Comment by dstorrs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dstorrs | Hacker News Reader

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Personally, I have a BA in English with a minor in CS. Except for my first year out of college (performance analyst at a pension consulting firm -- I had applied to their computer department!), I've spent my entire career in computers. I've ticked most of the boxes -- coding, junior DBA work, junior sysadmin work, spec / doc writing, system architect, team lead, Director of Programming, and now Co-Founder.

I am incredibly glad that I majored in English and not CS or something "more practical." English in particular and Humanities in general teach you the most valuable skill there is: effective communication. Everything else you can self-teach or hire, but it's really, really hard to find a more efficient system for learning good communication than by writing 5-10 page papers 2-4 times a week for four years, while having to participate in class discussion (frequently on things you haven't actually read but were supposed to, which teaches you a lot about active and reflective listening).

Not to seem like a downer but it sounds like your trying to justify your choice of major. I do it too, though. I majored in physics and am a web developer guy too now, and I try to convince myself that I learned how to comprehend difficult topics and solve intricate problems while I was in college, but there's this sneaking suspicion I have that that time (and money) might have been better spent doing what I'm doing right now.

Lest anyone get carried away here I'd like to say that my Eng Lit Honours degree from a prestigious British university consisted of writing 2 papers every 3 months, listening to seminar presentations which were often copied wholesale from Wikipedia, and participating in 'discussions' where 90% of the people had nothing to say but still graduated. The idea that it turns you into an elite analytic/communicative essay writing engine was in my case pure fiction. I did write some high quality critical essays but it wasn't exactly a habit. I think I got by on previously acquired abilities. I deeply regret taking that course.

Be very careful though that you don't misinterpret what I said to mean that there is no value whatsoever in your English major. While over the course of a career you may draw on that experience - the same way, for example I draw on my military experience - more than anything else, what got you employed in this field was your CS minor, and what keeps you employed is your wealth of experience.

Being a good communicator is a bonus, but - sadly perhaps - I've never seen anyone get hired for their communications skills alone.

You've really never seen anyone hired primarily for their communication skills?

Not without any other relevant experience to speak of, no. I've seen good communicators beat out poor communicators, but there is almost always something else that makes them attractive to the employer as well.

There are many fields (for example media, PR, some civil service positions) where communication is the primary skill being assessed - written in the CV & spoken in the interview. If you have a non-maths written component to your interview, you're being judged on your communication skills/literacy.

I agree there is often something else required too - but not always in a 'first' or 'graduate' position.

To be honest, I thought it was rather obvious to those of us in this thread that if the primary technical skill for the job is communication, then having good communication skills is having good technical skills.

I believe the topic however centred around communications skills as ancillary to other technical skills that were part of job description.

Sorry if I caused confusion.

No apology needed - thanks for the clarification.

Humanities academics can obfuscate meaning just as proficiently as any engineer. See: http://www.info.ucl.ac.be/~pvr/decon.html

I am incredibly glad that I majored in English and not CS or something "more practical." English in particular and Humanities in general teach you the most valuable skill there is: effective communication.

Indeed. Norman Mailer believed that the highest moral good was to follow your own passions -- and if you happened to kill a few people along the way, so much the better. Serves 'em right for falling lockstep into the dangerous and dehumanizing machine of American culture. But despite this moral reprehensibility... damn, what a communicator he was!

(Yes, one of my undergrad English profs was a total Mailer fanboy.)

The English majors I've known have never struck me as especially good writers. Philosophy was a little better--you stretch your communications skills more when you have to discuss more complicated ideas, and philosophy is generally more complicated than literature--but by and large even that was not especially useful. I learned a lot more about communication through internet discussions than through any form of schooling, largely because feedback was stronger and more immediate.

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