As someone who was in this audience two months ago, I am incredibly excited to be starting school at MIT this September and studying computer science. Formal study of CS gets a lot of heat around these parts, but I do think it's one of the best subjects to study for the reasons discussed in the video. Computers are the fastest-changing technology that people have ever witnessed, and there's vast potential for the future of computers and their impact on society.
Honestly, I'm in two minds about it. If I didn't have the domain knowledge I do (I did a masters in another field before starting cs, and since have performed research in many varied fields of interest) I wouldn't be half as successful or have anywhere near the range of experiences to draw on.
Of the ~50 or so coders I've hired over the years for my co, the best were always ones with domain knowledge from another field. They weren't the best coders from a technical point of view, but were the best at being able to deliver working software to clients faster. More often than not the ones without extra knowledge were unable to grasp the domain problems, and their solutions always needed rejigging.
Edit: By being unable to grasp, I mean that the distance from their solution to the optimal solution was always quite large. More often than not their design, while designed for extensibility was flexible in a dimension that didn't move towards the optimal solution. So the extra engineering time was wasted.
I don't know that I would hire a pure CS grad again, and all the interns I have now I strongly recommend they concurrently study other fields. Computers are a means to an end. I suggest studying both the means and the end.
I've probably hired about the same number - the guys who were the absolute best were from CS backgrounds. Probably depends on the kind of systems you are building.
I wasn't meaning that they had no CS backgrounds, but had a cross-discipline background. I've never hired someone without a degree in computer science, but the best had a multidisciplinary background (e.g. cs + english, cs + a biological science, cs + psychology etc)
The guys (yes, they were all guys) I meant all had pure CS backgrounds. Either 4 year BSc degrees, some with PhDs on top of that (I'm in the UK so PhD is typically research only).
Of course, YMMV. These were core product developers - the folks who did well in customer facing roles did have more varied backgrounds.
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As someone who was in this audience two months ago, I am incredibly excited to be starting school at MIT this September and studying computer science. Formal study of CS gets a lot of heat around these parts, but I do think it's one of the best subjects to study for the reasons discussed in the video. Computers are the fastest-changing technology that people have ever witnessed, and there's vast potential for the future of computers and their impact on society.
Honestly, I'm in two minds about it. If I didn't have the domain knowledge I do (I did a masters in another field before starting cs, and since have performed research in many varied fields of interest) I wouldn't be half as successful or have anywhere near the range of experiences to draw on.
Of the ~50 or so coders I've hired over the years for my co, the best were always ones with domain knowledge from another field. They weren't the best coders from a technical point of view, but were the best at being able to deliver working software to clients faster. More often than not the ones without extra knowledge were unable to grasp the domain problems, and their solutions always needed rejigging.
Edit: By being unable to grasp, I mean that the distance from their solution to the optimal solution was always quite large. More often than not their design, while designed for extensibility was flexible in a dimension that didn't move towards the optimal solution. So the extra engineering time was wasted.
I don't know that I would hire a pure CS grad again, and all the interns I have now I strongly recommend they concurrently study other fields. Computers are a means to an end. I suggest studying both the means and the end.
I've probably hired about the same number - the guys who were the absolute best were from CS backgrounds. Probably depends on the kind of systems you are building.
I wasn't meaning that they had no CS backgrounds, but had a cross-discipline background. I've never hired someone without a degree in computer science, but the best had a multidisciplinary background (e.g. cs + english, cs + a biological science, cs + psychology etc)
The guys (yes, they were all guys) I meant all had pure CS backgrounds. Either 4 year BSc degrees, some with PhDs on top of that (I'm in the UK so PhD is typically research only).
Of course, YMMV. These were core product developers - the folks who did well in customer facing roles did have more varied backgrounds.