Startups Tap a New Talent Pool: Pandemic-Weary College Students (bloomberg.com) 38
To many college students, the prospect of a year of school during a pandemic -- with virtual classes, restricted movements and no parties -- is a huge bummer. Some Silicon Valley startups, hungry for young talent, see it as an opportunity. From a report: Over the past few months, several companies have presented an alternative to school: a remote internship, aimed specifically at young people looking for alternatives to a dismal school year. Dozens of Silicon Valley startups are looking to hire fall interns, according to a list assembled by startup accelerator Y Combinator. This month, venture firm Neo organized a virtual career fair for 120 students and a range of startups, hoping to match pairs for internships during the upcoming academic year. And venture firm Contrary Capital is offering to invest $100,000 in five teams of entrepreneurs if they take a gap year from school to build a company.
Such arrangements allow interns to get paid and learn on the job, while avoiding paying tens of thousands of dollars for Zoom University. It also means that companies willing to improvise on hiring and gamble on younger workers may get new access to fresh talent. Ali Partovi, Neo's chief executive officer, said the firm surveyed 120 students who are part of its mentorship programs and found that 46% of them are interested in taking a gap semester and 21% are interested in taking a gap year. "There's a potential for a big shift right now," said Alexandr Wang, the co-founder and CEO of Scale AI Inc., a startup that helps people train computer vision. He said Scale would hire up to 10 gap-year workers if they found the right people. For many students he talks to, school this year seems like a "sub-optimal" option, Wang said.
Such arrangements allow interns to get paid and learn on the job, while avoiding paying tens of thousands of dollars for Zoom University. It also means that companies willing to improvise on hiring and gamble on younger workers may get new access to fresh talent. Ali Partovi, Neo's chief executive officer, said the firm surveyed 120 students who are part of its mentorship programs and found that 46% of them are interested in taking a gap semester and 21% are interested in taking a gap year. "There's a potential for a big shift right now," said Alexandr Wang, the co-founder and CEO of Scale AI Inc., a startup that helps people train computer vision. He said Scale would hire up to 10 gap-year workers if they found the right people. For many students he talks to, school this year seems like a "sub-optimal" option, Wang said.
university of phoenix or devry mrs hill? (Score:1)
university of phoenix or devry mrs hill?
Re:university of phoenix or devry mrs hill? (Score:4, Interesting)
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But at least they been on line for years unlike places like Brown University.
The problem is the H1-B program (Score:2)
Short of legislation I don't see a way to change that either.
problem wiht gap years... (Score:3)
The big issue with gap years is that some schools make you re-apply, etc to the school as a whole much less whatever degree program you were interested in if you miss more than 2 major terms in a row (ie, fall and spring - summer usually doesn't count). Also, you may fall under new graduation requirements, suddenly finding yourself having to take a few more classes (or different classes) than you planned on.
new graduation requirements like must take bridge (Score:3)
new graduation requirements like must take bridge but will some schools force people to take an online to on site bridge class after this covid is over?
You also lose all your scholarships (Score:2)
Not to mention an extra year of supporting the kid. Yeah, in this case the kids will have jobs... low paying entry level jobs. My kid's out now and starting work this week, they'll bring in $3100/mo but their rent is $1400/mo. You need a short commute as a nurse starting out because you're doing 12-14 hr shifts and you need a big city
Re: You also lose all your scholarships (Score:2)
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Just thought of something else - them not being in school for a year means they may not qualify as dependents on your tax return next year or if/when they return to school.
This would screw me over, since I'm paying for my daughters schooling by working for the college she is attending (free classes for me, my spouse, and dependents are one of my benefits). If she were to stay out a year and not be eligible to be on my taxes as a dependent, then she would have to pay out of pocket. Sure, its a community c
WEll, it is nice for short term... (Score:2)
If you were to stay at this company, it would be great.
But I would consider recommending to students taking this remote internship to think of it as just that, a temporary thing to get some experience, etc.
But when this pandemic thing is more under control and we go back to more of what is normal, they need to seriously consider completing their degrees.
1. They already have money invested in it, don't waste that.
2. Often having a degree is step #1
having a degree with HR will they poo poo on line (Score:3)
having a degree with HR will they poo poo on line schools??? Still? as the big boys have dropped down some classes on line to just show up and pass.
What a great idea (Score:2)
We should see more of this! (Score:5, Interesting)
One thing that colleges are good at is identifying talent. You see a lot of studies that say: a degree from college X will increase your lifetime earning by 2 million, but these numbers are bullshit. They don't compare matched cohorts. Elite universities identify upward-bound people, and those very people are basically bound for success no matter what they do. To estimate the value-added number accurately, studies would have to compare people who get into college X and go against people who get into college X and don't go. While these studies exist, the latter group usually still ends up in some other college. And guess what: the outcomes of the two groups are basically the same. The fancier college doesn't build them into more successful people. It's just good at identifying future winners. Nobody has systematically compared groups of students who get into Harvard and go to students who get into Harvard but instead take a job in industry. But I bet the latter would do quite well.
Companies could really free-ride on the knack that elite university admissions committees have for identifying talent. Somebody should announce that we auto-hire you with such-and-such started salary if you show up with an acceptance letter from Cal Tech or whatever. The salary might depend on the university and major. It wouldn't have to be that high, because we're talking about 17-year-olds. They may be smart, but they don't need a fortune. Part of their payment would be the opportunity to take some part in the company's marquee projects and work under a mentor/academic advisor who guides their professional development. The company could also arrange something that looks much like seminars where these young hires are together and receiving lessons from the company's senior stars.
For the student it could feel a lot like college, except instead of paying, they're being paid, and instead of doing lessons, they're actually taking part in building stuff. For the company, they're getting the same people that they would hire four years later, once they have fancy degrees and cost a fortune, but still need almost as much training.
student loans need to be bankruptable and this is (Score:2, Insightful)
student loans need to be bankruptable and this is an good time to change that law.
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student loans need to be bankruptable and this is an good time to change that law.
If student loans can be erased with bankruptcy, then interest rates will skyrocket to reflect the risk and many banks will pull out of the business entirely.
Many students mismanage their student loans, but the loans open doors of opportunity for many others.
A better idea is to combine student loans with degree-related internships to validate employment prospects. If you can't find an internship sponsor for your gender studies major, then you don't get a loan.
student loans should be income based and fed only (Score:2)
student loans should be income based and fed only or fed only with some kind of bankruptcy
it's time for the schools and banks to take risk!! (Score:2)
it's time for the schools and banks to take risk vs unlimited loans that are in place now.
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student loans need to be bankruptable and this is an good time to change that law.
This sounds like a great idea for a business. You should write up the proposal and do an IPO. "Seeking investors for my new student loan company. We loan money to young people for college and collect payment with interest if they can afford to pay it back. Our loan contracts explicitly allow students to notify us if they are unable to pay and in that case we will close out the loan without collecting."
"Buy shares in our IPO now. We anticipate some losses initially but we're sure this plan will pan out in th
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Education in general is taking a huge shift in this pandemic, and it's quite rightfully causing questioning of our current model, especially for college.
The argument could be made that if more and more work will be virtual from now on, perhaps college should be also. But why would a virtual student pay to support extensive campus facilites and amenities they may never get to use?
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice troll post (Score:4, Interesting)
Rebecca Watson of YouTube fame lives in San Francisco as a medical blog writer. She did a video on what post-COVID San Francisco is like and it's just fine thank you very much. Nobody's fleeing it. A few folks had to move when they lost their jobs, but not all that man.
San Francisco is mostly full of tech start ups and they get their money from stock market investors. Our gov't implemented full socialism for those guys, pumping $5 trillion dollars into the market as soon as there was a dip. The start ups still have plenty of capital. Capital is doing just fine. As a result so is San Francisco. Some restaurant employees are out of work but they've got enough unemployment to get by. The stories of out of control homeless are overblown. If anything they're better post COVID because there's been a big push to house the homeless so they don't spread the virus.
Code camps work fine. They had them in the 80s before the outsourcing and H1-B boom. I know a guy who did one back then and he programmed mainframes for Fortune 500 companies. You've probably encountered his code in your life even if you don't know it.
The problem with code camps is you don't have a college degree, so when you lose the job the camp lands you nobody'll hire you since they'd prefer a nice, cheap, easy to bully H1-B. That's easily solvable by electing politicians who will enforce the law and only let H1-Bs in for actual worker shortages and who will fund code camps and the like (along with actual colleges).
Show up to your primary and vote. Primary elections are where real decisions are made.
Re: Nice troll post (Score:3)
Ya, I fell in the troll-trap and responded that post. I feel so dirty.
San Francisco is a lovely city. Go there whenever I get a chance, usually some tech conference boondoggle. It's a national treasure.
Case in point, Haight-Ashbury is the only place you can go to see real 1960s quality hippies ... usually near the Ben & Jerry's sitting on the sidewalk eating pizza. These are not Ashville, NC nouveau-hippies. I'm talking about Janis Joplin looking, "hey man", unwashed, denim clad hippies.
Admittedly, ther
The operative word, "talent" (Score:3)
Competition for individuals with the degree of talent required for a high-tech start-up is fierce. Lots of smart kids out there, but not many with the intellectual power and knowledge to overcome very difficult and varied problem sets.
Think of it this way. Advertised technical jobs often ask for applicants with somewhere between three and five years of experience in relevant field. The reason is simple, it typically takes that much time working full-time to grow into an independent, productive asset. Small companies don't typically have the resources to hand hold a new grad. It's expensive and the company will not recoup that cost if the hired newbe jumps ship after three to five years for a better paying job. Happens a lot, by the way.
There are certainly a small number of kids out there that would be value-added right out of the gate, but they are hard to find/identify.
Maybe hiring gap year undergraduate students would work for non-tech start ups.
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I don't have access to it at the moment, but a guy showed a job posting which asked for 3-5 years of experience with a particular programming language. What made it interesting is he's the one who developed the language only 1.5 years before.
Perhaps the reason employers keep whining they can't find people to fill positions is because who they're looking for doesn't exist.
Re: The operative word, "talent" (Score:2)
Lol. Guess that he's not getting many applicants!
IOW (Score:2)
The H1-B pool is drying up. We need to find another pool of cheap, desperate, minimally educated people.
Parties? Your bias is showing ... (Score:3)
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The notion that people go to college to socialize goes back at least to the 19th century. Thoreau commented on it in his book Walden.
I guess the idea really goes back almost to the beginning of Universities, with the goliards.
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The notion that people go to college to socialize goes back at least to the 19th century.
Well it certainly isn't to learn things -- at least not when it comes to computing. Throughout my career I worked along side many college graduates (from "good" schools) who were terrible coders generally- sloppy, writing custom code for things that were part of the standard library often (and poorly), etc. and didn't even understand a lot of underlying concepts. I found myself constantly explaining things to them and saying "didn't they teach you that in college?" and they would shake their heads no in bew
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What I remember from when I studied computer science back in the 70s was that the beginner classes were pretty big, but got smaller and smaller with each new level. Naturally, it was the more serious students who stayed with it.
Bear in mind that home computers were almost unknown then. So there weren't many self-taught hackers around.
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Amazing! (Score:1)