Google Has a Plan To Disrupt the College Degree (inc.com) 214
schwit1 shares a report from Inc: Google recently made a huge announcement that could change the future of work and higher education: It's launching a selection of professional courses that teach candidates how to perform in-demand jobs. These courses, which the company is calling Google Career Certificates, teach foundational skills that can help job-seekers immediately find employment. However, instead of taking years to finish like a traditional university degree, these courses are designed to be completed in about six months.
Google didn't say exactly how much the new courses would cost. But a similar program Google offers on online learning platform Coursera, the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, costs $49 for each month a student is enrolled. (At that price, a six-month course would cost just under $300 -- less than many university students spend on textbooks in one semester alone.) Additionally, Google said it would fund 100,000 needs-based scholarships in support of the new programs. "College degrees are out of reach for many Americans, and you shouldn't need a college diploma to have economic security," writes Kent Walker, senior vice president of global affairs at Google. "We need new, accessible job-training solutions--from enhanced vocational programs to online education -- to help America recover and rebuild."
"In our own hiring, we will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles," adds Walker in a tweet. "The new Google Career Certificates build on our existing programs to create pathways into IT support careers for people without college degrees," Walker explains. "Launched in 2018, the Google IT Certificate program has become the single most popular certificate on Coursera, and thousands of people have found new jobs and increased their earnings after completing the course."
Google didn't say exactly how much the new courses would cost. But a similar program Google offers on online learning platform Coursera, the Google IT Support Professional Certificate, costs $49 for each month a student is enrolled. (At that price, a six-month course would cost just under $300 -- less than many university students spend on textbooks in one semester alone.) Additionally, Google said it would fund 100,000 needs-based scholarships in support of the new programs. "College degrees are out of reach for many Americans, and you shouldn't need a college diploma to have economic security," writes Kent Walker, senior vice president of global affairs at Google. "We need new, accessible job-training solutions--from enhanced vocational programs to online education -- to help America recover and rebuild."
"In our own hiring, we will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles," adds Walker in a tweet. "The new Google Career Certificates build on our existing programs to create pathways into IT support careers for people without college degrees," Walker explains. "Launched in 2018, the Google IT Certificate program has become the single most popular certificate on Coursera, and thousands of people have found new jobs and increased their earnings after completing the course."
Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You are absolutely correct. I applaud this move by google. There is no reason you have to take English Lit in order to be a Cyber Security professional.
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:5, Insightful)
Just what we needed---more programmers that are ignorant of everything else. We have already crossed the threshold of it being easier to teach anyone to program instead of trying to explain to a programmer what needs to be done. This will just make it worse.
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Re: Democracy being handed over (Score:3)
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People learn what they want to learn. Forcing people to take classes on topics they are not interested in, doesn't provide education, it just gives them more work to do. You don't need to be smart to graduate college, you just need to do the work. There are classes that I have taken that I didn't want to take, that for the life of me I cannot remember even taking unless I really think hard about it, and I got 3.7+ grades in those classes. Because I did the work, didn't bother to question the status quo
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, Liberal Arts students are required to take some STEM classes. They have to take the pre-weed-out classes, though, so unless you're in Liberal Arts or teach in STEM at the college level, you'll never see these classes. They're roughly equivalent to non-advanced-placement senior-level science or math in high school, so geometry, trig, basic chemistry, simple physics, geology, anatomy (strongly favored by art students for obvious reasons). These are things that they weren't required to take in HS, or just barely passed.
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:5, Insightful)
People learn what they want to learn. Forcing people to take classes on topics they are not interested in, doesn't provide education, it just gives them more work to do.
Me am every day made told learn stuff I didn't know yesterday. Why me learn? Me know all need know. Me know everything everybody else knows already! Me don't need learn new stuff nobody knows. If nobody knows it, me don't need know it! Me no want know it! Don't make know,
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:5, Interesting)
You don't need to be smart to graduate college, you just need to do the work.
And that's why those with the degree are more valuable than those without. Without realising it, you just highlighted the major value in getting a degree - you prove you can do the work even when you aren't interested in it.
There is no job I've seen that doesn't occasionally require undesirable work. Getting a "GoogleDegree(tm)" will only show employers that the person is incapable of sucking it up and doing everything, instead of only doing the things they want to.
In fact, I can't think of a better way to weed out undesirable employees.
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Interesting)
I think our efforts at a "well rounded" education are largely misguided.
I don't think that programmers need a deep knowledge of physics and/or chemistry. It just isn't practical and most of it is forgotten after college anyway. Same goes for quite a lot of history. And foreign language (except in cases where it is actually useful, in which case it doesn't need to be mandatory).
I DO think that critical thinking skills are essential, for literally everyone, and they are totally teachable. But as it stands such skills are not core to any kind of well-rounded education, so we aren't actually losing that. I have found that it is very useful to have critical thinking skills in the tech field, so it would be in Google's interest to require it as part of their own training. I don't know if they do, though.
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Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Insightful)
No worse than many H1Bs coming from diploma mills in india
The huge question is whether Google will pay these certificate holders the same as college degree holders. Or are these certificate holders destined to become lower paid workers/contractors with fewer benefits?
Another question is whether these certificate holders will receive the same consideration from interviewers who are likely to be college degree holders. When these certificate holders apply for job at other companies, they will certainly be at a disadvantage. Then again, that's a good thing for Google as these workers have fewer avenues for alternate jobs have to accept whatever conditions Google gives them.
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Insightful)
If this idea catches on, what's to stop other entrepreneurs from offering substantive humanities courses free from the encrustation of critical theory politics and cancel culture that has ruined humanities education of late? These would appeal to students in pre-law, creative arts, and other non-STEM fields.
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting you think none of the philosophical lessons of English lit can be applied to IT Security.
Its my industry too an most of the people in it have a lot of technical and tactical skill buy zero strategic talent and this is probably part of why.
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:5, Interesting)
This is evidence of the acute stupidity outbreak.
University is not there to teach technical skills and product knowledge. It is there to teach philosophy and theory of thinking. It is for you to learn about the nature of everything, and its relationship to everything else (hint: "Universe" is related to "University").
If you want to be certified in Cisco, Microsoft or Google products, then the fact that that is what you want is evidence that University is not for you.
However, for most people today posing is far more important than reality. Hence the addiction to false news. "University" degrees, even fake ones, and more valuable than actual skill - particularly to HR staff.
In the UK, we used to have Polytechnics for learning about technical stuff (I went to one, and learned how to design CPUs and analogue circuitry, write software, machine metal with lathes and mills, and how to design loudspeakers using software and use an anechoic chamber - and many other skills needed in industry, space and defence).
Polytechnics were abolished because of the politics of jealousy. And lies.
Re: Democracy being handed over (Score:3)
*Hence the addiction to false news. *
Fake news, that ghost decrying murder most foul, and none have even the slightest idea that it could be bode poorly for the nation. English lit is for losers after all.
You are totally right, the trades should be separated out from higher learning. That said, trade education is great, I think two years of trade education should be free to high school grads to get them rolling in decent paying jobs.
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Funny)
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Even if you take out all the unnecessary courses, there's no way you're going to learn everything in 6 months. There's a reason that it takes 4 years to get a degree. It's because subjects build off one another, and there's some things that take a while to actually get into your head. It takes 100-120 hours to do a highscool credit, but that doesn't mean you would learn everything as well if you just jammed everything into a 2-3 week course.
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> Even if you take out all the unnecessary courses, there's no way you're going to learn everything in 6 months.
You're not expected to learn everything in 6 months. You get enough training to be useful, then they'd put you to work on projects at Google. Concrete projects at Google are also learning situation. You could learn to code for 4 years in abstract settings, then hit the real world and be brutally torn down that your code is crap, or you could learn to code for 6 months then get asked to submit s
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:4)
Well, a couple of things to consider.
First, will any other company outside of Google, consider these google courses/certificate at all when hiring?
I mean, for the most part, especially for a first job, the first thing HR uses to whittle down the applicants is if you have a real degree or not.
Secondly, well....English, being able to speak it correctly and be able to write coherently are pretty major skills you need to be successful in the business world.
No, you don't have to be 100% grammatically correct, but you do need to be able to have sufficient skills to write papers, give presentations, and generally communicate in a professional manner.
Re: Democracy being handed over (Score:3)
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Well, a couple of things to consider.
First, will any other company outside of Google, consider these google courses/certificate at all when hiring?
If Microsoft's history with their cert programs is any indication, yeah, it'll probably be a huge success and become a default industry standard. Tech has been moving from college based education to cert programs for some time now. And for most of the jobs, that makes a good bit of sense.
Re: Democracy being handed over (Score:3)
Re: Democracy being handed over (Score:3)
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It's interesting that you think "Jude the Obscure" is Marxist doctrine. I really didn't like it, but that doesn't make it Marxist. And neither is Shakespeare. In fact, the only Marxists I met in college were students. And they had rather simplistic views of the world.
What, in your mind, is the defining quality that make something "Marxist"?
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However, if you want to be an ignorant shit, studying under Google may meet your needs exactly.
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Insightful)
Sadly, it seems this is the goal more and more. Create a class of workers who are employable, able to to whatever tasks are in vogue at the moment, but at the same time, ignorant enough to be controlled by the political and moneyed elite. I mean, if you don't know the history of the labor movement and rights workers have in other parts of the world, you're less likely to demand more rights. And if you're not educated enough to be able to differentiate truth from bullshit, its very easy to sway your opinion through propaganda and conspiracy theories.
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Re: Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Insightful)
Its funny how those most afraid of Marxism are also those that don't understand the value of a WELL ROUNDED education.
Except we're not getting well-rounded educations in colleges anymore. We're getting 4+ years of SJW indoctrination into bullshit like "critical gender theory".
When you say "Well rounded education", most people think "OK, they get Shakespeare, Plato, Cervantes, Robert Frost, Tacitus, etc" in addition to math and science classes. But that's exactly the kind of thing that's being purged. Well Rounded now seems to mean that your kid got the Thoughts of Chairman Mao AND Lesbian Interpretive Dance Theory in addition to that math class where they were told that Math is Racist [twitter.com].
If this is what a college education has become, cut off funding, abandon them, and start up the job training programs. At least Plato hasn't been pulled from Amazon yet.
Re: Democracy being handed over (Score:3)
Re: Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Insightful)
Show me one example of an electrical engineering, IT, or other technical major being "indoctrinated". Please.
Most people with your attitude don't even have a degree anyway, but you're smart... really really smart.... just ask you.
Re: Democracy being handed over (Score:5, Funny)
Show me one example of an electrical engineering, IT, or other technical major being "indoctrinated". Please.
I'm glad you asked. I used to be a lecturer at university. Some of my lecture titles included Object Orientation and the Oppression of the Proletariat, Database Design and the Worker Will Rise. Parallel Drogramming and Death to the Capitalist Pigs.
And I distinctly remember my most brilliant exam question to this day:
Using the tenets of Marxism-Lennism and with reference to the theory of Anarco-Communism, show how the following tables can be converted to 3NF and demonstrate the extraction of names paired to addresses with a natural join and projection.
Re: Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, MY well-rounded education is THE reason I am "afraid of Marxism." I studied such subjects as history and economics, in which I learned all about how bad things were in most countries that attempted to implement Marxist ideas, including but not limited to outright genocide.
Higher education? (Score:2)
Sadly the "higher" in the term "higher education" only seems to reflect the ever-increasing pricetag of a questionable education.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Insightful)
No, academia had given up on its principals (At least their marketing departments)
What Google is doing is offering more advance trade schools. So where before you can go to a trade school to become a Nurse, Hair Stylist, Welder, Truck Driver, HVAC Repair.... It is just giving trade classes for things Like Programming, System Administration.
There are a lot of jobs that you don't really need a Full degree on. That required course where the professor spent the semester analyzings Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'urbervilles" Which costed about $700 in Tuition at the time. Has no impact on my job, if I hadn't read it. Other than realizing that some people really like over analyzing stuff.
That being said, I value my Degrees and my college experience, however I went into it realizing it wasn't the job training that I would be getting from it, but giving me education on new and different ways to look at problems. I went into College already knowing how to code, and I was coding for big companies while I was in High school. My parents (where one had an 8th grade education, and the other just got a high school diploma, but took trade school after) though college is just about learning how to do a job. As well the Marketing Material for the college reinforced that belief.
I feel in the long run the college degrees helped my career, but not at first. If I was happy to just be a Computer Programmer then I wouldn't need a degree. However If I wanted to be a Systems Architect where I need to look at the bigger pictures and at different angles, evaluate technologies that I never had used before... The skills I learned in my degrees from college was useful.
College isn't for everyone, and I like to see improved and modernized trade schools offer career paths for people. For those who go to college for the Piece of Paper to show to the employers just so they can meet requirements isn't what College was suppose to be for. That is wasting time of a young person life, where they can get a 4+ year head start on building financial equity vs spending 4 years without payment, and more time paying off school loans.
Re:Democracy being handed over (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean like what community colleges have been doing for decades? Oh, you want online? Yeah, we've been doing that for 20+ years too.
The difference between a 2 year AS (Associate of Science degree, usually doesn't apply towards a BA or BS although the few gen ed credits should transfer) and what Google is going to be doing (or a coding camp, etc) is that the AS degree includes some gen-ed courses - usually math through college algebra/pre-calc algebra, two English courses (one will be Technical Writing if you are lucky), one or two into level science courses (biology, chemistry, physics), and a humanities/fine arts class. The college I work for the rest of the programming AS is made up of Python (one course) C++ (1 course), Java (2 courses), Angular/HTML/CSS (2 courses in consecutive terms), MySQL (two courses - queries and then table creation/structure and using with other languages), and a intro to networking course.
And of course, if you already have some degree (that BA in underwater basketweaving or whatever) the gen-ed credits will likely already be taken care of, so in 3 terms (1 calendar year) it is doable. Inexpensive too - in-state tuition is about $100 per credit hour, most courses are 3 credit hours, 12 credits in a term is full time. And of course, federal financial aid, GI Bill, etc. all can be used since CCs are usually state-run and fully accredited.
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Lot of potential (Score:4, Interesting)
If Google's offerings can take hold and be viewed as valuable signals of basic knowledge they could prove popular; especially if they charge a small amount for the course. Project management certification by PMA is not cheap, if Google's charges $300 it would put a lot of pressure on PMA and others to lower prices. For $300
Career changers would have a viable way to add skills, and complement those they already have. For $300 each, I'd seriously consider taking all 3 just out of interest in the topics and to add somne skill sthat would help me in my with current and future clients.
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Students don't go to Uni to learn. They go to Uni to *learn how to learn*. Often Uni degrees are not even vaguely related to the work graduates do.
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Re:Lot of potential (Score:5, Insightful)
How very 1960s-and-earlier of you to say.
It's what University is supposed to be. It's what University used to be. Unfortunately the University education has been co-opted by society in general to become a job training program. University was never meant to be this. But young people started getting told by the older generation that "you need a University degree to get anywhere in life", and everyone bought into the lie. Bring back the vocational schools. Bring back the trade schools. These are the schools for job training, not University.
Hopefully the success of these Google certificates will lead to a University education being for those people who are more academically inclined and will give the unwashed masses the job training that they are looking for.
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Bring back the vocational schools. Bring back the trade schools. These are the schools for job training, not University.
I wish I had mod points for this.
Re: Lot of potential (Score:2)
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Yes, and I have seem Computer Science departments slowly turn themselves into othing more than trade school job mills. It wasn't even that long ago when there was a trend in hiring humanities majors for tech jobs, getting more people who know how to read and write documents, think logically, understand customer requirements, create UIs that the real world can understand, and so forth.
There's a trend towards wanting to hire low cost technicians than high cost experts. And they make up for the lack of exper
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Students don't go to Uni to learn. They go to Uni to *learn how to learn*.
"A university is a fountain of knowledge to which students go to drink."
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Tell it to Clark Kerr. ("The Uses of a University". Seems to be out of print, but was highly influential.)
Re:Lot of potential (Score:4, Insightful)
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But Google's offering isn't in any way comparable to Uni education.
Students don't go to Uni to learn. They go to Uni to *learn how to learn*. Often Uni degrees are not even vaguely related to the work graduates do.
Which is why employers increasingly don't care about them. First off, learning "HOW to learn" is something that's done in grade school. When you're older, it's supposed to be about absorbing knowledge and evaluating it. If you don't know "how to learn" by the time you get to college, you're going to do pretty poorly anyway.
Second, "not even vaguely related" is why employers have turned to things like cert programs when evaluating employment.
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In that in college, you are given assignments, and are expected to complete the work and turn it in on time without your parents/teachers hovering over you telling you to do your homework. A college degree shows you can show up and complete tasks over the course of four years, with the GPA reflecting to some extent how reliable you were at those tasks.
At least, it should
Not what I want from online learning (Score:2)
On-the-job training is fine. Too many US corporations refuse to engage in serious on-the-job training of college (or even highschool) graduates, preferring H1Bs sporting often-falsified credentials, since said corporations know that regular American citizens can shop their new skills elsewhere for possible pay increases in the future. H1Bs can't, so the training is not seen as a liability for them.
This . . . is not on-the-job training. They teach you what they want you to learn and then maybe hire you.
I have a plan to disrupt the college degree too. (Score:5, Funny)
Equivalent? (Score:2)
In our own hiring, we will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles
Ahhh, so they've concentrated the courses down to a pure major, and nothing else. So that's how much they think a "normal degree" is worth.
You don't need any of those boring extra classes, like history, foreign languages, art, and ethics. Also sounds like an apprenticeship, except without the "actual" work part and that you pay THEM. OTOH they can tailor to their exact expected future needs. If you don't learn how to learn but only "grab a language", then you're screwed if it's ever outdated or they
Some worries (Score:5, Insightful)
Affordable education sounds like a good idea. But counting a 6-month course as equivalent to a 4-year degree makes me wonder. They simply can not cover as much ground. Learning one programming language is good preparation for a job that needs that one language. Learning three to seven is much better preparation for a job that uses a new language that was not around while studying. Also, if the courses are provided by Google, they will naturally concentrate on using Google's tools. Again, for a wider perspective, it would be good to have seen at least some other environments.
All in all, I believe these courses may work well for helping people to get a job here and now. But I doubt any other company will equate a 6-month course with a 4-year degree even now, and less so when the specifics of the course turn out to be out of date, which happens fast with IT.
Re:Some worries (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course they are not equivalent in general, but what they said is they would count it as equivalent *for related roles*
Take for example the support technician position which is mentioned in the article. I have very little reason to believe a 4 year course in CS or similar would produce much better (if at all) IT support professionals than a 6-month course that actually teaches what is advertises (I looked at the curriculum).
In fact, personal determination and motivation (and maybe even talent) are far more important.
Sure those highly specific skills will age a lot faster but everyone needs to be updating their skills constantly anyway regardless of credentials.
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I agree. In my 4 years at college, I had only 7, maybe 8 courses actually related to me degree. That's about a years worth. The others were advanced mathematics that I don't use, required foreign languages, more advanced English classes which I didn't need, some economics and then a handful of random junk classes that I could choose from (like Arts, business law, etc..).
This is why there are "technical institutes" that only teach skills related to specific jobs. Not every job needs "a well rounded education
Re: Some worries (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Some worries (Score:5, Insightful)
I get what everybody is saying, but the fact is that university degrees were never intended to be preparation for a specific job. They're about creating rounded individuals and giving them a lot of background.
It's always been true that if you're simply looking for career prep, especially if you're on a budget, then trade/technical/community college schools are the way to go. And to my mind what Google is doing is great and exactly what we need are more online schools that are focused on that sort of certificate rather than ones that just try to replicate the university experience.
As an aside I don't care what anyone says, education, even in the less day to day practical skills, is never a waste. Literature, history, languages and other such soft subjects are important and valuable. I don't want to live in a world where everyone is regimented into only "useful" careers.
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As an aside I don't care what anyone says, education, even in the less day to day practical skills, is never a waste. Literature, history, languages and other such soft subjects are important and valuable. I don't want to live in a world where everyone is regimented into only "useful" careers.
Yes, degrees have value, including liberal arts degrees. But is the value always more than the cost in time and money? Once you admit that, no, a college degree does not have infinite value, it becomes clear that most degrees are way overpriced for what they provide.
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I am a CS professor in a state university. What you are saying is correct. a 4-year degree is not meant to prepare you for a job. It is meant to make you a well rounded person with a broad knowledge in a particular field.
Take Computer Science. A computer scientist is expected to know of multiple programming models; how computers are architectured at a single node level; how machine interconnect work and how to leverage them; what makes a good HCI; theoretical models of programs, network, and architectures;
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Why would a support technician need a CS degree? Why would a support technician need a degree at all? A support technician only needs to know the thing they are trying to support, and no university is going to offer knowledge in supporting a single company's system.
Re: Some worries (Score:4, Insightful)
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Because no one wants to stay a support tech.
Which is why they get more advanced certs to move up.
Re: Some worries (Score:3)
Re: Some worries (Score:2)
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Because no one wants to stay a support tech.
There is a flip side, though. There is a lot of value to starting out as a support tech, or QA, or some other less desirable position, and many with the degree may not be willing to do so.
Re:Some worries (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes and if you are only interested in providing the person with the intellectual tools to be an "IT support profession" I suppose that is all fine. If that person is ever going to move up to be sysadmin, a business systems analyst, or into management or change roles entirely with in the organization they wont have the toolbox to do it.
All the 'talent' in the world does not give you an understanding of what financial accounts do all day, and therefore you can't make IT decisions that will help them or generally communicate with them effectively about their needs. Sure you can go fix their printer but you can't make intelligent recommendations for how they might manage a dataset.
The other issue is 4 year degree provided a kind of gatekeeping. It was proof that you were someone capable of doing things over a period of time like showing up every day, managing time while tasked with multiple projects and assignments, working with others, focusing on learning/executing things that you don't personally find interesting, intelligent enough to perform tasks outside your talent area with some acceptable level of competency, readily learn new things as required.
So I wonder what the mean by *equivalent* exactly. For example I might look at resume and see someone with BA music and having completed Google's XYZ Course as equivalent educational background for a role related to XYZ as BS in XYZ. Google does not seem to mean it that way though, they seem to be suggesting that HS diploma + XYZ coruse is as good as BS in XZY.
I am not sure I buy that, because frankly we have watered down k-12ed so much so that anyone can get an HS diploma by keeping chair and not committing any felonies before graduation.
Job training courses ... (Score:3)
Wouldn't this be "disrupting the trade school"? Or, just "providing trade school courses"?
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Apparently, college has become so worthless that Google can now replace it with a 2nd rate algorithm.
Training vs Education (Score:3)
Training will teach you how to do things, things that will get you a particular job possibly using certain tools.
Education will teach you why you do things in particular ways.
There is value in both, but training cannot replace education; at least not for all things/everyone.
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Wouldn't this be "disrupting the trade school"? Or, just "providing trade school courses"?
It's a long-overdue evolution of trade school training. Welding and Plumbing courses are fine... we'll always need welders and plumbers. But we need to start considering entry level IT training as a trade field and not a "professional" field. And, this is going to hurt some pride here... but you don't need a college degree to do a huge swath of computing jobs. Proper training in a given field is the ground floor. That includes some programming jobs. We've long taken this for granted on the physical support
Great, more incompetents! (Score:2)
Now we need to look out for fake experts made by Google as well. The last thing the world needed.
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You mean, as opposed to the fake experts we get out of many universities?
Perfectly manufactured worker units... (Score:5, Insightful)
No shortcuts ... (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no shortcut to a broad CS/CE background. Students might learn very specialized skills
in a 6-month program, but they will be useless outside of this skillset (say, when the job market
changes, as it is constantly doing in the high tech). The very few students who do
well with online programs also do well without them.
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There is no shortcut to a broad CS/CE background. Students might learn very specialized skills in a 6-month program, but they will be useless outside of this skillset (say, when the job market changes, as it is constantly doing in the high tech).
Which is absolutely perfect if you're the one selling these courses! A captive student (that need additional courses at least once a year) generates continuous revenue.
For me as a potential co-worker, this is horrifying. Imagine a carpenter not understanding that screws will create a stronger grip than nails, because nails were all they used in class...
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I have a four year degree in Computer Science. It got me my first job which got me experience. If taking these courses gets you a job and some experience then it is worth everything you paid for it. I work with people with and without degrees. In the end, it comes down to what they know and can do not their education. Not every employer will accept these classes as equivalent to a college degree. I really wonder if Google is planning on paying the people with them the same as they would with a college
Give it up (Score:3)
Anyone who's done any graduate recruitment in the last 10 years knows collage/university degrees are worth nothing at all. Google wants to make more of these worthless qualifications? Well, I guess it's revenue for them but I'll not be any more interested in them than I am a degree. We will still just set some questions and see how you do at counting and spelling before we look any deeper at your coding skills (this eliminates 90% of graduates - I'm not joking and I really do mean counting as in adding and subtracting).
Re: Give it up (Score:2)
Sounds nifty (Score:3)
So sly (Score:4, Interesting)
"In our own hiring, we will now treat these new career certificates as the equivalent of a four-year degree for related roles."
In other words, they are working towards getting prospective candidates to pay for their own training before they apply to Google. And, the fact that Google accepts them as 4-year equivalents gives them a bit of market value above all the other online training options available. My guess is that this is Google's approach to finding people to hire who may not have had the opportunity to get a normal 4-year degree, as in a way to support a more diverse workforce.
Trade School... (Score:5, Insightful)
well-rounded at $100K - $200K loan now with zoom (Score:2, Funny)
well-rounded at $100K - $200K loan now with zoom with no price cut.
Re: well-rounded at $100K - $200K loan now with zo (Score:2)
Re:Trade School... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is nothing new. It's known as Trade School. It makes you a productive worker but does not provide a well-rounded education that allows you to make informed decisions in your life and in the world.
A well-rounded education makes a big difference, IMO.
During the many years I worked for IBM, I worked with a handful of graduates of IBM's version of this. They identified bright but under-educated young people working in factories, etc., and ran them through a 1-2 year course of intensive CS education. In two years, the students covered the equivalent of a BS and MS in Computer Science. The training was quite good, and quite thorough, but laser-focused on CS theory and practice. Not only was there no literature, history or philosophy, there was no biology, chemistry or physics -- nothing at all other than CS, and many of the students were high school dropouts.
For the students, this program was phenomenal. It lifted many of them from low-wage manual labor jobs to six-figure white-collar professional jobs, and a few rose to be IBM Distinguished Engineers. I knew one who became an IBM Fellow. If you don't know what those titles mean, just take my word that they are legitimately prestigious and Fellows in particular are world-class minds.
BUT, I found them very hard to work with because they knew nothing else. It's hard to describe how strange it is to talk to someone who in most ways seems highly educated, but also regularly reveals deep ignorance of stuff that you just expect all educated people to know. One in particular was a brilliant programmer, but his knowledge of politics, history, physics, etc., was that of a backwoods 9th grader. That would have been okay, but you know how programmers have a strong tendency to assume that they know everything about everything? Keep in mind that most of the programmers you've met who act that way actually did get a four-year degree and so were exposed at least a little bit to the enormous expanse of what they don't know. Take that away and the result is someone who is clueless about everything but convinced that it's everyone else who doesn't know what they're talking about.
The result is someone who's hard to relate to or work with, no matter how good they are within their narrow field of expertise.
companies (Score:2)
Just like they "disrupted" gaming! (Score:3)
I think Google's attempts at "disrupting" education will go over about as well as Stadia. There's an entrenched cultural idea of what "higher education" should represent, and just because parents, kids, and people outside that system don't always like it, or find it useful, doesn't mean they'll accept something radically different just because it's "reimagined" and new and bright and shiny.
Add to this the fact that accreditation sets a barrier to entry not just for funding (you can't get Federally-backed student loans to attend a non-accredited school, AFAIK), and a longstanding prejudice against the old mail-order "diploma mills" of years ago, *and* the fiascoes of for-profit schools, and you have an compounding layer of distrust in anything that doesn't fit the traditional "mold" of college - because who wants to spend time getting the knowledge, only to have the hiring manager pass over your Google education in favor of a checks-all-the-boxes candidate from University of $geographic_location.
Would the world be a better place if I could do the work, learn things my way, and then convince an employer that my hours spent challenging myself to learn via Khan Academy and other open courses was as valuable as years spent at a traditional college? Perhaps. But for now, I think we should stop trying to disrupt and reimagine and redefine education for a while, and make the systems we have better. Nothing is yet broken beyond repair.
Re: Just like they "disrupted" gaming! (Score:2)
Re: Just like they "disrupted" gaming! (Score:2)
so Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
Well rounded (Score:2)
Well, well, well... (Score:3)
Don't laugh but is this the beginning of the end for higher ed? I'm exaggerating but seriously, if other companies like Apple and Microsoft follow suit (and I'm betting they will) this could be the start of something. I'm not suggesting that someone is going to learn in 6 months what is taught in 4 years at traditional universities but I think the point is that for entry level IT jobs maybe you don't need an entire 4 year apprenticeship.
Teach someone the basic foundational skills and then hire them, much like you would an intern, and teach them the ways of how your company does things. A lot of success in the workplace is based on communication and networking. Listening and reacting to other people. Teamwork. Company culture. Many of the skills are taught on the job.
Now we're not likely to see a bunch of boarded up universities anytime soon but I think that for certain career paths, university might no longer be the only option.
Good, fewer drones (Score:2)
Excellent (Score:2)
Good to see Google doing something positive. College degrees have become devalued compared to days past. Unfortunately it says a lot more about your political values and your identity than your merit anymore. They just don't hold the value they used to. College degrees have become a debt trap and too many kids go into college thinking it's their only hope for their future. The net result is a lot of college degrees in useless subjects and young adults with university debt and no employable skills or knowled
Middle Ground (Score:2)
You can be 100% correct that a 4-yr degree gives you a well-rounded education preparing you not just for your job, but how to be an informed citizen ready to tackle tough life issues and moral dilemmas. It's a great ideal to strive for.
However, this Google cert is hyper-focused on solving a specific problem: economic security. A better four-year degree doesn't mean much if you can't afford it in the first place. One can get the cert, first, thrive and save, and then maybe later they can pursue the better ed
Understand what a liberal arts degree is. (Score:5, Informative)
Liberal arts is for the "liberated men", men of wealth, independent sources of income, who don't have to earn a living. For those people, to help them pursue knowledge they were asked to study the quadrivium, the four courses, and trivium, three courses. Grammar, rhetoric, logic, astronomy, mathematics, geometry and music. These skills are meant to be used in pursuit of happiness, not money
Then there were professional arts, accounting and medicine required degrees and most of the others like metallurgy etc were left as non degree professions schooled by guilds. These professional arts degree is what meant for people who have to earn a living.
Brilliant. Not. (Score:3)
Yep, they'll show you how to perform in-demand jobs... today.
And the jobs that are in demand tomorrow, or the day after? You won't have the background to do them. No prolbem, pay more money, and google will show you them... for an ongoing income, like M$ Office365.
Re: (Score:2)
Probably sooner. When has Google ever kept anything alive besides its data-sources for targeting ads?
Re: Apprenticeship? (Score:3)