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Education

Pandemic-Weary CS Students Tempted With Gap Years By Recruiting Startups (nydailynews.com) 42

Posted by EditorDavid from the graduation-can-wait dept.
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp shared this report from Bloomberg News: 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. 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... Nimbler startups willing to experiment could gain access to star students who might otherwise have wound up in summer jobs at giants like Facebook, Alphabet or Apple, managers say. "Usually you would fight to get on the radar with people, and here people are reaching out," said Emmanuel Straschnov, the co-CEO of Bubble, an app design service. Compared with regular recruiting, he said, "It's like night and day."

The ultimate payoff isn't just the student labor. "With recruiting you always play the long game," said Nick Schrock, CEO of Elementl, a developer tools startup that's planning to hire three gap-year workers this fall. "A great intern who has a great network can often yield compounded returns later down the line."

Students are assessing the trade-offs critically, and trying to decide if what they're getting from schools is worth the cost, especially if classes happen virtually.
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Pandemic-Weary CS Students Tempted With Gap Years By Recruiting Startups More

Pandemic-Weary CS Students Tempted With Gap Years By Recruiting Startups

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  • how generous /s (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    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.

    Knowing venture firms that's 100k total, to five teams, each having at least 5 members, so max $4k each. To build a company for them, which will make them millions, while the students get maybe an extra $5k down the line to get bought out.

    Capitalists are assholes.

  • THE Rest of the world

  • For most people, it gets harder to complete remaining college degree the long it is deferred. That piece of "sheepskin" makes a huge difference in future opportunity and wages for most people.

    • keep that up and in say 20 years need an masters to get an level 1 job with an 300K+ loan to pay off.

    • there again, the main point of a degree is to get that first job. If you already have a job offer - you really do not need a degree (in CS at least, other industries like medicine are different)

      Anyone who has interviewed people ask "what experience do you have" and only ask "what degree" if they have zero experience.

      So if you get get employed without a degree, go for it. You can get a degree later if ytou really want, many people do that just for fun when they're older.

      • "the main point of a degree is to get that first job. If you already have a job offer - you really do not need a degree (in CS at least,"

        Maybe if you go to a sucky university. If you go to a good university the point is to learn stuff.

        • "the main point of a degree is to get that first job. If you already have a job offer - you really do not need a degree (in CS at least,"

          Maybe if you go to a sucky university. If you go to a good university the point is to learn stuff.

          On the contrary, if you go to the a sucky university, the only benefit is to learn stuff. If you go to a good school, there's the prestige and networking.

          • Uh, did you accidentally get lost? Maybe you were looking for this website [hbr.org]. Maybe subscribe there and they will respect you.

            Around here, we know how to turn knowledge into money, but that's not why we seek knowledge. Truth is power but we seek truth for its own sake.

            • Uh, did you accidentally get lost? Maybe you were looking for this website [hbr.org]. Maybe subscribe there and they will respect you. Around here, we know how to turn knowledge into money, but that's not why we seek knowledge. Truth is power but we seek truth for its own sake.

              If I didn't know better, I'd think you were saying that going to a good school proves you are a better person, because you love knowledge for its own sake and are not encumbered by the desire for financial gain.

              • I'd think you were saying that going to a good school proves you are a better person, because you love knowledge for its own sake and are not encumbered by the desire for financial gain.

                Nope. I'm saying that if you only went to college for connections and money, you need to re-examine your priorities.

                • For some people connections and money is all they got in their peer group. I would say outside information and technology verticals it is the driving factors in any deviation from the norm.

      • All places I've worked had the degree requirement even for IT jobs so I disagree. The need for it will follow you through life and not having it will often disqualify you right at the start.

  • As an old developer with 22 years of experience I have kept my career fresh by actively learning all of the new technologies I could handle. After years of hard work I have the experience to be a team lead for data engineers and data analysts. However without at least a masters degree there is little hope of getting the data scientist title. Taking a year or two of boring classes I already have work experience in seems a little draining and probably a waste of time. If someone offered me 100k to launch

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      As an old developer with 22 years of experience I have kept my career fresh by actively learning all of the new technologies I could handle. After years of hard work I have the experience to be a team lead for data engineers and data analysts. However without at least a masters degree there is little hope of getting the data scientist title. Taking a year or two of boring classes I already have work experience in seems a little draining and probably a waste of time. If someone offered me 100k to launch a startup doing what I already do for others I would take it!

      LOL! Are you willing to work for less than $20,000 a year: Neo's $100,000 divided by 5 teams minus costs to run the business (Neo's investing in a start up--not you--so expect overhead)?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by anegg ( 1390659 )
      I graduated with my bachelors in 1987, 3 years later than if I had done a straight 4-year program right out of high school (two years off after the first year, and an extra 3 semesters filling out the requirements for two minors that I found intensely interesting). Following that, I kept up with "continuous education" using many informal, certificate, and "on the job" training learning opportunities. However, many years later, in 2011, I still went back to school to get a masters degree. I enrolled in an

  • Desperation?

    I guess they have zero interest in experienced folk who are [too old]... Ah, the magic word is startup.

    Meaning of course, insane work hours for bugger all.

    • Experienced folk have so many recruiters chasing after them it's ridiculous. If you're an experienced programmer and you're ok at doing interviews, then you'll have more job offers than you want.

      I admit I was pretty sucky at job interviews for a while, had to re-learn the skill.

  • What I tell young people is:

    1. Enlist in the military. Reserves or Active duty.
    2. Go to college finish your STEM or Business Adminstration degree, somehow. If you like liberal arts you can minor in it.

    This what you need to do to be a good human in spite of any BS advice people give you.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      One has to learn to kill other humans in order to be a good human? That's an interesting perspective. Care to explain?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You kill them to gain their power, duh.

      • There are a small number of irrational and violent people who one cannot argue with and removing them from society in one way or another is a generally a good idea yes. That is exactly what the police and military do, so that little snowflakes like you, can sleep safely at night.

      • One has to learn to kill other humans in order to be a good human?

        Most military occupational specialties don't involve killing people, at least not directly.

        The military includes musicians, programmers, mechanics, cooks, etc.

        The tail-to-tooth ratio for the US military is surprisingly high.

      • Yes you have to know how to defend others and yourself. A good human protects other good humans from threats. Not sure whatâ(TM)s there to explain? Did you want ISIS and others like them to rule everywhere? Someone else has to defend you?

  • When you can immediately become the cheap disposable commodity programmer that industry wants now and avoid the rush.

    • I graduated with a degree in CS during the .com bust. Plenty of my fellow students were dropping out to go straight in to industry. By the time I graduated, almost everyone who hadn't finished their degree was working retail. Companies kept the people who had degrees.
  • Back in my day many of my college friends participated in co-op programs. They regularly worked for 1 or 2 quarters then attend class for the remainder of the year. Took them longer to graduate but all graduated with actual job experience and not just classroom work. Seems like a good time to back to that model.

  • virtual classes, restricted movements and no parties

    No parties? The horror!

  • Are these paid internships - paid at or near junior developer rates?

    Or are these exploitive "for the exposure/experience/etc" jobs where only those with some other income (like rich parents) to live off can have them?

  • University is not the most pleasant place, but you definitely need to graduate from it. I was too lazy to spend time studying, so I ordered everything I needed from the website https://writix.co.uk/personal-statement-help [writix.co.uk] and in principle, I can safely spend time relaxing and doing what I love. I advise everyone to do the same, who are worried about grades but are not sure that they will cope with the work.

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