Comments on: What Big Successful Universities Could stand to Learn http://wattf.com/wp/2009/04/20/what-big-successful-universities-could-stand-to-learn/ {It's Safer to be Risky} Sat, 05 Feb 2011 23:11:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: Jim Murphy http://wattf.com/wp/2009/04/20/what-big-successful-universities-could-stand-to-learn/comment-page-1/#comment-623 Jim Murphy Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:27:30 +0000 http://wattf.com/wp/2009/04/20/what-big-successful-universities-could-stand-to-learn/#comment-623 @Ivan GPA is definitely != your true value. Check out Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk on creative and the breadth of human intelligence: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html @Ivan GPA is definitely != your true value.

Check out Sir Ken Robinson’s TED talk on creative and the breadth of human intelligence:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

]]> By: Ivan http://wattf.com/wp/2009/04/20/what-big-successful-universities-could-stand-to-learn/comment-page-1/#comment-622 Ivan Tue, 21 Apr 2009 13:12:55 +0000 http://wattf.com/wp/2009/04/20/what-big-successful-universities-could-stand-to-learn/#comment-622 Thanks for the point to that article. When I personally came across that Mayer quote a few weeks back I was just fuming. Needless to say I applied for a job at Google back in Co-op, my best friend worked there for a term (he was uw comp. eng, and I was uw comp. sci). I had 2 interviews and from the sounds of it I killed both of them and even impressed one of the interviewers, then they asked me for my GPA, I had no clue what that was, as we just have cumulative averages, so I gave them that. I never got a call/email back after that. I even emailed back to ask if it was just my grades as I wanted to know. Still nothing. From what I heard from my friend who worked there and from his friends, it was incredibly grades centric and hearing that Mayer quote a year and a half later just helped prove the point. They didn't care about my entrepreneurial experience if my grades weren't super high. I also noticed that a very large amount of people from my friend's engineering class all got into google, but I hardly met anyone who wasn't an engineer who got a job there, which seemed off to me. But then again the experiences of the two degrees differ by a lot. At least I can say I got through 2 rounds of interviews at Google, then I went on to do another entrepreneurial Co-op, which was far more focused on things relevant to me anyways. It makes sense in a way that they want the best of the best, they want the strongest smartest workers, and those people don't need much life experience as they live in the googleplex and code for people like them who live in the web. Those people exist and a lot of them do go to Waterloo, and of course there are those geniuses who are just great in every course, some times without trying, and hell if I could hire a lot of those people, I'd probably want to(depending on the company I have), but it's still frustrating and seemingly wrong when you get weeded out on something that can be so subjective and non-indicative of your true value. Thanks for the point to that article. When I personally came across that Mayer quote a few weeks back I was just fuming. Needless to say I applied for a job at Google back in Co-op, my best friend worked there for a term (he was uw comp. eng, and I was uw comp. sci). I had 2 interviews and from the sounds of it I killed both of them and even impressed one of the interviewers, then they asked me for my GPA, I had no clue what that was, as we just have cumulative averages, so I gave them that. I never got a call/email back after that. I even emailed back to ask if it was just my grades as I wanted to know. Still nothing. From what I heard from my friend who worked there and from his friends, it was incredibly grades centric and hearing that Mayer quote a year and a half later just helped prove the point. They didn’t care about my entrepreneurial experience if my grades weren’t super high. I also noticed that a very large amount of people from my friend’s engineering class all got into google, but I hardly met anyone who wasn’t an engineer who got a job there, which seemed off to me. But then again the experiences of the two degrees differ by a lot.

At least I can say I got through 2 rounds of interviews at Google, then I went on to do another entrepreneurial Co-op, which was far more focused on things relevant to me anyways.

It makes sense in a way that they want the best of the best, they want the strongest smartest workers, and those people don’t need much life experience as they live in the googleplex and code for people like them who live in the web. Those people exist and a lot of them do go to Waterloo, and of course there are those geniuses who are just great in every course, some times without trying, and hell if I could hire a lot of those people, I’d probably want to(depending on the company I have), but it’s still frustrating and seemingly wrong when you get weeded out on something that can be so subjective and non-indicative of your true value.

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