How do you tell if someone went to Harvard? Don't worry, they'll tell you in the first 30 seconds.

Honestly, I never mention it in real life unless directly asked because people (especially in tech, I've noticed) seem to be very sensitive around "name-brand" schools, ie. with comments like this.

But I think it has direct relevance to the GP comment.

I've read this here before but I honestly think there should be more regulations about who can be hired. The name of the school should not matter in the slightest if one has studied the same thing.

Making it impossible for the employer to know that detail would also incentivize all the schools to provide a good education. Also many top universities are mostly about making connections. While their curriculum is usually very hard, this is also reflected in the grades.. people may still pass but their average drops.

In the US it's even worse, because tuition has to be paid. This already filters out many people from going to a "more elite" school.

Or more likely, they vaguely say they "went to school in Boston"

If you answer that when asked point-blank what school you went to, I think you are an asshole.

That said, I can understand the impulse unless you want to be called "Mr. Harvard" every time you do some dumb shit in the office.

"went to school somewhere northeast of NYC"

If they are Vegetarian and they went to Harvard which one do they tell first?

Better yet - I actually am vegan and went to Harvard :)

So I guess Harvard wins out! In real life, veganism definitely does though :)

There may be a difference between data science or ML work and software engineering. It's commonly stated, accurately IMO, that you don't really need an advanced math background to be a software engineer or developer. I tend to agree, as long as I'm also allowed to say that I believe it's a very difficult, complicated, and intricate job. It just doesn't require calculus, linear algebra, or higher.

For ML? Well, I do know people who have never taken a formal course in anything above calculus who absolutely do apply these techniques properly and are well versed in how they work. But to understand how k-means clustering works, or how to construct a gradient vector... yeah, this requires multivariable calculus and non-linear optimization across systems of equations. And while you don't need to know how the underlying math works to use kmeans or neural nets, the mathematics is a lot closer to your work.

Under these circumstances, I can see why a lot of companies might just start looking for STEM degrees from known programs in a way they don't really with SEs.

The Wright brothers never had a pilots license.

No, but they did own a successful bike shop for the better part of a decade. Don't buy the narrative that the first airplane only cost $28,000 so someone with the same grit as the Wright brothers could have achieved that first flight. Or do, but do be careful not to draw unrealistic conclusions.

If you have a decade of industry experience, no one cares that you went to some no-name college. It's pretty easy to get callbacks as a senior software developer. But don't mistake that for meaning that educational background is irrelevant. It's far harder to get callbacks if your resume has a bootcamp for education, and no experience. Throw in a felony criminal record, and the job you'll get a Lyft is fixing bicycles for $17/hr. Which isn't a bad job, actually, but it's a far cry from $200k/yr. Meanwhile, someone at an internship at Google or Facebook while working on two degrees from MIT will be making the equivalent to $100k before ever graduating.

Experience matters far more than education, and the software industry isn't some egalitarian ideal, no matter how many millionaires were minted in the 90's and 2000's, and continue to get minted.

The argument that someone could go make their own app and sidestep the need to get a pilot's license is a poor one. If you look at all the shovelware, spyware, and straight up scams on both Apple and Google's app stores, it's clear that there's more to being a successful app developer than writing a good app, and the exceptions there (like Christian Selig) are akin to literal rock stars. Good for them and all, but the rock star's backup singers' names and stories get lost to history, nor do they get the same fame or fortune.

It's like when exceptional black, women candidates are held up as an example of equality. The exceptional candidate isn't the one to ask about, truly exceptional people always bubble up. Where do the average, or lower-than-average candidates (with reasonable educations) end up? How many don't even make it into the field, in a failure-to-launch scenario because they never get that first break that you did?

The Wright brothers never had a pilots license, but who here's heard about Charlie Taylor, their machinist?

The Wright brothers weren't trying to get hired by large, inefficient at hiring, aeronautics firms.

The idea is that if you don't need a license or a degree to work in new fields. Software engineering is full of new fields in their infancy.

To say you only need a certain background to work is horribly misguided. You can be productive in many fields with a wide array of knowledge and education.

I'm not saying a frontend developer can write novel ML algorithms, but surely they can contribute in other capacities (like creating interfaces to work with the novel ML algorithms, which is meaningful in itself and requires new UX paradigms surely).

You're completely misinterpreting my point, and perhaps conflating is and ought.

In the industry, your educational background does matter, especially for the type of firm that asks leetcode questions.

I was not saying you need a certain background to be able to be productive in tech, that is a strawman.

But I would defend that your educational background is a signal (very far from a perfect one) at how productive you would be at knowledge work.

if they had to pilot modern aircrafts with much more complicated controls, carrying hundreds of passengers they would definitely be required to have one

Is Harvard known for having a particularly strong ML program compared to other schools which aren't household names, like UIUC and Georgia Tech?

Per capita it is probably stronger than many schools, overall I doubt it is better - and certainly not than top CS schools.

That said, in undergrad for ML, I think some of the more important things are giving you a strong basis in linear algebra, vector calculus, and numerical computing - and I certainly got that there.

Ah I think it's overrated signalling. I've worked in R&D tech teams where people doing some of the best work on say functional language compilers and authoring type theory papers haven't had degrees. Lead of that team had a BSc. Hired many PhDs but there wasn't much of a correlation between that and output.

Oh - I wasn't trying to say it's a good signal. PhDs in particular I think are overrated as a signal - but maybe I'm biased because I only have an AB.