The ISI, with the help of America, defeated America.

> but you wouldn’t have been able to learn those things had you not graduated.

I just don’t see it. What I see is that a degree in computer science is almost irrelevant.

If you are hiring a graduate, no one cares if his degree was in computer science or high energy relativistic physics. They care about the reputation of his school for enforcing religious orthodoxy. In actual practice no one, not even human resources, acts as if “you wouldn’t have been able to learn those things had you not graduated.”

In the early days, there was no such thing as computer science. Everyone in software engineering was self taught.

All useful resources on how to do engineering in general are non academic, though academic papers on specific algorithms are often valuable. Ninety percent of academic research on algorithms is crap, but most good research on algorithms is academic. All useful tutorials are non academic, and their academic equivalents are useless.

Someone can graduate with a degree from an elite institution in engineering, and be completely useless – or, as the Challenger Inquiry revealed, not merely useless, but quite dangerous.

All graduates need further training on the job, unless they have educated themselves in engineering independently of the institution.

In recruiting I don’t see, and I don’t see anyone except human resources, worrying about degrees. They worry about experience in doing similar things.

If someone has experience, and no degree, he is fine except for human resources getting in the way.

The preference for degreed applicants is similar to the old establishment Anglican policy of only giving state and quasi state jobs to Anglicans – except applied to fields where such a policy has no benefit.

If someone has a degree and no experience, and human resources sticks you with him, you are likely to have a problem.

From experience, I can say that an academic degree in computing is almost irrelevant to your ability to learn engineering. Unfortunately it is quite relevant to your ability to get a job.

I have an advanced degree. It has never been of any use, or given me any substantial benefit. I learned some interesting and important things, but as vocational training, utterly irrelevant.

When I interview someone, their degree is still irrelevant. Furthermore, even human resources does not really care if you have a degree in computer science. They care if you have a degree.

Just as revealed behavior shows people don’t actually believe sexual harassment charges in real world way, but only as a religious observance, revealed behavior shows that people don’t actually believe that a degree in computer science is actually relevant to engineering, but rather a religious observance.

Actual observed hiring behavior only makes sense as religious observance, not vocational training.

A degree in physics is quite useful for getting a engineering job, and an advanced degree even better, but absolutely no one cares what field of physics the degree was in. A degree in seventeenth century hermeneutic seventeenth century lesbian basketweaving less useful, but still quite useful.

It is similar to sexual harassment charges. No one actually believes that the woman was sexually harassed. They believe that she is distressed, and they are required to care about her distress, and do something about it. What the male in fact did is irrelevant. And the more conspicuously they care about her distress, the less they care about the male’s actual behavior. Similarly, the more they care about a degree, the less they care about ability to actually do the job and the less they care about whether the project will succeed.

Degrees are, in actual practice, a religious observance. We should only require religious observance for state and quasi state jobs. When the reaction is in power, to get a state or quasi statal job that performs priestly functions, you will need a degree – probably from Harvard or Yale, assuming we do not need to raze them to the ground and build a new Harvard and a new Yale somewhere as far away as possible from the originals, with a great Cathedral at their center. To get a job that has state or quasi state power but does not have priestly functions, you will need to attend a good Church from time to time, though a degree from Harvard or Yale will be helpful. For the rest, an apprenticeship will be helpful. A degree is unlikely to be helpful. For the officer class, the top officers will have attended a prestigious school to age sixteen or so, where the eminent qualification will be having been a good team player on the sportsfield and good sportsmanlike conduct as judged by one’s peers, rather than academic accreditation. The school will, as now, inculcate the national state religion, but the officer class will not be expected to have paid much attention, unlike now. No one will care very much about the priestly caste at that school certifying that the candidate paid careful attention to the state religion, unlike now.

All schools will impose team sports on everyone, and some quasi military scout type activities, with rather more emphasis on lethality than the boy scouts taught, and one’s future prospects in getting a job with one’s peers from that school will be substantially affected by how one’s peers judge one’s sportsmanlike qualities.