Not really. I would argue that today college is little more than a weeding out process that weeds out far too many. You sit in classes and solve bullshit problems with known answers that will have very little bearing on the realities of your professional life once you graduate. For the most part people go to college to have a piece of paper that says they went to college and had enough stamina to tolerate this bullshit and not drop out.

What we should be cultivating instead is the capacity for self-directed learning and deep motivation.

> You sit in classes and solve bullshit problems with known answers that will have very little bearing on the realities of your professional life once you graduate.

Gonna argue with this one from the standpoint of Electrical Engineering.

I would argue that almost everything up through junior year gets used every day. Basic circuits and basic digital never quits being relevant (I have pulled out a Karnaugh map every now and then to demonstrate to some programming folks that their conditionals were wrong). Basic electronics and op-amps similarly.

Once you hit junior year, the courses get specialized and don't get so much daily use--electromagnetics, digital signal processing, control systems theory, communications system theory.

The problem is that you don't know which one you like until after you take it. And before you take it, you're not useful to a company, either, so intern/apprenticeship doesn't help.

Karnaugh maps are taught to programmers (on college/university courses) too :) at least in my country, I'd be very surprised if they aren't in the U.S.

I'd actually mostly forgotten about them :) .

I only pull K maps out once or twice a year when some programmer absolutely insists that a conditional is correct when I can see that it isn't.

When I teach the class to programmers, state machines are the far more important concept I try to drive home. I use state machines all the time when programming.

...and state machines are hard to represent in most languages! That is a real pity. Its part of the one-dimensional nature of text-based programming. While state machines are two or three-dimensional ideas.

Stamina to tolerate bullshit and get things done despite thinking they're totally idiotic is valuable skill set in many industries. The piece of paper is also proof that you can follow directions well.

Getting shit done is valuable. Tolerating bullshit is absolutely not.

A failure of many youngsters is that they think everything annoying or boring is "bullshit".

For example, I have to practically threaten employees in their 20's to actually fscking pick up the phone and actually TALK to a customer rep. Yes, it can be annoying--they're going to try to sell you something as that's their job. But some of them also know what they're selling better than anybody on the planet. The only way you will figure that out is if you talk to them.

Don't threaten. Get them engaged, get them to set their own team goals (with your guidance) and get them to agree to the goals. Divide pleasant and unpleasant tasks visibly and fairly. Get rid of people with poisonous attitudes who sabotage this white glove treatment.

Threatening only works in the short term, right up until your best people pick up their shit and leave. In the long term it does not yield the kind of workforce you actually want to have.

> Get them engaged, get them to set their own team goals (with your guidance) and get them to agree to the goals.

And how many times am I supposed to let them order the wrong thing (at company expense) because they won't PICK UP THE DAMN PHONE AND CALL SOMEBODY? I've been mentoring interns and co-ops in engineering for almost 25 years and this set of 20-somethings is just like any other--except with respect to their absolute avoidance of using the bloody phone.

Making a genuine mistake is acceptable. Talk to the rep, order some stuff and see if it works. If it doesn't, no big deal. With the rep in the loop, it'll take one or two iterations, and you'll get what you need. After the third time I asked: "Did you call the rep?" "No." "Do it." After the fourth time: "Call the rep.". "Okay." "No, NOW. While I'm standing here. On conference." <rolls eyes> After 10 minutes of talking to the rep, he's got an order for the right stuff, the rep comped it, and sent it overnight.

The worst part--even after examples like this--THEY STILL WON'T PICK UP THE PHONE. It's absolutely infuriating. This isn't just one person getting old and complaining. It also isn't just my observation--I have heard the same complaint from different people from ages 35 to 55.

I've reached a point where I almost don't want to hire anybody in their 20's.

"Tolerating bullshit is absolutely not (valuable)."

I agree with this bottom line, but I sense a lot of politics in there around what is/isn't called bullshit. Getting opinions when you ask for them is valuable, having to fight your way against your employees (for them to do something you are paying them for) is absolutely not.