Narcissistic College Graduates In the Workplace? 1316
SpuriousLogic writes "I work as a senior software engineer, and a fair amount of my time is spent interviewing new developers. I have seen a growing trend of what I would call 'TV reality' college graduates — kids who graduated school in the last few years and seem to have a view of the workplace that is very much fashioned by TV programs, where 22-year-olds lead billion-dollar corporate mergers in Paris and jet around the world. Several years ago I worked at a company that did customization for the software they sold. It was not full-on consultant work, but some aspects of it were 'consulting light,' and did involve travel, some overseas. Almost every college graduate I interviewed fully expected to be sent overseas on their first assignment. They were very disappointed when told they were most likely to end up in places like Decater, IL and Cedar Rapids, IA, as only the most senior people fly overseas, because of the cost. Additionally, I see people in this age bracket expecting almost constant rewards. One new hire told me that he thought he had a good chance at an award because he had taught himself Enterprise Java Beans. When told that learning new tech is an expected part of being a developer, he argued that he had learned it by himself, and that made it different. So today I see an article about the growing narcissism of students, and I want to ask this community: are you seeing the sorts of 'crashing down to Earth' expectations of college grads described here? Is working with this age bracket more challenging than others? Do they produce work that is above or below your expectations of a recent college grad?" We discussed a similar question from the point of view of the young employees a few months back.
Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Interesting)
... until the bosses have the same mindset, at which point we're all screwed.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, many bosses are equally out of touch with reality. Some even a bit more.
Anyway, you get what you teach. Many are taught that capitalism is all and that anything comes at a price. Would it then be strange that the same person puts a price on his/her ability (whether deserved or not is immaterial to the principle).
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
"Everything comes at a price" is a consequence of capitalism, not the goal. The principle is that if I value your skills more than I value X dollars per year, then that's what I'll be willing to pay you. If you won't work for less than X + 10000 dollars per year and that's more than I value your skills, we don't have a deal and I'll keep my money.
If you want something without giving anything in return, what you are talking about isn't capitalism.
Note: By you, I don't mean you, I mean them.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Interesting)
>>>If I value your skills more than I value X dollars per year, then that's what I'll be willing to pay you. If they won't work for less than X + 10000 dollars per year, we don't have a deal and I'll keep my money.
Given the current economy I was considering standing at the local interstate on-ramp with this sign:
"Engineer - Will work for food or minimum wage."
Ironically this is the technique our local politicians use to get elected - "Smith for State Senate". ;-) - I visited my alma mater recently, and I was stuck by how much changed in just ten years time. The students are doing "cool" projects that I can only dream of doing in the real world. (Example - Programming a robot to swim across a lake and collect trash.) It makes me wonder if they will be disappointed with their first jobs, which will mostly consist of sitting at a cubicle all day and writing documents.
In the effort to "sell school" I think some engineering programs are giving students the wrong impression of what the engineering career is really like.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Funny)
I am a tech writer, you insensitive clod!
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Funny)
I am a tech writer, you insensitive clod!
Not for long! I'm programming robots to do technical writing.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
I visited my alma mater recently, and I was stuck by how much changed in just ten years time. The students are doing "cool" projects that I can only dream of doing in the real world. (Example - Programming a robot to swim across a lake and collect trash.) It makes me wonder if they will be disappointed with their first jobs, which will mostly consist of sitting at a cubicle all day and writing documents.
I don't consider myself a narcissistic student, but I wonder, what's the point of going through years of education, if not to use it? Ok, there is the money and having a less difficult time at getting a job, but, I see it as a tragedy if a company some time to explore cool stuff because it's worried about micro-efficiency. Considering this, I'm reminded of something a friend (double major CE & Chemistry) once told me: Education is dumb because you work really hard to accumulate all this knowledge only to be placed in management and never use it again. I'm sure that's not true for all situations, but I do think I'd be disappointed to not apply what I've learned to what I'm interested in.
Its relative (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't consider myself a narcissistic student, but I wonder, what's the point of going through years of education, if not to use it?
I too want to do cool stuff, but the reality is that there is cool stuff and stuff that will make the company money. You may be lucky and be able to land a job at a company that does both, but don't expect it. The companies I worked for, that did cool stuff didn't last long because it was too cutting and the market wasn't ready for it.
Often you aren't in management because you were forced there, but because you wanted more pay (pay usually corresponds to responsibility) or you were fed up of being a lab rat or equivalent.
I am still hoping I will get my dream job, but I realise that it is all down to luck and hard work.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
And someone who did graduate, and today manages an IT company, I have some sad news for you. All that knowledge you acquired on college ? That is just the BASE of that you need at corporate . When you get hired, you are green. Not only in terms of knowledge, but in terms of company practices, market practices (many) and so on. Think of it as continued education. You went to junior, high school, college and now you are getting educated on the corporate environment.
You don't expect to jump from junior school to high-tech R&D. You know you have other steps before that.
When you finish college you are not ready. You are just closer. Keep that in mind, and make the most of your time when you join a company to LEARN. Learn from your tasks, learn from your co-workers, learn from your manager. As much as we like to joke about managers, they are making more money then you, so they gotta know something you don't (not necessarily technical).
You also need to faction in that, when you join a company, you are an unknown. The company will only invest so much money on you until they know they will have a good return.
This things are only natural. Unfortunately, most schools fail to teach this to their students, and the only source of "knowledge" they have are TV shows and such. This is not a fail of the students, but a fail of the schools.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Informative)
I'm going to give you the old-fart speech now, so you may tune out if you are disinterested in how business works.
I pay you $70,000 a year. You benefits and taxes cost me about 40% of your salary; we'll round it up to an even $100k to make the math easy. You will be "working" for about 1800-1900 hours a year - i.e. not on vacation, holiday, or out sick. If you are a gung-ho employee with a nose-to-the-grindstone ethic, of those 1800 you will already be spending about 20% unproductively - getting coffee/soda, going to the bathroom, chatting with co-workers about non-work stuff, surfing slashdot and doing adminstrative tasks like filling out your timecard or getting new pencil lead. We'll throw in a couple of days of training and round your productive hours to 1400. In all likelihood, you won't be 100% productive, especially right out of school. You'll take about 10-15% of a more advanced engineer's time, and a similar amount of your own, to figure out how we do what we do. You'll have to redo some things, sometimes two or three times, before you get it right. Counting the trainer's time against yours, you're going to lose about 40-50% of your time to learning the ropes, and another 10% to down time between assignments (meetings, startup, shutdown, etc). We're down to about 700 actual hours of production in your first year, and closer to 1000 your second and third, peaking near 1200 after that.
So you're "cost" to the company in your first year is about $100/hr. Since we have to add overhead to that it's closer to $130 fully burdened. The company, to survive and be worth the investors time (private or public) should be between 20% and 30% profitable before they pay taxes, so we'll need to bill your time at $160/hr. There are very, very few things which a fresh-out college student can do which is worth $160 and hour. What would you willingly pay a fresh-out college grad $160 an hour for (happy ending jokes aside)?
And you want to take some company time to explore cool stuff? At $1200/day in opportunity cost, I think your manager would much rather go to Aruba.
In case you feel I'm being flip, I'm not. I happen to be an engineer with 20 years of experience, 2 technical degrees, and I run a small consulting engineering firm. Fresh outs, by the way, bill at about $65-75/hr in the real world, and about 50% more in the biggest cities. Senior engineers at my level up to double that. Note that I'm ignoring high and low outliers in those figures; data is not the plural of anecdote. I recently hired a freshout. He's pretty smart, got a double technical major (engr and physics), and writes better than 90% of the engineers out there. He cost me about $25,000 out of my pocket the first year, and will barely break even this year - he might make a few thousand. Next year I'm hoping to make back my initial investment. Three years to break even, and he's not making $70k. That's easier to absorb in a large firm, by the way, due to sheer numbers and volume of workflow. "Fun" isn't really an option unless you land one of the very few cool jobs where all they do is fun stuff, or you work for a firm funded by VCs who don't watch the books (very rare), or your company just has piles of cash flowing in the door and can't figure out where to store it all (Google).
BTW - if you're going to be a good manager of technical people, you'd better be good technically as well as a good manager. You need to know your basic engineering backwards so that when an engineer comes to you and the answer they've come up with is wrong, you can both recognize it is wrong and explain - from basic principles - how to get them back on track. Once you're a manager, you don't have to know the answer to 1%, but you have to be able to get within 10% in your head (without a calculator or a computer). There are lots of bad managers our there, by the way. Don't become one.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
And even then, that just got me in the door at a big company. I was doing QA and tools work for a couple of years. I had free reign to explore new and interesting ideas, but I was still shackled to QA. There were a lot of times toward the end where I just got depressed, doing the same repetitive testing, over and over again, feeling my talent wasting away.
Eventually, I found a problem that was plaguing the company's product that I could latch on to and designed and implemented a solution during a down period in our QA cycle. And even then, I had to get it in front of the right people, that is, people interested in hiring me to work on interesting problems. And even then, I had great timing on my side. They just happened to need someone to take over a major project whose previous maintainer had moved on.
But I managed to get my project into a shipping product. And from that point, it was a (relatively) short jump to moving to the right organization within the company. And now I work on a great project within a great product. I go to work every day without worrying about whether I'll be interested in what I'm doing. I just always am. But I didn't get that overnight, without proving to other people that I was worth the time of day. It's true that some graduates do go straight into working on interesting problems and shipping code, but if you're not fortunate enough to be one of them, you have to make your own career path.
The whole process of making that jump was (for me) incredibly long, arduous and stressful, full of insecurity and doubt. When I wasn't implementing my solution, I was busy worrying about whether I was wasting my time or whether anyone would take me seriously. And when I had a demo-able implementation, I had to design presentations, set up meetings, and justify my design choices in front of people who were way the hell more experienced than me. But it was an incredibly rewarding experience.
Bottom line, my education didn't prepare me for any of that. The fact that I wasn't entitled to work on the exciting stuff, that I had to do the non-engineering grunt work of selling my solution
then the companies need to offer more money (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason schools are making their engineering programs do more interesting-sounding things are because engineering and CS enrollments, especially among US citizens, are dropping rapidly. So schools are trying to find creative ways to interest people in majoring in those areas; "training for boring cubicle job", funnily enough, doesn't entice people.
The only other solution, really, is the capitalist one: offer so much money that people will go into the field even if it does sound boring. But you need to offer a lot more than current going rates for that.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
"Unfortunately, many bosses are equally out of touch with reality."
Unfortunately, its worse that than. A lot of bosses have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Ironically as business is such a competitive environment, narcissistic behavior gives a competitive advantage, so they force to the top. It also sadly means that society as a whole is structured to reward the behaviors of the NPD minority, to the detriment to the majority of people. The core problem is narcissistic people by definition lack a lot of empathy. They are wrapped up in their own views and only want people around them to agree with them. They will get angry at anyone who opposes them even if that opposition is to tell them something which would help their company.
The way society as a whole is structured is why every country is run like a Plutocracy (ruled by people with money) even though some people in some countries are told they have a democracy. Its not a real democracy, anywhere in the world, as all career politicians are middle class wage earners regardless of which party they belong to as they all belong to the same groups of people with power and money, so don't represent the majority of people. Worse still, since the financial collapse, its highlighting we are near the extremes of a Plutocracy bordering into at times a Kleptocracy, (Ruled by thieves), where they help themselves and their rich friends to millions of tax payers money in their attempt to prop up and maintain their rich lifestyles.
Unfortunately, these are also the people in power, they make the laws, which is why so few will be punished for their behavior. Which takes us back to society as a whole is structured to reward these behaviors.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Funny)
A lot of bosses have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
How can I get this? Are there courses I can go on?
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes - earn an MBA and presto! Instant NPD!
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of bosses have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
How can I get this? Are there courses I can go on?
Lesson one: Never let your boss know you might be as smart as him - don't even allow the possibility that you might be smarter.
Lesson two: Suck up - whatever they want to hear, tell them that. Never forget lesson one.
Lesson three: As you begin to rise through the organization, mold yourself in the image of those who control your promotions. Play golf if they do, wear the same style of clothes, etc. but always maintain a respectful deference to their superior position, don't have the same or better clubs, play at cheaper courses (allow them to do you the favor of inviting you to their "better" club), tone the clothes down just a notch to reflect your lower salary, if they drive a BMW 7, you buy a used 3, you can still talk BMWs... if this is sounding a lot like lesson 2, it is - and never forget lesson 1.
Lesson 4: if you still have a soul, lose it. Anyone you have power over who might possibly compete with you in the future must be repressed or eliminated, discretely.
If you've gotten this far, I'm sure you can figure out the rest for yourself. It doesn't hurt to job hop 4 or 5 times so you can have an impressive resume story to tell on introductions, nothing is as boring as someone who left school, started as a mid-level tech and worked their way up to Vice President at the same company after 8 years - what could this person possibly have to offer, they've never "been" anywhere else....
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
"Unfortunately, many bosses are equally out of touch with reality. Some even a bit more.
Anyway, you get what you teach. Many are taught that capitalism is all and that anything comes at a price."
I don't see colleges teaching capitalism--far from it. But what schools ARE teaching are how SPECIAL they (the kids) are and that equal outcomes are more important than equal opportunity. It starts with dumbing down competitive sports and giving every person, whether they win or lose, a trophy. It's holding graduation ceremonies every time they pass a grade. It's not wanting to recognize valedictorians because someone's feelings might get hurt. We award the outcome, not the effort. And the parents all go along with this. So is it no wonder when they become "adults" they don't think they HAVE to put in any effort and they should get a bonus whether they earned it or not.
What we should be praising the child for is hard work, and letting them learn to lose gracefully. They need to learn that no one OWES them anything and they need to work hard and do their best.
But I'll go one further regarding the hiring--they get what the PAY for. Why don't you (employers) try hiring some of us older workers out there, looking for work, who not only have the skills, but whom you won't have to remind to not wear flip-flops or tube tops to work? And by "older" I mean over 40! I get really high ratings when I work contract, but I'll be damned if I can get a permanent gig. There's a lot of us who would be HAPPY to work for your company, even at a lessor wage, just to have some benefits and vacation time. We know what we're doing and you wouldn't have to babysit us or make sure we weren't goofing off. We get our projects done professionally and on-time. And contrary to popular belief, we LIKE getting to learn new things or upgrading our skills. And we're not likely to be running off to your competitors in a couple of years.
As you can see this is a personal sore spot with me. I have had supervisors go to bat for me and try to get me employed with their company. Unfortunately they weren't the decision makers and those in charge don't want to have to hire on an IT person if they can get away with a contractor. For those companies who are looking (usually for someone with 1-2 years experience)--well, if I don't get an interview I never get to show them what I can do to help them or their business. (And I do know the tactics of only putting the last 10 years of meaningful employment and not putting down a date of graduation.) But all they have to do is ask for a transcript or force the entry graduation dates on an online form and they can do the math pretty quick. (I've become very tempted to put in a "accidental typo" of 1991 instead of 1981.)
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the alternative to capitalism. The only one.
Hahaha
"Everything has a price" is a consequence of scarcity economics and greed.
Really? You have access to an infinite energy machine? No? Well then.. I suppose scarcity exists and isn't an invention of evil capitalists to put down the proletariat. Since scarcity exists then that means there is a price to produce anything, and that fact is where "everything has a price" comes from. To seriously believe otherwise is to not only deny basic economics, but our current understanding of physics. TANSTAAFL
much less than previously, though (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty much any mainstream economist will tell you that productivity has increased enormously over the past century, due to a combination of factors, technology probably being the biggest. Productivity increases decrease the level of scarcity for any fixed basket of goods to which they apply, because more stuff is produced than previously without an increase in resources.
Of course, you can take that "productivity dividend" in various forms. One way to maintain the illusion of scarcity is to increase your baseline of what you "need", so you always need the things that have just barely become affordable. Then scarcity is definitionally constant, because what you're really doing is holding scarcity fixed and varying your basket of goods accordingly.
The netbook trend shows the opposite way you can take the productivity dividend: hold fixed the things you "need", and enjoy the ever-decreasing scarcity by having to give fewer resources (i.e. hours of work) to get those same goods. Applied to other areas, it's quite possible to reduce the amount of work people have to do on average, as long as you increase the "need" baseline slower than the gains from better productivity decrease scarcity. Typically people haven't done that: do Americans use the productivity increases of the past 50 years to work fewer hours? No, they generally use them to increase material consumption; e.g. the average house size has nearly doubled. But that isn't entirely necessary.
Of course, Bertrand Russell went over all of this in 1932 [zpub.com], so it's not particularly novel.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm dealing with a manager who exhibits a high degree of narcissistic personality traits. In filling a recent vacancy for a software developer he interviewed two candidates. One a highly friendly and right noise-making guy and one a very professional, modest and highly competent person with a lot of direct experience in exactly the technology we use. It was no surprise to anyone when he appointed the one that threatened his sense of superiority least, i.e. the less capable one.
A month after appointing this person, he's shown little work ethic - bugging me with useless chatter repeatedly and not engaging with the simple orientation tasks he's been give and when after a month to work on this task he presents his work, he crumbles at the simplest baby questions. He's been hired to work on your standard PHP / MySQL combo. When asked to write a basic query to select a row from a single table, he couldn't do it. He didn't even understand the principle of a foreign key after it was explained to him multiple times. I later asked him to update the contents of a row and he couldn't even come close to that. And I find it even more dumbfounding that he tries to bullshit his way out of this.
The manager's reaction? He finds it hillarious. He's little focused on the actual success of the team and mainly focused on his relationships with people. I'm currently training this new developer in the basics of SQL and database design (we reached JOINs last week) but I might decide to kill him in the hopes of getting a replacement that can code.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Interesting)
That's why as part of the interview team you need to set up some programming tests that constitute basic pass or fail. Like: do basic CRUD in a pseudo language of your choice. Reverse a string of characters in a pseudo code.
Personal anecdote: Make sure the guy doing the interview can understand the solution. I was at a job interview and asked to convert an ASCII digit string to its decimal equivalent integer. So I said "easy" and just threw down the standard solution from my numerical analysis textbook (basically: int total; for i = 0 to strlen(s) {total = total*10 + s[i]-'0';}, which is the most efficient way to do it, as is done in java.lang.Integer or any other standard library). Guy says "no, that's wrong, you have to start from the back", and (amazed) I have to start stepping him through the more efficient, standard solution.
I did not get the job, bugged the hell out of me ever since -- to this day I don't think he actually understood the solution.
Re:Oh they'll crash all right (Score:5, Insightful)
because it's a dirt simple CS 101 exercise. You need a loop, array indexing, swapping values. If a candidate can't bang that out on the whiteboard with his eyes closed, there should be major red flags in hiring him. And trust me, people with nice looking resumes will actually have trouble with it.
Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Insightful)
....mom and dad always told them they were incredibly special, and would do amazing things.
It never occurred to them that there's a hell of a lot more jobs that are sheer drudgery than are a thrill a minute.
In the almost seven years since I graduated from college, I've never been sent overseas for work. I have been sent exciting places like Indianapolis.
But I always had a job during college, too. And because of that, the only thing I expected after graduation was a better salary (but not amazingly better).
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Funny)
I have been sent exciting places like Indianapolis.
Oh, I used to lie awake at nights, dreaming of being sent to Indianapolis. Or was it nightmares.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Informative)
I have been sent exciting places like Indianapolis.
Oh, I used to lie awake at nights, dreaming of being sent to Indianapolis. Or was it nightmares.
Little Rock was my favorite.... I actually have enjoyed not traveling for the last 3 years. Airports suck, economy class seats suck, most hotels - even the $250/night variety suck, rental cars suck, the food can be good, and it's interesting to meet the people sometimes, but hardly worth the rest. Side trips can be nice: Big Sur, the Swiss Alps, Oahu, those were cool, but on the whole, I'd rather stay home.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, it was over fifteen years into my career before I was sent anywhere interesting. And even then, you end up spending so much time actually working that I got very little time to actually go look at the historic European city I was sent to.
What most new college grads don't seem to understand is that everyone in the industry wants to do the fun stuff and go the fun places, and as a college grad, everyone in the industry has more experience than you do. You have to pay your dues like everyone else.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to pay your dues like everyone else.
You don't understand Narcissistic people at all
Only common people pay their dues, treating a Narcissist as common would be seen as a personal attack by them.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Interesting)
You have to pay your dues like everyone else.
You don't understand Narcissistic people at all
Only common people pay their dues, treating a Narcissist as common would be seen as a personal attack by them.
As a clinically diagnosed narcissist, I find this list to be pretty inaccurate.
1. Wrong. Narcissists do have high self esteem but it is built on an extremely fragile foundation of other people's opinions.
2. I certainly don't do this. In fact I tend to lean toward projects that are less flash because I feel like I can "knock them out of the park" with ease and thereby garner greater praise. It has to be just hard enough not to be easy, but not so hard that I'd actually have to try.
3. This is mostly true, but maybe the factor of ten is a little high ;)
4. True except that this implies that outright falsehoods are the norm. I tend to speak in half-truths to try an manipulate people's opinions rather than simply lie to them. I'm finding that not nearly as good at this as I believe I am.
5. No this isn't true. You have to remember that the narcissist believes the lie too. He relishes any support for his warped view of the world but that view happens to include being better than you and everyone else.
6. I'll have to report back on this as I'm in the process of working on it.
7. NO NO NO NO NO! Narcissistic people believe THAT you are always thinking about them and as such, they put every ounce of effort they have into making you think well of them.
See, I know more about this than you do.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Funny)
Oh dear.
I think I might be a narcissist too.
A better one than you, mind.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Funny)
I stand corrected.
It's much easier to pretend to agree with a narcissist than to argue with them.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, it was over fifteen years into my career before I was sent anywhere interesting. And even then, you end up spending so much time actually working that I got very little time to actually go look at the historic European city I was sent to.
It was a bit longer for me, but I was working in OS development. It wasn't until I was finishing up a system for a specific customer that I got to go somewhere interesting, and that was my first international trip for business.
As others have posted, traveling for business can be a real grind: you are typically there to do a specific job as fast as humanly possible. I work all day at the client's office, get dinner, go back to the hotel and catch up on my email with the rest of the company, then go to sleep. Repeat all week and hopefully go home on Thursday so that I'll have Friday for dentist appointments and other personal tasks that can't be done on the weekend.
What most new college grads don't seem to understand is that everyone in the industry wants to do the fun stuff and go the fun places, and as a college grad, everyone in the industry has more experience than you do. You have to pay your dues like everyone else.
The only time I get to do "fun stuff" is when I arrange two back-to-back trips to stay over the weekend. I've done it several times, either by plan or when forced to do so by weather (and a canceled flight). But, trips to "fun places" are rare, especially when your clients are in company towns that have little else to see or do.
However, the part that some don't realize: you aren't going on a trip unless you have the skill, knowledge, or experience to meet a need at the remote location. Travel costs are far too high to send people on junkets. Furthermore, companies are becoming more comfortable with various "tele-presence" systems enabled by the 'Net, whether it's a conference bridge, NetMeeting/GotoMeeting, or even full-scale video-conferencing systems.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Interesting)
you end up spending so much time actually working that I got very little time to actually go look at the historic European city I was sent to.
If at all possible, schedule a week, or even just a few days, of personal time off during your travel. If you're lucky, you can schedule your trip to include a weekend, but if you're getting sent to Europe for the first time in 15 years, I'd really look into the possibility of scheduling several days off to enjoy the place before packing up to come home.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Insightful)
While I think you're right about the attitudes of many parents, a greater contributor to this problem is in academia. If I had a dime for every skill that the Career Services department told me was instant top-of-the-stack material... well, I wouldn't have had to spend months searching for a job below my level of education.
Universities are still businesses, and one major source of income is bright-eyed young freshman who believe they will be able to conquer the world in four years, if only they invest $120,000 in a bachelor's degree. It doesn't benefit the universities (in the short run) to dispell that illusion.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Informative)
Business travel is awful. You fly somewhere really exciting and interesting - work your ass off, have zero social life, feel incredibly lonely as you wonder around your hotel, then you fly home. The important thing is to make up lots of stories of how great it was, all the crazy people you met, what a great bunch of lads your customers/colleagues are etc..
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Insightful)
+1.
I travel every week for work - fly out on Mondays, and fly back in on Thursdays or Fridays. Granted, sometimes I go to interesting places, but even then I rarely get any time to do anything fun or interesting.
Most of my time is spent working, and having dinner/drinks with the client and colleagues. And when it's time, I hit the sack (in a great hotel room where I get to spend may be 8 hours, and all of it sleeping).
I hardly ever get any time to spend with my girlfriend (despite the fact that she "lives" with me) or my friends or family.
Travel for business sounds wonderful, until you actually have to do it. You read about it in books or watch it on TV and it all looks great -- you go to fun places, you eat at fancy restaurants and unlimited free drinks that are paid for, you get to stay at great hotels etc. But what they don't tell you is that you don't enjoy any of it. Not a moment.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Funny)
I agree with you almost completely except for who to blame. It wasn't Mom and Dad who told everyone they were special, it was that evil, evil man Mr. Rogers [poetv.com].
Lowered Expectations (Score:5, Insightful)
"....mom and dad always told them they were incredibly special, and would do amazing things."
There's a great line from that movie about the math teacher Jaime Escalante, Stand and Deliver. In the movie, Escalante is arguing with an Anglo teacher, who is worried that Escalante is raising their expectations too much. She was one of the "villains" in the film, but she had a great line, one that should be stamped on the brain of every teacher in the world. I can't find the exact quote so I'll have to paraphrase it from memory here:
"
You've convinced them that they're all geniuses, that they can all be Einstein and Newton. But the truth is, most are ordinary, and one day they'll realize that despite what you say, they're nothing special. And they'll hate you for it.
Our school systems tell our kids that they all have the potential for greatness. Not just being good at something, but great at something. And that's simply not true. The truth is, most of us are ordinary, and with hard work, we can become competent, or even solid. And that's just fine. That's the way of things. As the saying goes, if everyone was special, no one would be. And yet, the "self-esteem" movement in schools tells kids that they're all potential writers, artists, engineers, presidents, etc. Very few of us go on to do anything like that. Most of us lead middle-class lives with middle-class jobs, with middle-class pains and joys. Many of us don't even get that far. Not because of any conspiracy, or bad schools, but because that's the state of humanity. That's what we are. A few bright minds, a lot of workers, and some dim bulbs. John Lennon was wrong. We don't all shine on. Very few of us do. Unfortunately, too many teachers preach Lennon's line at students. You don't want to discourage students from trying to reach higher, but you also want them to be realistic about the world.
Re:Lowered Expectations (Score:5, Interesting)
Our school systems tell our kids that they all have the potential for greatness. Not just being good at something, but great at something......We don't all shine on. Very few of us do. Unfortunately, too many teachers preach Lennon's line at students. You don't want to discourage students from trying to reach higher, but you also want them to be realistic about the world.
You misunderstand. Shining is not about being great in other people's eyes or achieving fame and fortune. It's about being happy with the things you have and doing what you do as well as you can.
What people don't understand is life under the spotlight is a pain in the neck. Very few of us would actually want to be there. You can still achieve great things in your own life. They just don't have significance to others, and THAT is alright.
Teaching kids they're all mundane will make even the great ones mundane, and will leave them all depressed. Self esteem needs to be based on reality. Actually assess them on the work they do and give them praise for what they actually do achieve when it is clear they are trying their best or clsoe to it, but don't make them feel bad for not achieving higher. In other words, tell little johnny that 2 + 2 = 5 is wrong and grade him accordingly, but don't make him feel bad for not doing even better when he does get the answer right. Part of building self esteem is learning to deal with criticism and understanding the difference between getting it right and screwing up, and learning to cope with both. The school system doesn't recognise that and sees any time the child feels bad as some sort of damage. I feel sorry for kids who make it out into the workforce and suddenly have to cope with learning that their boss doesn't pat them on the back when they bollox things up. It's not the new generation's fault. It's the educators that need a reality check.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Informative)
...and what's so funny is that he gets the reputation of being a horrible, cruel person.
Generally, he simply cuts straight to the point and says what everyone's thinking anyway "You're really a horrible singer and should think of some other career." People are just so shocked by his lack of euphemism and unwillingness to play by certain overly polite rules of social interaction. He's a staggeringly successful businessman in a business that is ephemeral, superficial, and entirely about aesthetics: if he doesn't apply his judgement quickly and accurately, he will not be successful. The people he's reviewing are simply the products he will be promoting, and he's (essentially) given over the ability to choose which product is most likely to be marketable to a giant focus-group-vote.* That takes some courage, so he's GOT to control it by weeding as aggressively as possible. It's NOT a charity, so as much as the poor little crippled kid with the abusive mommy and the amputee daddy might *want* to be a famous singer, pity isn't going to get butts in the seats night after night after night in some mediocre auditorium in Vegas on a 3 year contract. Further, I can imagine it's a HARSH business. It's all about image and everything, and if your precious little snowflake of self-image melts at his criticism, you probably don't have the strength of character to be on stage.
* although I personally believe that after Ruben Studdard, he controls the voting behind the scenes, at least to some degree.
I have only once heard him say something that (by my standards) crossed the line, and that was when he told some woman she was disgustingly fat and an atrocious singer...and she was, honestly. But there IS a concept called tact - this was the selection process and at a certain point simply saying "No, sorry" is enough. (Then again, two points: first, I'd probably be a little cross after listening to 00's of people caterwauling and then being annoyed that you don't 'appreciate' their awesomeness; second, in that sense there is a filter-value to being a little intimidating in the early shows, to weed out the unserious long before they waste his time.)
Re:Yeah, well, you know what? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, well -- if you don't eat your meat, you can't have any pudding! How can you have any pudding if you don't eat your meat?!
Re:Yeah, well, you know what? (Score:5, Funny)
You have to give the moderators who recognize this quote a little extra time.
First they need to put their dentures in so they can cackle maniacally.
Then they select the mod category and forget to push the 'Moderate' button.
After a while they grow frustrated and slap the side of the CRT.
This /. tip brought to you by Wilford Brimley.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a uk based software engineer
There's the difference right there. As a European, travelling internationally is not all that different than domestic travel in the US.
The nearest foreign territory to me (Bermuda), is an hour plane ride, or several hours on a boat.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Interesting)
The trick is to work for a company that's gigantic, and has a workforce all over the place. Then get yourself inserted in to the most international team you can find there. Some team that works on a disproportionately foreign open-source project for instance ( like KDE, or for that matter just Linux ). Then you need to do a bit of extra work to warrant your being sent places ( write papers for conferences, etc )
Technical marketing is another mostly-technical field that involves a lot of international travel ( though you'll find you spend an inordinate amount of time in SFBay ) since you need to keep your ear on the buzz of the industry and make sure your company has a showing at various trade shows.
If international travel is high on your list of job satisfaction goals, you can achieve it. You may need to do extra work or take a bit of a salary cut to get it, but you can do it.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Insightful)
Well said. I'm a contractor, so that means I move from place-to-place. Utah, Oklahoma, Michigan, South Carolina, New York, Virginia, Maryland, Jersey. My job as a contractor means I live inside hotel rooms, which doesn't bother me at all, but it also means I can't "settle down" because I'm always moving.
If you want to get married and raise a family, you need to stay in one spot with a permanent job.
If you want to travel to "exotic" places like I have, don't do it through work. Do it through vacation using your own money, and take the wife & kids with you.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Informative)
What about those of us who were never told by our parents we were good at anything, rather below average than precious snowflakes. Where do we get our sense of exelence and whatever else makes us think we should be paid huge amounts of moneys?
If you want an edge, pay attention to spelling and grammar. It works amazingly well as a differentiator.
I'm serious. Practice it everywhere; email, Warcraft guild chat, even Slashdot comments. It's surprising how many senior execs equate the quality of one's written language output with intelligence or the ability to do. If you apply a bit of polish in everything you do, then you end up looking polished yourself. When everyone you know can write 1337 code just like you, the only thing that will advance your software career better than fluency in Hindi is fluency in English. Rise to the top -- use a spell checker at the very least.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Funny)
... sometimes.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't just your generation. sadly. This is every generation. There simply are only a small fraction of people who get the core of everything done that requires thought or initiative. The catch is these people are often the same ones who lose interest when a task or project is no longer challenging... which is where the others come in to finish it off.
Crappy system, but it's worked so far for humanity. The problem is, if you have too many highly functional people located together they disagree too frequently to get anything substantial done.
You will probably find during your professional life that you do 2-5x the amount of "work" as your comrades for the same pay. Eventually you'll get over the injustice of it all and learn to use it your advantage. Good luck.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Funny)
I'm nothing special, I've just been using computers and programming for a long time. I learned BASIC when I was 7.
But you are special. You are a special kind of asshole, the kind who thinks "Why oh why isn't everyone just like me?"
My god, you must be one insufferable twit.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Insightful)
To be completely honest with you dude, your post comes off just as narcissistic as the people you're describing. "I am in the top 5% in my class in ability (grades are another matter". So you can't be bothered to actually do the classwork, and I dunno, *prove* that through hard work and grades?
"Oh yeah my grades were lousy, but I was really the smartest person in the class". Yeah I'm sure that'll fly at the job interview.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Insightful)
You are right. What i miss in most people around me is devotion to what they are doing. In the school everthing works out for you if you do what you are told. Sadly most people never get used to the idea that to be among the best at work you need to enjoy it, so you better get positive about it or do sth. else. This does not mean you have to work 80hrs a week, it just means that you always do (think) a little bit more than you are forced to. Maybe it's ten minutes per day when you reflect your work. What did you do today? what did hinder you in progress? How can i do better the next time (yes, sometimes well all fuck up something. The best is to at least admit this to yourself and try not to do it the next time.)? If you discover sth, where you just dont know to to go ahead (or how do it better), there are colleagues. When you take a cup of coffee or tea together, *talk* to them. In my experience the people without a drive to do it *as good as possible* are the ones who don't see the necessity to ask other people. They expect that just *getting it done somehow* is as good as *getting it done*.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Interesting)
Excellent post, and I agree 100%. Most really good programmers I know don't really spend a lot of time interacting with people, either on projects or off. It's not my own strong suit, by nature. But I learned pretty early on that it was what you had to do, so I made up my mind to consciously attempt to improve that skill. You may not follow what they say, but you should always listen to it.
The willingness to talk and discuss a problem is something that's been cited as something that one of my clients (a repeat customer) likes. I don't try to tell them what they need and how to go about it, I let them elaborate on what they need, asking the questions that will lead me to a firm grasp of the problem, and then I tailor a solution to the problem rather than having a solution already in mind from the start.
Re:Precious Snowflakes (Score:5, Insightful)
You sound a lot like I did when I was nearing graduation over a decade ago (the things you describe really haven't really changed all that much). And while you might think you know a lot, trust me that you have a lot to learn, the first of which is probably a little humility. It goes a long way.
Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not until we all started working and actually failed at something that we got knocked back down to reality.
Obligatory (Score:5, Interesting)
"I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words... When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint"
- Hesiod, 8th century BC
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
And what happened to the future of the ancient Greek people? Conquest by Alexander the Great and annexation by the Romans.
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Funny)
Let me translate that from the original Greek for you: "Hey, you kids get off my lawn!"
Re:Obligatory (Score:5, Insightful)
"The boys i mean are not refined
They go with girls who buck and bite
They do not give a fuck for luck
They hump them thirteen times a night
One hangs a hat upon her tit
One carves a cross on her behind
They do not give a shit for wit
The boys i mean are not refined
They come with girls who bite and buck
Who cannot read and cannot write
Who laugh like they would fall apart
And masturbate with dynamite
The boys i mean are not refined
They cannot chat of that and this
They do not give a fart for art
They kill like you would take a piss
They speak whatever's on their mind
They do whatever's in their pants
The boys i mean are not refined
They shake the mountains when they dance"
-- E. E. Cummings, 1926ish
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but that's utter tripe. Sure, once you've made it you might not have to work hard if you don't want to. But, unless you're born to it, you do have to work hard to get places - even if you're lucky or even corrupt. I used to have this attitude too, figuring that I'd just do the bare minimum of work that would give me the chance of getting that golden luck. It got me absolutely nowhere - if you really want to build a business or launch a product, you've got to work your freaking arse off.
I'm not entirely sure where I got the idea that if I'm working hard then I'm not doing it right, but I know that it sabotaged me for years. Hard work by itself doesn't directly equate into wealth - if you're not working on something that won't be particularly profitable, no matter how hard you work you're not going to get much out of it. But not working hard means you're definitely not going to make it, unless you'd prefer to count on winning the lottery.
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
I really do blame the baby boomers. They grew up in a sort of fantasy world, where they could preach peace, love, and not war
Right. You're living in your own fantasy world where it has become convenient to blame the baby boomers. I'm a baby boomer and lived through those times. We had to fight to "preach peace" in opposition to Johnson and Nixon and their wars - and those fights were sometimes, perhaps often, bloody.
But it has become the accepted truth (and as such never to be questioned by those who accept it) that the baby boomers are responsible for all that is evil and horrible today. You might try pulling your head out of your butt and read some history - you'll find that nothing is as simple as you would like it to be, nor is it necessarily simple enough for you to understand it without work (which, I suspect, you're unwilling to do).
Re:Yes (Score:5, Insightful)
No, I think Apple has nothing to do with it. Frankly, I don't think any corporation does. The reason is that a corporation exists to make money, and thus to market to the people whom they want to make money from. Once a corporation comes on the scene and starts doing things a certain way, it's because it's *already figured out that that's what's going to appeal to people of that demographic*. TV, Radio, Apple., etc. They're not causing the problem - they're a product of the problem. The worst that can be said for them is that because of the power of their machine, they take what could have been an easily managed problem that already exists and throw it all out of proportion.
No. It's the parents. If parents would parent responsibly, make sure their kids did stuff that benefited them rather than damaged, held their teachers' feet to the fire to do the same thing... we wouldn't be hearing about any of this.
Apple., etc., only has an inroad into the psyche of children because there's a parent shaped hole that isn't filled.
As a young college graduate... (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps I'm just more realistic than the average college graduate, but I'd really just...like a job. I knew, coming in, that whatever I learned in college was just the tip of the iceberg; if getting a BS in Computer Science really prepared you for everything you might see in the "real world" then why are there Masters and Doctorate programs? I will admit that a lot of my fellow college students thought that they are geniuses for one reason or another, but I'm under no such delusions. Hell, in this economy, I'd just like a steady IT job; but it has been remarkably hard to find one with the market flooded with more experienced individuals.
Re:As a young college graduate... (Score:5, Informative)
You know, Masters and Doctorate programs have nothing to do with the "real world" of non-academic jobs. There IS a lot that you don't learn in college, but you are expected to learn it on the job.
This may be true in the U.S. but its not true everywhere else. In many European countries, like my own home Sweden, a master's degree in engineering is not at all uncommon. In fact, for most engineering jobs a master's degree is required.
They give you a false impression in school.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not bitter. I should have realized this from the beginning. But I really wish someone would have pointed out to me that this was what the job market was actually like, so that I could have gone the EE route instead.
Re:They give you a false impression in school.. (Score:5, Insightful)
You do have a shot:
If you do a good job at one of those for a while, I think there's a decent chance of turning it into a paying job eventually.
Re:They give you a false impression in school.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I assumed that if he really wanted to work on compilers or kernels, then it must be a personal interest.
If he would view working on open-source compilers/kernels as an unpaid chore for "the man", then it's probably a good thing that he didn't get a job working on such software in the first place.
Re:They give you a false impression in school.. (Score:5, Insightful)
There was no special trait about Bill Gates that led him to the riches he has today, unless hard work (like it or not, the guy has spent a lot of time and effort to get where he is today) and knowing when a good opportunity was passing his way (hello, QDOS!) are somehow special traits.
A virtuous man ensures fairness of opportunity, not fairness of outcome. Attempting to create a fairness of outcome--in other words, creating the expectation that the world owes you something--is the first step toward a terminally fucked society.
A question for the submitter (Score:5, Funny)
It IS like TV (Score:5, Funny)
They just don't realize that the show is, "The Office".
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Education fads (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea, is that kids get praised all the time as a means of positive reinforcement
The problem is we told the kids that they are special and the kids heard they are special and everyone else isn't.
It isn't their fault. (Score:5, Insightful)
They've been systematically lied to. Western youth has been aggressively fed a vision of fun, laid back jobs that inexplicably pay huge amounts, coupled with an excessive consumer lifestyle.
Remember the apartments they lived in in Friends? Remember what they did for a living? Exactly.
Its why there was so much consumer debt - people thought they were entitled to a lifestyle beyond their means, and were willing to take loans to get it.
Re:It isn't their fault. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember the apartments they lived in in Friends? Remember what they did for a living? Exactly.
I seem to recall that the apartment in Friends was rent-controlled at a level that had been set some time in the 60s, and they were illegally subletting it from a elderly relative who had long since moved away. Also, the show had some good stories about the financial issues of people living in Manhattan.
Nitpicks aside, though, you're right about Friends (most of the time) and TV in general. But then, TV has always lied about a lot of things: everybody is good looking and has no weight or fitness issues (unless they're evil or they're somebody's funny sidekick). Bad people always suffer for their badness, and good people are always rewarded. Nobody is ever at a loss for clever thing to say. All complicated issues get resolved one way or another after 48 minutes of interaction. Etc., etc.
People, not "students" (Score:5, Interesting)
Might as well replace "students" with "people". The whole concept that this is somehow limited to graduates of whatever reeks of the "dirty intellectuals" cultural revolution mentality.
It's not graduates that are getting narcissistic, it's much of our society that's changing this way, of which they are but a subset. If you think that the people who don't finish high school and suckle on the NYC welfare tit for much of their life are any less narcissistic, you've got a dose of reality coming...
Our society has removed a system of intrinsic rewards that involve satisfaction from doing one's job well, and providing for one's family, and replaced it with a money-grabbing race for being buried with the most stuff. But make no mistake about it - this phenomenon has far less to do with education, and far more to do with the destruction of family as a concept.
This just in! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think no matter what age bracket you fit into, you or someone you knew as a post-student entering the workforce for the first time had their expectations shattered.
It's neither shocking nor news, and it certainly doesn't make you narcissistic. It makes you inexperienced, which is kind of the whole thing, isn't it?
On the other hand, there are more young people succeeding that do make it that far that quickly nowadays, so maybe you could say that the variance is increasing - more people expecting greatness and being shocked, but also more people going directly to greatness.
Furthermore, the example of one prospective employee thinking that what were in reality fairly standard and expected skills made him a unique snowflake doesn't mean he and every other post-student is narcissistic. More likely, in school he WAS cream of the crop, teaching himself new skills and so on. What he doesn't realize is that the people he's comparing himself to are now working at McDonald's; he now needs to compete against the much smaller group of people like himself. Depending on the school, he may have never met anyone else from this group.
Anyway, not narcissism, not egotism... just a mix of inexperience, naivete, and optimism/idealism.
Every Generation (Score:5, Interesting)
Every new generation is bound to feel superior to the previous, being fresh and inexperienced and self-confident in their sparkling new standards. Every previous generation will feel that the new children are annoying little pests wearing too-big boots. This is to be expected, and the attitudes usually fade over time as the new generation gets hit with reality and the older ones come to stand them.
Of course, this really is the one of the first times that it comes up in the software fields, as the field is relatively new.
anecdotal evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is based on nothing but anecdotal evidence. The person who wrote the slashdot summary (named, strangely enough, SpuriousLogic) relates some more anecdotal evidence. Now slashdotters are requested to supply even more anecdotal evidence.
I teach physics at a community college. Any generalization you can make about my students will be true about some of them and false about some others. Yes, I have encountered some students whose self-esteem seems unrealistically high. Yes, I have also encountered some other students whose self-esteem seemed to me to be unrealistically low.
If you want to show a trend over time, like increasing narcissism, you need quantitative data from two different times, and you need the random and systematic errors on those two data-points to be small enough that they can be shown to be unequal with a high level of confidence.
My default hypothesis about any educational reform movement is that it will have absolutely no effect on anything. I'm only persuaded to the contrary if solid quantitative evidence shows up to the contrary. My default hypothesis is that the self-esteem movement has had absolutely no effect on students' self-esteem, or on their achievement, or on anything else. Students tend to be pretty realistic. They look and compare themselves with other students. They know if they got an F on their physics exam and their lab partner didn't.
I've seen a little of that (Score:5, Interesting)
I see a little of that 20-something narcissism here and there, but it's not universal. What I see more of is what I would call intellectual stubbornness. Every so often I'll interview someone I think has potential and, even if they don't get hired for that job, I'll keep them on a short list for future openings. Along with that give them some suggestions for areas of focus that would give them an edge on the next interview. Do this, this and this and the next time we have an opening I don't have to advertise it, just hire out of the pool. Saves me sorting through the resume slush pile.
At first I was subtle about the suggestions, but very few would pick up on them. Even when I would contact them quarterly to see how they were doing, trying to show them they really were on the short list. I finally had to quit being subtle and just give them the right answers. But even when I did that, it's amazing how few would give me that answer back. One I suggested they get familiar with a non-MSFT development framework. Any one. Zend, Cake, Rails...anything. They didn't have to develop an app, just learn about one. An hour of reading. And the next time we talked they were in another .NET class. Then acted surprised when they didn't get that job, either. ????
That I do see that a lot in young people. They're convinced they have the right answers and won't budge or take a suggestion. There's no curiosity or willingness to explore. they seem really regimented in their thinking. Something I found profoundly saddening personally and, as hiring authority, really freaking annoying.
Why not an office? (Score:5, Insightful)
When the delta cost between an modest office and a cube is around $2k/year, I frankly have a hard time seeing why a $50k professional shouldn't have one if he wants it. If he asked you for $2k additional salary to work for you, you'd give it to him. So why not a $2k office?
That he's expected to settle for a cube is almost pure PHB. It says that the organization is more interested in the petty politics of oneupmanship than the are in their employees' comfort and productivity.
On the other hand, my eyes head for the ceiling when the guy who has been there two weeks starts explaining the half dozen major changes we should make to the business. Spend six months learning how to do it my way you greenie! When you're fully trained on the job, I'll be interested in your opinions on how to improve it.
More than just kids-these-days (Score:5, Insightful)
The older generation always scoffs at the younger generation. There is always a large component of kids-these-days to these types of arguments. That being said, as a 40 year old college professor who's been doing this for 8 years, I do see a shift in the behavior of students, primarily the average-to-below-average student. The bright students who are motivated and mature don't seem to suffer from the problems I'm about to describe. One big problem is that many students simply are unwilling to do more than a fixed amount of work that they don't want to do. In college they place aspects of their lives which are not academic at a higher priority and get annoyed when their performance reflects this. I see more and more of this. The main things are: socializing, work, and family. It's not that I didn't have those thing when I was in college, it's just that academics always came first. Many students simply refuse to dedicate the time they need to do well; it's not that they're dumb.
A lot of students really do have the precious-snowflake chip on their shoulders. A junior faculty member in my department who has only been teaching for a couple of years and who is very student-focused told a student who was struggling in one of his classes that her main reason for not doing well was that she was not working hard enough (and he was right). How did she take it? She went to the dean and filed a complaint against the professor. This same student is always passing notes and talking to another student in one of my classes. I have confronted them in class and they will shoot me dirty looks, shut up for a while, and start back up again the next class. The professor I mentioned above has spent hours and hours with another student trying to help her with the subject material and to show her appreciation, she accused him of "destroying her passion" for her major.
The precious-snowflake syndrome is strongly tied to the immaturity problem which plagues a lot of college students. I think students are simply putting off growing up, and I am regularly dealing with high-school crap in, for example, sophomore-level science classes (courses in the students' major even!) which I simply never had to deal with before.
When I am in one of my more cynical moods, I take great pleasure in the idea that these kids are in for a really rude awakening after they graduate in the current economic climate. Maybe it will be the splash of cold water in the face that they need to grow the f*ck up and realize that the world does not exist solely for their own entertainment, and that simply gracing me with their presence in class does not get them an automatic B.
Reported all over the place (Score:5, Insightful)
This is being reported all over the place. In fact, my wife read an article in Macleans (I think) years ago about this very thing. Overall, the false self-esteem forced upon these kids by our so called "education system" in North America has brought about a new horror in education. As in, most students today are what is commonly referred to as "mark mercenaries." They also have a gross tendency to lie or twist words or ... to get what they want. I've seen it used time and time again in attempts to screw over profs, TAs, etc because of a perceived wrong. That perceived wrong typically being not paying enough attention to the student or giving them a bad grade (that they earned). In fact, a recent example is a TA got questioned for not giving help to a student. What actually happened is that this student didn't even as for help. Likely in some twisted reality in this students head, the TA should have constantly come up to this student asking him/her if (s)he needed help. Because, that's what happens in highschool right?
And what makes it worse? TV programs that, including reality TV, that glorify people getting a free ride. So, now with the delusional aspect to the general mentality of todays youth added to there false self-esteem, they actually honestly believe that they deserve what they think they deserve. Regardless of the reality of the situation.
And what makes that worse? Universities/Colleges/etc are indirectly encouraging that. Because, if they did anything to stop that, then the students wouldn't take there (service) courses and the departments would be in big trouble. Both through the lower grades and the complaints that admin would surely get and the lower enrolment rates.
Right now, what we should expect is for this to get worse for a long time to come. Because, the Universities/etc (because they are now run like businesses and NOT educational institutions) have a vested interest in caving to these power drunk students. And those students are the *vast* majority of the student population.
I quake for our future...
Not one intern has heeded my advice (Score:5, Insightful)
I've had to deal with interns coming into the technology field after being coddled at college for a few years. I've tried to be friendly, polite and honest. Mostly that's been appreciated after a few months in 'the real workplace'.
I also took the time to talk to these interns at the end of their internship to go over how they would represent their work on their resumes. Invariably they didn't see what they really did. What they saw as a series of menial tasks was really "Performed X with minimal supervision" and "Completed project Y using blah blah blah". They weren't prepared to comprehend what a real project was.
One of the truly sad things was their lack of ability to troubleshoot. I know I've said this in the past but I feel it bears repeating. Everything these kids have done has been multiple choice. Their tests, their games, everything has presented them with a list of choices. Our games gave us a problem and then we were on our own to come up with what might work as a solution. Does anyone remember "You're in a maze of twisty passages, all alike." and a command prompt? Not a lot of pre-chosen answers there. I spent quite a bit of time helping them learn how to solve problems.
Lastly, here's the advice I have yet to see an intern use. "Find the job that no one wants to do, do it well, and you'll be employed for life." Seriously, everyone wants the fun and happy jobs. But someone has to clean the crap out of the corners and keep the place running. Fun and happy candidates are lined up out the door and around the corner. The one who is willing to do the jobs that require doing is going to stand out.
Now get off my intarwebz.
Upward creep in expectations, reversed by crash (Score:5, Informative)
One problem is the "middle class", according to the Wall Street Journal, now starts at around $250K/yr. Few people will ever make that much money. But most college graduates think they will, or at least did until Q4 2008. There's been an upward creep in expectations during the boom. This happens during booms; it happened in 1922-1929. It's not an age thing; it's a boom thing.
The extreme form of this is seen in MBA students. The major MBA schools had (definitely "had") become feeder teams for consulting firms and Wall Street, which, for a while, really was seen as a path to becoming a multimillionaire before turning 30.. In New York City, finance employs 10% of the people, but pays 40% of the salaries. (Well, it did; those are 2007 numbers.)
Being in the robotics field, I saw the better robotics people going off to finance. But recently, I was over at Stanford, and was chatting with a grad student who'd been at Lehman Bros. and was back in computer science, which now looked more stable than finance. The traffic direction has reversed.
We might even see smart people going into manufacturing again. Which we need.
Re:Blame the parents teachers (Score:5, Insightful)
But you are doing exactly what the article predicts that you would do - it's everyone's fault but your own. Yes, yes, they do share blame, of course they do. And I know as much as anyone that children are not at truly fault for how they're raised. But at some point, it may be their fault - but placing blame really doesn't fix the situation. Only you can fix the situation, and it doesn't really matter whose fault it is.
I'm speaking as someone whose parents really messed him up in many different ways - but ultimately, they are not going to fix it, I have to. And placing blame really does nothing but remind me of the past, instead of looking to the future.
Put shortly and bluntly, who gives a fuck whose fault it is, I care more about what you do with your life and who you are *now*. :-)
Re:Blame the parents teachers (Score:5, Insightful)
Open source? Internships?
I'm not saying it's easy. But doing the not easy stuff is what differentiates one from the rest. At least in the beginning, who knows, you might have to sacrifice pay for experience. But the investment will pay back.
Unless your parents are abusive, they are only there to guide you - your motivation and your willingness to step out on your own to figure stuff out is what's going to really give you what you need. Ultimately, parents and teachers are only there to tell you how to stick your foot in the door. What happens once it's there is entirely up to you.
I don't think I'm saying this right. Oh well. It's Sunday.
Re:Blame the parents teachers (Score:5, Interesting)
Maybe I'm just cynical, but does it really matter? If they want to sit there on their asses and bitch and moan about how bad their lives are, that's their problem - and it makes it just that much easier for people like you and I to make something of ourselves.
I'm not saying I wish it on them, really... but I'm not responsible for them, I'm responsible for me. You see what I'm saying? You can lead a horse to water...
It only becomes my problem when they expect me to support them...
Re:Blame the parents teachers (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the web contributes. You can find websites with ready-made "communities" for any absurd group. Facebook, Twitter and the like feed on the inherent ego-centrism & narcissism of the age group - as if people really CARE what you're doing minute to minute. It all fosters a false sense of importance and belonging that just doesn't exist in the real world. On the other hand, shifting the blame to anyone but yourself is another issue. Sure, your parents told you you were special, but you believed it.
We do kids a disservice by constantly telling them how wonderful they are. Fact is, people build a real sense of self-worth by working hard to overcome challenges, not by being given prizes.
Re:The real issue: "seniority" based pay (Score:5, Insightful)
While I understand where you're coming from, this argument is very disingenuous at best. Basically, you're saying there's no value to someone having more work experience in a field (or several fields). I can't count the number of times I've seen a problem arise (or even a request for suggestions) where the younger people throw out solutions that are quite simply moronic. Or they'll cost a ton to implement. Sure, it happens with "senior" staff, too, but oftentimes their answers tend to be on the more practical side. And it's largely because they're more familiar with the myriad aspects involved. Or they are a major part of the institutional knowledge that is required to competently resolve the situation. Unfortunately, many people never seem to realize this. And they're often the ones pulling the group down as a whole. So is it any surprise that they're the ones who tend to make less?
Re:The real issue: "seniority" based pay (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:First Bonus Post (Score:5, Funny)
I made millions selling karma futures, back before the economy turned bad.
Re:oh really? (Score:5, Funny)
Uh, guy? I think you're the one they're talking about in the article.
better solution: (Score:5, Funny)
Stick one of these [despair.com] up on the wall, and just go with it.
universities also have a different goal (Score:5, Insightful)
Or at least, they traditionally did, and we haven't really figured out as a whole what we want to transition to.
Historically, only a small percentage of people got university degrees. Professors were (and in many places still are) first and foremost researchers; their real job is not teaching, but advancing their field and publishing their results. A secondary job is research mentorship: they advise and supervise graduate students as the next generation of researchers. A tertiary job is teaching of undergraduate material, to historically only a small percentage of the population that had a need to learn advanced-level stuff from an expert in the field. Those people were generally expected, furthermore, to be interested in and to benefit from a well-rounded education rather than only training in their specific area, e.g. to become scientists who also had an understanding of ethics and history.
Today, it's more or less expected in many areas that you have a college degree. As a result, a lot of people go to university mainly as a sort of certification that qualifies them for jobs. They don't necessarily want the traditional liberal education, even the science version of it; they want vocational training. But universities were not really set up to provide that, and their staff are entirely the wrong ones to provide it: the people publishing CS research papers and the people who would be good at teaching a vocational programming class that prepares one for a role as C++ programmer in industry are only occasionally the same.
That's why we historically had separate trade schools and vocational schools, which did focus on practical skills, and had teachers who were focused on teaching such skills. But there's been a sort of prestige treadmill so companies want you to have a University Degree for a job that actually need vocational training, not a well-rounded liberal-arts education with mentorship from a PhD researcher.
There's a lot of possible solutions, of course. One is to go back to the old model, where universities do research and teach a small percentage of the population, and vocationally focused institutions teach most people. The most likely, though, is probably a gradual morphing of universities into a superset of the two kinds of institutions. Already it's becoming common to hire lecturers to teach introductory classes, and some schools are offering variations on degrees to let students opt between more traditional university majors or more applied vocational majors; often this also leads to a parallel split between staff who are mainly "teaching faculty" versus "research faculty".