Penguin Random House UK removes degree requirements for jobs

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

I can think of no reason to require any degree to put together web sites. For the most part, artistic type stuff like that (as well as photograph) is more about talent, eye and work experience.

It depends on the website. If you need a Wordpress-based site with some plugins and a (somewhat modified) standard theme, you don't need a degree in computer science.

There are more than enough jobs, in web development as well, that DO require master level degrees, but for most of them (at least not those in standard Wordpress/Joomla web development) that's not the case. A bachelor will do, if custom/non-standard sites are needed.

[rhadin]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Wanted: Book Editor

Minimum Requirements: High School diploma with a C+ average in English

Starting Salary: $10.23/hour

There are a lot of freelance editors with Masters and Doctorates who would be happy to be paid $10.23 per hour by a book publisher for copyediting. Publishers are paying freelance editors today what they paid in 1995 for more work and are trying to push those prices even lower.

One seeker of freelance editors, not so long ago, sent out this solicitation:

Hi,

Hope, you’ve true spirit while reading this email.

We're a leading company in pre-press industry and have hugeamount of work for copyediting and cold-reading on regular basis. I've got yourbrief details from web and would like to see if you're interested to associatewith us. The major subject would be Science, Technology and Medicine for Booksand Journals. We're dealing with International clients only so they need veryhigh standard of Quality and on time delivery so there will not be anycompromise on these front.

The proposed rates are as under...

Copyediting - $0.80 per page
Cold-reading - $0.50 per page

There will be a Non-competent agreement between us beforestarting the live project. Payment criteria would be one month and you shouldraise your invoice on monthly basis on/or before 10 day of each month.

I can clarify further if you will have any doubt on this.

Waiting for your positive response.

Best,

Copyediting speed for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Medicine) under the best of circumstances is about 8 pages an hour, with most manuscripts coming in at 4 to 6 pages an hour. With increasing frequency, STEM manuscripts are requiring what is called "heavy" editing, which usually means 1 to 2 pages an hour, sometimes 3 pages an hour.

There is no increased rate offered for experienced editors. The above solicitation was one I received and they had contacted me because I had 30 years of experience editing STEM books, as well as advanced degrees.

I replied that I was not interested but pleased to see that they were offering a "Non-competent agreement" because only an incompetent U.S. editor (which is what the company was specifically seeking) would agree to do STEM editing for such prices.

I can't imagine what this company was offering fiction editors.

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It depends on the website. If you need a Wordpress-based site with some plugins and a (somewhat modified) standard theme, you don't need a degree in computer science.

There are more than enough jobs, in web development as well, that DO require master level degrees, but for most of them (at least not those in standard Wordpress/Joomla web development) that's not the case. A bachelor will do, if custom/non-standard sites are needed.

In the computer industry, a masters is pretty much useless. I've been in the industry for 30 years and have yet to see a job were a master's is even remotely useful, much less required. There are a ton of programmers out there who either have a bachelor's from a diploma mill in China or India, an associate degree from a technical school or no degree at all. It's all work experience. About half the programmers that I know who have a degree have a degree in something not even remotely associated with computers. A lot of big corporations require a degree just as a filter for HR, but the smaller shops don't care as long as you know your stuff and have the work experience.

There are some specialized jobs (most academia, but some research) that requires a Ph D, and of course, the more fancy titles you can claim as a consultant, the better. Not because the actual work requires it, but because the people you are selling yourself to are impressed with fancy titles and degrees.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by pwalker8

In the computer industry, a masters is pretty much useless. I've been in the industry for 30 years and have yet to see a job were a master's is even remotely useful, much less required. There are a ton of programmers out there who either have a bachelor's from a diploma mill in China or India, an associate degree from a technical school or no degree at all. It's all work experience. About half the programmers that I know who have a degree have a degree in something not even remotely associated with computers. A lot of big corporations require a degree just as a filter for HR, but the smaller shops don't care as long as you know your stuff and have the work experience.

This way of thinking is exactly the reason why I see such a shitload of crap code that is hacked together; it works, but nobody knows why.

While you don't need a master's degree for many IT jobs, a bachelor often IS required, or you'll only attract people who taught themselves to write code. They don't have the slightest idea how to design a piece of software. They'll just start writing code and keep hacking until it, somehow, works.

There are some specialized jobs (most academia, but some research) that requires a Ph D, and of course, the more fancy titles you can claim as a consultant, the better. Not because the actual work requires it, but because the people you are selling yourself to are impressed with fancy titles and degrees.

I'm not selling anything. I write embedded software. If a bug is encountered, an entire factory can come to a standstill. It is imperative that someone can log into the machine, see the status of all the hardware *AND* software parts, and quickly find the part of the code that creates the problem.

Worst case, an entirely new subprocedure or component has to be written *on the spot* to get rid of some extremely nasty bugs, as a drop-in replacement for the old one. That can only be done if a piece of software is designed well. If procedures are entangled because the code was hacked together due to lack of good design, it's impossible to fix.

[DiapDealer]

My Computer Science degree taught me absolutely nothing about computers/programming I didn't already know (top of my class, by the way ). Just motions I had to go through to get past HR.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

My Computer Science degree taught me absolutely nothing about computers/programming I didn't already know.

That is another very big problem in the field of computer science. There are some people who *can* teach themselves programming and software design and do it well. You probably were one; I was as well. When I started my degree, I found out that I already had many of the books they used in the first three years, and found out a lot of stuff on my own. I firmly believe that we are exceptions.

Computer science degrees are set up for people who don't know anything about computers when they start out; the same is true for most other degrees. You can start them without knowing anything.

The difference is that, in computer science, you *can* start by knowing a lot, you *can* teach yourself, and so many people have come to the conclusion that computer science and IT degrees are wasted. For some who taught themselves, they are. For most, they aren't, or I wouldn't encounter shitloads of crap code.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Computer science degrees are set up for people who don't know anything about computers when they start out; the same is true for most other degrees. You can start them without knowing anything.

That's the real problem, in my eyes. Why would anyone be seeking a degree in something they've no experience with, or shown an aptitude for?

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

That's the real problem, in my eyes. Why would anyone be seeking a degree in something they've no experience with, or shown an aptitude for?

I think it's quite possible. Someone may like computers. They may have tinkered around with some stuff like the Scratch programming environment, or the Lego Mindstorms set, using the block diagram programming interface. Maybe then they'd like to learn the real thing.

I wouldn't expect someone going to medical school to know half of the course already. He/she may be able to dissect a frog or something, be good with biology and such, but no more.

Still, I do think that CS courses start too far down the ladder and spend too much time on the easy parts. "What is variable? What is a constant? How to write a function?", that sort of stuff. It has to be in there, but it can be one lesson, not an entire course in programming basics.

[DiapDealer]

I remain unconvinced that "good" programming skills can be taught. I just don't think the world's best programmers are products of academia.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

I remain unconvinced that "good" programming skills can be taught. I just don't think the world's best programmers are products of academia.

Maybe programming skills can't be taught, but software engineering concepts certainly can be. A good programmer will, at some point, find out about best practices, and the best way to lay out modules, objects, and functions, but this knowledge is certainly teachable.

That is the one thing I got out of my CS degree.When starting out, I already was at the level of being able to program a (simple) chess program/engine in Pascal/Delphi as well as in C and C++. I also had some rudimentary knowledge of how to keep a complex program manageable, but I didn't know anything about actual software engineering and architecture.

And THAT is the one thing I'm always seeing. The organization and separation of modules, objects, and functions is badly done. Responsibilities are handled badly. It is unacceptable that the behavior of Module B changes, because code in Module A was edited.

This is stuff that can be learned; and that is why, in the Netherlands, many institutions are now teaching Software Engineering instead of hard core Computer Science. Much less math, much less "how the computer works internally", much more engineering.

My degree basically was computer science with the extreme hard core CS ripped out (so no writing a compiler or kernel) and replaced with software engineering.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by rhadin

One seeker of freelance editors, not so long ago, sent out this solicitation:

Reminds me of a man by the name of Findthee Swing...

I replied that I was not interested but pleased to see that they were offering a "Non-competent agreement" because only an incompetent U.S. editor (which is what the company was specifically seeking) would agree to do STEM editing for such prices.

How on earth did someone that incompetent end up in a job involving the written word?

[pwalker8]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

My Computer Science degree taught me absolutely nothing about computers/programming I didn't already know (top of my class, by the way ). Just motions I had to go through to get past HR.

My computer degree (ICS from GT) taught me a lot about computers and programming. When I was coming up, most programmers either programmed in Basic or assembly, so structured programming was something new to me. On the other hand, a lot of programming jobs back then involved assembly language. Probably 80% of what I learned (compilers, AI, math theory, etc...) has not been used in my programming career, however, I will say that the basic framework of knowledge that I developed helped me learn new languages and skills, something that seems pretty tough for many of my coworkers.

Yes, there are a lot of hack and slash programmers out there, but I suspect it's more to do with a lack of aptitude than a lack of knowledge.

[Shane R]

My degree opened doors, and was helpful at my first few jobs, but as my career advances it's my efforts and continuing self-education that keep me employed.

[murg]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

This way of thinking is exactly the reason why I see such a shitload of crap code that is hacked together; it works, but nobody knows why.

While you don't need a master's degree for many IT jobs, a bachelor often IS required, or you'll only attract people who taught themselves to write code. They don't have the slightest idea how to design a piece of software. They'll just start writing code and keep hacking until it, somehow, works.

My experience is that a programmer's education level has absolutely no relation on their ability to program, nor the quality of the resulting code.

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I'm not selling anything. I write embedded software. If a bug is encountered, an entire factory can come to a standstill. It is imperative that someone can log into the machine, see the status of all the hardware *AND* software parts, and quickly find the part of the code that creates the problem.

Worst case, an entirely new subprocedure or component has to be written *on the spot* to get rid of some extremely nasty bugs, as a drop-in replacement for the old one. That can only be done if a piece of software is designed well. If procedures are entangled because the code was hacked together due to lack of good design, it's impossible to fix.

Emergency fixes of the sort you describe have nothing to do with well designed code. You find out where the broken bit is, figure out the fix, and apply it, regardless of the underlying quality of the system.

I'll grant you that the process is easier if the system is well designed...

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by murg

My experience is that a programmer's education level has absolutely no relation on their ability to program, nor the quality of the resulting code.

In that case, your experience is different to mine.

I've seen a lot of code, especially with self-taught web developers, that I was able to crash within minutes. Sometimes that could be done just by requesting a file called "FILE" instead of "file". File not found, big fat PHP error.

"Shit. I didn't know Linux/Unix was case sensitive." (Development on Windows does not catch these errors, and then your software falls apart when uploaded to a Linux/Unix webhost.)

Hey, the site puts parameters in the URL. Seems to work... but what happens when I change "?param=0" to "param=-1"? Crash. Cool, I can now see a huge amount of parameter info about the site. Look at that. "?login=0". Can I login by making it "?login=1" by hand, even without providing a username or password? Yes!

"Oops..."

Believe it or not, but these simple things often get overlooked by self-taught programmers/software engineers, especially when just starting out. While stuff like this is self-evident for people who know it, this is not the case for everyone. In your education, you get taught stuff like that.

Emergency fixes of the sort you describe have nothing to do with well designed code. You find out where the broken bit is, figure out the fix, and apply it, regardless of the underlying quality of the system.

Not true. Some of those systems are so extremely interconnected and interdependent due to bad design that changing something in one module will break another module.