I'm sorry if this isn't the place to ask, but who hires compsci majors, and what jobs are generally more accessible to compsci majors than to someone who has learned programming on their own. Assume I understand that compsci != programming

If your boss is asking you for your opinion on which platform to use, then it's more ambiguous. Sometimes there is knowledge you are expected to have, sometimes there is knowledge your employees are expected to have, which is going to be different from what you know, since you have been in industry for the last X years gaining time in {A}, whereas the student has been in school for the last X years, gaining knowledge in {B}.

Something A and B overlap, but part of the reason you hire new people is because they might know more about something than you do.

I understand where you are coming from and I wouldn't put up with that specific instance either, if that was my position exactly. But all day long as you train fresh graduates, if they do not have experience at your place of employment, then the difference between what questions to ask that are good and what questions to ask that are bad is environment specific.

If you are judging people because they are asking you questions you think they should know, but don't, then I would say you have made a misjudgement in interviewing. If you are judging people because they don't ask you questions when you think they should, then you are putting too much pressure on them as a fresh graduate, or you are simply scaring them. No, you do not want to be their friend, but you don't want to stress them out to the point of counter-productivity.

Your side of understanding how to manage people is important, but I have experience teaching and dealing with students before they get to you. So yes, I have the kind of mind you call "beginner" in many regards, but in computer science, programming, and how to teach people to learn, I probably have more cumulative experience than you do.

The thing is, I get taken advantage of often. You probably don't. I give people the benefit of the doubt. You do not seem to, probably because what is on the line is something you care about. That's fine. I don't care. Do business the way you want to. All I'm offering to you is a glimpse into a past you may never have experienced.

Also, beginner mind means to start every task abandoning your preconceptions about how things should work. Instead, you just handle how they do work as they work. It's a learned trait to be able to respond to things interactively instead of summarizing a lifetime of experience and projecting it onto every new technology, person, and kind of work you do. Experience can both help and harm you. If you make arrogant judgments during a critical culture shift, you are in for a world of hurt, and I've been there. At the end and the beginning of everything, I just want to be neutral to all of it.

I say "I don't want to" all the time, also. But then I go do what I don't want to do, and I usually like myself better for it after. Anytime you see trends you either have the power to help perpetuate the trend or to help change it. Trends don't exist without people to create them. If you want to be the boss, then be one. With great power comes great responsibility, yada yada. There are no easy solutions and unfortunately some days require lots of thought and some days require none, and I never know which is either.

/r/compsci Thread