6 ms·

I have had a similar problem - interviewed dozens of people with exactly that pattern and they were universally clueless. No idea how seemingly-good Masters pro

I have had a similar problem - interviewed dozens of people with exactly that pattern and they were universally clueless. No idea how seemingly-good Masters programs bring in so many people with zero basic CS knowledge.

chaosphere2112 10y ago
My alma mater has a great undergrad program, but an absolutely awful masters. I've been told that they don't have the resources to teach it, and that the college keeps sending recruiters throughout Asia to pick up as many foreign students as possible for the extra tuition money, though that might have just been a bitter professor.
- WhitneyLand 10y ago
  Sounds like CSU Chico.
- danieltillett 10y ago
  Masters programs are run as a cash cows for many universities to be filled will anyone who can fog a mirror. As a former academic I can tell you that there are literally different marking criteria for overseas masters students than local undergraduates.
  - shostack 10y ago
    Is that knowledge transparently available to students? How does it impact the curve? I imagine quite many would be upset if they found out they were not being held to equal standards, and would probably point to foreign students paying more as the reason.
    - danieltillett 10y ago
      >Is that knowledge transparently available to students? How does it impact the curve? Of course not. You find out when the head of school tells you that it is your fault that all the masters students failed the subject and that you need to fix the situation. If you are dumb enough to ignore the hint the head of school gets someone else to re-mark the exams - either way the cash keeps flowing.
  - DavidHm 10y ago
    That is fascinating. Anecdotally, in European universities, bachelors are the "get in as many people as we can for the tuition fees", while masters are the "let's be as selective as we can get away with".
    - palunon 10y ago
      Sometimes it's even worse... For example, in France, a university is required by law not to be selective for it's first year programs, as long as the candidate graduated high school.
      - DavidHm 10y ago
        So...what is that, first come first served basis? I assume there's an upper limit on the number of students an university can take in for the first year, determined by staff and classroom availability.
  - daemin 10y ago
    Yep, that's how I remember it in Australia. The honours students had more respect and were more skilled than the masters students.
- ryuker16 10y ago
  Myguess is he's not pocketing the asian tuition money.
Devthrowaway81 10y ago
Simple - it's no different than a seemingly good white American programming teacher pursing masters degree, yet screaming "JavaScript" is not a prog language in front of the whole class. 33% of all American, Asian, or Southeast Asian programmers suck (hard). Since China or India has 3 times the population of US. The absolute number turns out to be higher. Don't act surprise. I could easily challenge you on a simple algorithm and mathematics problems, and see your American ass turn yellow. Get it.
noobermin 10y ago
As someone who might apply once I get my PhD, what does basic CS knowledge mean for you? Like what a tree is or fizzbuzz? Hopefully it isn't that terrible...how someone can make it through any amount of CS related schooling and not know the basics? Somewhat related anecdote, I do computational physics. I once attended "training seminar[0]" put on by the funders for using DOD supercomputers, and there was this soon-to-be-minted computer science PhD student who was also an intern. Most of the systems have pbs[1], a batch system that prioritizes jobs from users based by amount of requested time, number of nodes, etc. The seminar leader (and I have before) referred to it loosely as a queue, because it sort of is, and the CS guy kept interrupting the talk (may be two or so times) to point out that PBS really wasn't a "queue" because it didn't respect FIFO in a strict sense... I mean, sure, he did know what a queue was, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the most interesting problem you could have. [0] there was one fact I found useful, which was where to find their docs online. Other than that, it was the sort of stuff you can find by just reading man pages and such. Waste of time but checked off a box for the internship which made the funders happy, I suppose. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Batch_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Batch_System
- arcanus 10y ago
  Weird. No one else would want a scheduler to be FIFO, either. Rather, the actual optimization that is performed by slurm, pbs, etc. under the hood is pretty interesting. The point of schedulers is much more complicated than a straightforward queue, as they seek to project how best to utilize system resources into the future. Strange he would be so pedantic. Everyone in HPC certainly does call it a queue, as you noted.
  - conjectures 10y ago
    Yeah, because it is a queue in the ordinary English sense.
  - dekhn 10y ago
    Common problem with programmers: when they learn a term means something, they associate that term absolutely with that meaning (common in other fields with people who are highly analytical, IME). The HPC people are referring to a "job queue", rather than a "ADT queue". Those are distinct things, the ADT queue is a much more restrictive defintion, but it's not an exclusive one. HPC queues are more like priority queues with complex ranking functions (and queues of queues), just like real-life queues where people can cut by paying more money (first class airline ticket).
beambot 10y ago
Easy... money. Graduate classes are required to pull in top-tier researchers and grants, but they have relatively-fixed overhead costs for teaching (eg. professor salary). Want to maximize the return on that fixed overhead? Add more students. Many public and private universities are "Masters factories" for budget reasons. They typically filter (strongly!) between completion of MS and entry into PhD programs. (Identifying such Universities will be left as an exercise to the reader.)
ryuker16 10y ago
Foreign students are a cash cow for usa colleges. If you cant get into the ivy league of your own country, usa schools are a backdoor prestige option for the wealthy.

chaosphere2112 10y ago

My alma mater has a great undergrad program, but an absolutely awful masters. I've been told that they don't have the resources to teach it, and that the college keeps sending recruiters throughout Asia to pick up as many foreign students as possible for the extra tuition money, though that might have just been a bitter professor.

WhitneyLand 10y ago
Sounds like CSU Chico.
danieltillett 10y ago
Masters programs are run as a cash cows for many universities to be filled will anyone who can fog a mirror. As a former academic I can tell you that there are literally different marking criteria for overseas masters students than local undergraduates.
- shostack 10y ago
  Is that knowledge transparently available to students? How does it impact the curve? I imagine quite many would be upset if they found out they were not being held to equal standards, and would probably point to foreign students paying more as the reason.
  - danieltillett 10y ago
    >Is that knowledge transparently available to students? How does it impact the curve? Of course not. You find out when the head of school tells you that it is your fault that all the masters students failed the subject and that you need to fix the situation. If you are dumb enough to ignore the hint the head of school gets someone else to re-mark the exams - either way the cash keeps flowing.
- DavidHm 10y ago
  That is fascinating. Anecdotally, in European universities, bachelors are the "get in as many people as we can for the tuition fees", while masters are the "let's be as selective as we can get away with".
  - palunon 10y ago
    Sometimes it's even worse... For example, in France, a university is required by law not to be selective for it's first year programs, as long as the candidate graduated high school.
    - DavidHm 10y ago
      So...what is that, first come first served basis? I assume there's an upper limit on the number of students an university can take in for the first year, determined by staff and classroom availability.
- daemin 10y ago
  Yep, that's how I remember it in Australia. The honours students had more respect and were more skilled than the masters students.
ryuker16 10y ago
Myguess is he's not pocketing the asian tuition money.

Devthrowaway81 10y ago

Simple - it's no different than a seemingly good white American programming teacher pursing masters degree, yet screaming "JavaScript" is not a prog language in front of the whole class. 33% of all American, Asian, or Southeast Asian programmers suck (hard). Since China or India has 3 times the population of US. The absolute number turns out to be higher. Don't act surprise. I could easily challenge you on a simple algorithm and mathematics problems, and see your American ass turn yellow. Get it.

noobermin 10y ago

As someone who might apply once I get my PhD, what does basic CS knowledge mean for you? Like what a tree is or fizzbuzz? Hopefully it isn't that terrible...how someone can make it through any amount of CS related schooling and not know the basics? Somewhat related anecdote, I do computational physics. I once attended "training seminar[0]" put on by the funders for using DOD supercomputers, and there was this soon-to-be-minted computer science PhD student who was also an intern. Most of the systems have pbs[1], a batch system that prioritizes jobs from users based by amount of requested time, number of nodes, etc. The seminar leader (and I have before) referred to it loosely as a queue, because it sort of is, and the CS guy kept interrupting the talk (may be two or so times) to point out that PBS really wasn't a "queue" because it didn't respect FIFO in a strict sense... I mean, sure, he did know what a queue was, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the most interesting problem you could have. [0] there was one fact I found useful, which was where to find their docs online. Other than that, it was the sort of stuff you can find by just reading man pages and such. Waste of time but checked off a box for the internship which made the funders happy, I suppose. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Batch_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_Batch_System

arcanus 10y ago
Weird. No one else would want a scheduler to be FIFO, either. Rather, the actual optimization that is performed by slurm, pbs, etc. under the hood is pretty interesting. The point of schedulers is much more complicated than a straightforward queue, as they seek to project how best to utilize system resources into the future. Strange he would be so pedantic. Everyone in HPC certainly does call it a queue, as you noted.
- conjectures 10y ago
  Yeah, because it is a queue in the ordinary English sense.
- dekhn 10y ago
  Common problem with programmers: when they learn a term means something, they associate that term absolutely with that meaning (common in other fields with people who are highly analytical, IME). The HPC people are referring to a "job queue", rather than a "ADT queue". Those are distinct things, the ADT queue is a much more restrictive defintion, but it's not an exclusive one. HPC queues are more like priority queues with complex ranking functions (and queues of queues), just like real-life queues where people can cut by paying more money (first class airline ticket).

beambot 10y ago

Easy... money. Graduate classes are required to pull in top-tier researchers and grants, but they have relatively-fixed overhead costs for teaching (eg. professor salary). Want to maximize the return on that fixed overhead? Add more students. Many public and private universities are "Masters factories" for budget reasons. They typically filter (strongly!) between completion of MS and entry into PhD programs. (Identifying such Universities will be left as an exercise to the reader.)

ryuker16 10y ago

Foreign students are a cash cow for usa colleges. If you cant get into the ivy league of your own country, usa schools are a backdoor prestige option for the wealthy.