HLRoku

I'm not too well educated on their gov'ts, but how effective was it? Any signs or indicators that it worked out for the better?

Call me intolerant or ignorant, but I personally fear seeing what the general populus would try to get passed in America if such a system were established. Perhaps a naive` worry, but a worry nonetheless.

This is pure speculation, but I think the devaluation on PhDs in America might have to do a lot with the large of influx of people in college just attending to "get a degree". I feel this made colleges more of a business than a place of learning with the large increase in revenues, and thus leading to PhDs and fields that aren't as respected or really don't have a basis for being around other than people are willing to pay for it.

I've known PhD friends that will straight up lie on their resumes when applying to places and only list that they're a masters student. I'm fairly sure this is legal since they technically did graduate with a master's degree.

Regardless, it really shows how screwed up things are that you have PhDs that have to do this in order to find work. These are STEM majors, mind you -- to any naysayers.

Well, that's depressing.

Almost hard to believe, to be completely honest -- but I might just be around the right group of people?

I don't really follow how having money in stocks, bonds and a house is somehow capable of being wiped away by the market when a savings account in a bank wouldn't be in dire straits with such an economic upheaval to render those 3 investments useless

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought the point was that savings accounts are not worth it, leading many people to say their saving accounts are barren, not that they don't have savings saved up.

Personally I'd fall into that category, I put all my money in checking since the interest is so poor in savings accounts I'd rather see that money go to some retirement fund or investment than see it get so little return in interest and restrict how much money I can take out of the account at any given time.

Come now, even the video states itself that's likely fake.

I totally get what you mean but that isn't really the issue here. While over-sensitivity is often an honest worry plenty of people have to needlessly worry about when trying to criticize if it isn't sparkled with numerous reassurances, the problem with the examples I've seen are to paraphrase, objectively hostile.

Honestly, I think that this introduces a new barrier that trolls and abrasive people won't go through the bother of doing -- but people genuinely interested won't really find this much of an issue.

It also might serve as a place where people can think more about their responses knowing they will be given more credence and visibility instead of trying to respond with canned thoughts and knee-jerk reactions without really giving the conversation and their position much thought.

...Or, it can just turn out dead. Honestly, in this new age of more information and data than we can deal with, I personally have come to realize the value of curators, and although this might be a slippery slope in terms of hive-mind in that regard [one person deciding what's worth viewing for everyone] I think done well it can be pretty amazing.

Wow seeing a clear example yourself really just gets the picture across. I was giving some credence to the fact that these people were just blunt to each other, but this is just toxic and hostile. If it were just blunt honesty their excuses might be far more credible.

Not to nitpick, but it is perfectly possible to be honest with someone without coming across as hostile. There may be cases where being blunt and honest might be difficult without coming across as rude, but if the default honest behavior is just to come across as hostile and vile there's probably something wrong with the individuals in question.

Thanks for the read, just finished. The most interesting thing about this post for me is that what he's saying seems like it should just be common sense -- of course that's the way things are, it makes a lot of sense and is a very logical way of thinking about it.

That's kind of what bothers me about it. It IS obvious and logical... so why hadn't I considered it as clearly before? Why is everyone so narrow in our focuses after graduating college? I don't know, and quite honestly it bothers me. It's a good read, but I can't shake this slight feeling of anger and frustration; I almost want to blame the school environment and society, but I feel that's naive` and not where to place the blame?

Feeling pretty mixed right now, haha.

My process to learning programming and the people I've talked to, as well as the experience in my current industry all might be intersting reads -- just wondering, but is there any interest in a blog? I was afraid my employer might find it, thus my new alias, but honestly I think I'll be happy documenting something like that for future records both for myself and other engineers in my position.

Thanks, I truly appreciate the offer, however right now I'm more committed to pursuing more of a pure software position as I feel there's so much to learn in that field. Had I known about embedded engineering in detail I'd probably have tried to get those jobs first immediately upon graduating.

I know I couldn't clarify because of HN's text limit, but I'm actually in the NYC tristate area, and the position in SF is for an internship at a very promising startup. I'd like to stay in NYC if possible because of family and friends, but I'll see how it goes.

Thanks again, and maybe sometime in the future after I've dabbled in the software industry I might consider embedded systems engineering and the like -- these posts have helped me realize that my EE background does not have to fade into the background at all.

Yeah, it's what's been keeping me up at night. I'm a fairly safe person, so I don't like risks, but one day I had a realization: "What am I doing with my life? Is this /really/ what I want to do with it? Aren't I regretting this right now? How much will I regret this later?"

I've come to the decision that making the switch and then coming back with maybe 2 years "wasted" is far better than sitting in my industry wondering what could have been. Not having student loans is something I'm extremely grateful to my parents for, because with loans this sort of thing would be impossible.

Thanks for your advice, I'll try it and see what happens!

I'm honestly comforted to see this being a common thing among posters here. And I agree, as I look into my company's chain it just gets more business focused the higher you go, and that's not what I became an engineer to be.

When I make the switch, I'll be sure to not let my RF/EE background fade to the background, as I believe it can be a strong asset.

Thank you, I appreciate it. I was thinking that if I stay relatively low level or do arduino and FPGA work on the side, my EE fundamentals can transfer and mix with my software skills at any many jobs, such as embedded engineering or even wireless, as my current focus in EE is RF.

It just kind of sucks that in America it doesn't seem like there are any "true" hardware jobs, and the ones that are around pay extremely little or are VLSI software based. If I knew this in detail when I started EE I'd probably have hesitated upon entry.

This coincides with what my friend told me as well -- he said most CS graduates don't really get low level hardware processes, and my knowledge in that can be quite desirable, especially since Electrical Engineering is a related field to Software Engineering, but I guess I've been under-rating my qualifications.