an associates in CS foundations, since all the "CS" part
of CS is upper level (except for the most advanced students who start elite
Bachelors universities with 1-2 years of university coursework from high
school). Just take some basic liberal arts math and intro programming during
your AA, then you are ready to apply for CS Backelors program.

~~~
throwawayjava
_> Just take some basic liberal arts math and intro programming during your
AA, then you are ready to apply for CS Bachelors program. You don't really
need an associates in CS foundations_

Well, you can say the same for pretty much every curriculum ever: "we don't
need a named degree, just have students figure out what courses they need to
take".

Concretely, here's what happens in practice. A student does not know what to
take and tells their counselor they are interested in transferring into a
four-year CS degree. So student then ends up in:

\- standard college prep courses (Algebra, Calc, and liberal artsy stuff), and

\- some totally random stuff for the CS part. Might be programming. Might be
VBA (won't transfer) or Java (might transfer). Might be a CISCO prep course.
Who knows! And unless the student knows and fights, they end up wasting time.

Making a separate track that's _explicitly_ "pre-college CS" avoids this
confusion. And after all, part of the value add of a formal education is that
someone who knows what you need to know organizes the curriculum for you.

So what you say is true, but there are still strong advantages for both the
student and the institution to having a separate, explicit pre-college track.

------
naveen99
If you just want to reduce the bill for college, you can test out of a bunch
of requirements for graduation for nominal fees. Even cheaper than community
college. [https://clep.collegeboard.org/](https://clep.collegeboard.org/)

Also some people get married to get better financial aid...

------
zeth___
Sounds like regular college students are too expensive for the tech companies
because they have a hard floor below which they will not work. Having a
cursory look that is due to student loans being easier to service if you're
unemployed than employed at a low -relative to the cost of living- wage.

So now they are looking for a pool of labor that will take even lower
salaries.

Expect the vulture capitalist friends to pump up community college prices in
the next decade.

------
deltateam
Given that coding academies can get someone a 6-figure job in 6-months

Community Colleges are institutions that can also focus on the subset of
trades actually relevant the current private sector.

------
zitterbewegung
The big issue I have had when I went from Community College to a four year
college is that some of your credits don't transfer which means more time
spent in College.

~~~
srtjstjsj
That's generally because (some of) the course work is too low-level /remedial.
If you aren't ready for university at high school graduation, then you need to
take the extra time. If you are ready, you need to challenge yourself at the
rate that university students do if you want to keep up (which may need some
good advising that is hard to find, point granted).

~~~
zitterbewegung
Forgot to mention that my advisors told me that my credits would transfer .

