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Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

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Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#221

Post by scarmig »

pc86 wrote: post #198
pacala wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, that homogenous white European culture, with about 50 countries, 23 official languages in EU, 225 indigenous languages in whole of Europe, and every valley with its own, sometimes quite distinct, dialect and traditions. Here are some European dialect maps: http://i.imgur.com/9btMHIT.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Continen... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovene_dialects https://u…

I get your point but I do think that "European culture" (that sounds strange to my American ears as I typically think of the individual nations, not Europe as a whole) is more homogeneous than Asian culture. Not that it is homogeneous, just closer on the spectrum.

Isn't it strange though that we agglomerate all of Asia into one, when it has two constituent parts that are larger than all of Europe combined, and with another billion or two spread out among a bunch of other smaller countries (the 8th most populous of which being larger than the most populous country in Europe)?

Hell, if Germany was a province of China, it'd barely crack the top five in population. Spain wouldn't even crack the top 10. West Bengal in India would be the largest country in Europe, and it's only the fourth largest state. UP is twice its size.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#222

Post by stuxnet79 »

wooger wrote: post #79
PaulHoule wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't the hero of the last Star Wars movies black?

The hero is a white woman - Finn is a bumbling sidekick.

Who also works in "sanitation"

I am still incensed by this. The marketing of the movie totally misrepresented what Finn's role would be. I thought he would be the lead jedi. I doubt I will watch any of the forthcoming Star Wars movies.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#223

Post by Larrikin »

stuxnet79 wrote: post #216
Larrikin wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different races are exposed to different cultures and when everyone knows about some aspect and you don't, you will feel left out and experience culture shock. My elementary school and middle school were about 95% black with rest mostly being white and my high school was about 85% white with the next largest percentage being Asian. The kinds of music, tv shows, and activities people did on the weekend had barely any…

+1 Quick question, what was your experience as a white person in a majority black school? I always hear about the plight of black students in majority white schools but never the inverse.

I'm black

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#226

Post by FilterSweep »

auggierose wrote: post #60

Let's assume there is this black guy / girl sitting in the interview room with you. You (white) are asking interview questions and you soon realise that the person you are interviewing is excellent. But something is off, you can't really put your finger on it. What do you do?

You become honest with yourself and admit that your inability to "put your finger on it" betrays incompetence at your job in interviewing candidates.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#227

Post by stuxnet79 »

Larrikin wrote: post #223
stuxnet79 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 Quick question, what was your experience as a white person in a majority black school? I always hear about the plight of black students in majority white schools but never the inverse.

I'm black

Ok cool, I thought so but just wanted to ask. Thank you for sharing your experiences. I'm black and have never been in a majority black school (always either asian or white) so I lack perspective.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#228

Post by scarmig »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #212
mafribe wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The longer a lack of diversity persists in a company's trajectory the harder it becomes to fix it. Google and Microsoft seem to have had no problem hiring a lot of Indians or Chinese.

Those are huge companies with tons of cash. Referrals are less important when thousands of college graduates are stampeding for a job at a tech titan. Also, how much of the upper management at either is Indian or Chinese?

Well, let's see...

Google's CEO: Sundar Pichae

Microsoft CEO: Satya Nadella

Adobe CEO: Shantanu Narayen

It is true, though, that Chinese people are underrepresented in upper management.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#229

Post by stuxnet79 »

vanattab wrote: post #225
wooger wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hero is a white woman - Finn is a bumbling sidekick.

What about finn's character is bumbling?

Rather than list attributes consistent with "bumbling" it would be better if you compared Finn to other prominent black characters in Star Wars:

Mace Windu? Master of the Jedi high council.

Lando Calrissian? Permed out badass who is in charge of Cloud City

Vader? The original voice actor was black but does anything else need to be said?

Can Finn really compare to any of these? Is he a hero I can personally identify with? No way.

Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

#230

Post by qaq »

ceras wrote: post #217
qaq wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which parts are not true: 1) Majority of employees at Google FB etc are graduates of top tech schools. 2) Majority of employees started coding and had interest in CS before college. How likely you are to be good at CS if you never had an interest in CS before college :)? I have a lot of friends from Easternn Europe now working at Google, Apple, FB, but this anecdotal evidence does not change the fact that majority of…

Do you happen to have any evidence for #2? I work at one of those companies and picked up coding in college, and so did at least a few of my coworkers. I really have no idea how common it is and would love to know.

#2 I have no evidence that time spent learning and practicing a particular discipline influences skill level, but I am guessing that there is a correlation :). For majority of top schools aside from Barkley it is not a prerequisite to enter into CS program. From people I personally know which is not a representative sample I'd say 50/50 but it skewed by good number of them having Stats./Math as original major and then CS Masters or Ph.D.
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