Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 71 posts

Re: I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

#61

Post by acdha »

wads wrote: post #56
acdha wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Society was encouraging her to go into the sciences. Or was it that she was trapped by a "gender stereotype"? … > But for it's shameless bigotry, and total denial of personal responsibility. Your privilege is showing: if you are born male, it's easy to forget that for every teacher pushing a STEM career there are many more people – often close relatives, family friends, respected community members, etc. – who encou…

I am not OP but since I agree with him 100% and your comment personally offends me: "Your privilege is showing: if you are born male" - This pisses me beyond anything. What "privilege"? "Privilege" of having to admit my own mistakes and take personal responsibility for every step I take? So what if there are people "who encourage traditional gender roles"? (IMPLYING that gender roles are bad) Whose fault is it that y…

> This pisses me beyond anything. What "privilege"? "Privilege" of having to admit my own mistakes and take personal responsibility for every step I take?

Quoting from the dictionary: “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.”

In this case, it's a common term (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(social_inequality)) referring to the fact that challenges are not applied evenly to every group. You had some disadvantages due to being poor but you would have faced even more had you also been poor and female (or gay, disabled, the wrong ethnicity, etc.). None of these are absolute barriers but they require people to spend effort dealing with something their more privileged peers do not – pointing to individuals who succeeded anyway ignores the number of people who give up after years of being worn down by that pressure.

Perhaps you'd recognize the concept better in this formulation: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...

Re: I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

#62

Post by Yhippa »

altrego99 wrote: post #43
sampo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She also wrote: "Computer science, technology and physics just did not figure in my teenage world view. Nobody popular in my school chose to study those subjects." She gave more weight to the peer pressure from other teenage girls, especially from the popular girls, than she gave to the word of her teacher. Not very uncommon. Peer pressure on what is considered "cool" vs. "lame" is a strong force in teenagers. I don'…

It is easy to not succumb to peer pressure. You have to just change the way you are thinking - people follow peers to become accepted. But if you do, you will not get noticed. You have to stand out. You have to do what the others are not doing - and make a stand for it. And you will get noticed. For example if everyone in your class smokes, and you politely decline everytime you are asked to, people will notice. If e…

> It is easy to not succumb to peer pressure. You have to just change the way you are thinking - people follow peers to become accepted. But if you do, you will not get noticed.

When you are growing up I think it's very difficult for kids and teenagers to avoid pressure especially for something as prevalent as this. I feel like "nerd" fashion is in so you see that a lot in society as rappers and athletes sport that look so that aspect of the nerd life is acceptable presently.

The other aspects of nerdery that might not be socially acceptable to teenagers are playing with robots, programming a web app, and building a mobile application. To me if you like doing things like that you are probably the type of person okay with going into computer science or engineering.

Until that's just as socially acceptable as joining the football team I doubt you're going to see much mindset change around the idea of going into engineering vs traditional liberal arts.

Re: I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

#63

Post by Yhippa »

izztmzzt wrote: post #55

Do what you love, not what you think is going to get you the big salary. If you love languages or art, there are certainly ways to support yourself and do them. I think it's pretty outrageous to say anyone not studying STEM is wasting their time. Sure, STEM enables our modern infrastructure, but the arts provide the things that just make life better -- movies, stories, music, etc... World would be pretty boring witho…

Do What You Love and Starve? http://www.martynemko.com/articles/do-what-you-love-and-star...

Re: I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

#64

Post by wads »

acdha wrote: post #61
wads wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not OP but since I agree with him 100% and your comment personally offends me: "Your privilege is showing: if you are born male" - This pisses me beyond anything. What "privilege"? "Privilege" of having to admit my own mistakes and take personal responsibility for every step I take? So what if there are people "who encourage traditional gender roles"? (IMPLYING that gender roles are bad) Whose fault is it that y…

> This pisses me beyond anything. What "privilege"? "Privilege" of having to admit my own mistakes and take personal responsibility for every step I take? Quoting from the dictionary: “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.” In this case, it's a common term ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(social_inequality) ) referring to the fact that ch…

" but you would have faced even more had you also been poor and female" False. From my life:

It would have made difference in school as I would have gotten free lunch (somehow free lunch requirements was different in my days for boys and girls. Don't know about now), I would have had more attention from teachers that were interested in teaching girls only (I had ~95% female teachers). In university - males would have helped me to do / would have done my work for me. I would have gotten more attention from few professors that gave extra personal lectures to women and ability to retake exams for women (affirmative action that increased grades of women and thus women had better chance at getting money from university). Also females had lower grade requirements for university stimulus (or is it called grant? Students get it depending on their grades) in first 2 years (after that system became fair... except for professors mentioned before).

From future:

I could use "You don't promote me because I am woman" to get promotion. I could get some free courses in programming for women. I could use all of the affirmative action there is. (I am not even listing small bonuses and support from white knights even when I would be wrong.)

They say "The grass is always greener on the other side". But if I had chance to turn time back and be born girl - I would. Only "privilege" as a man I have is "privilege" of learning to take blows and stand up without anyone running to help me. But I would be happy if you listed my privileges that I have not noticed.

Re: I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

#65

Post by albeec13 »

rsanders wrote: post #60
bane wrote: post #50

Go to school for your job, study what you love for a lifetime. Get that degree that will pay the bills, but then once you start work, make it your hobby to study music or 17th century French Lit or whatever. If you like the group study dynamic, join a book club or audit some classes at the local community college or state school. Most of the higher level lit classes have very few students anyways and they'll welcome…

That's great if you only want it to be a hobby. How many people here would think it a good idea to take a lucrative job in waste management or accounting and do a little hacking on the side?

You'd be surprised :P

Re: I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

#66

Post by wads »

wads wrote: post #64
acdha wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This pisses me beyond anything. What "privilege"? "Privilege" of having to admit my own mistakes and take personal responsibility for every step I take? Quoting from the dictionary: “a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group of people.” In this case, it's a common term ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privilege_(social_inequality) ) referring to the fact that ch…

" but you would have faced even more had you also been poor and female" False. From my life: It would have made difference in school as I would have gotten free lunch (somehow free lunch requirements was different in my days for boys and girls. Don't know about now), I would have had more attention from teachers that were interested in teaching girls only (I had ~95% female teachers). In university - males would have…

Edit: White knights to rescue! Downvote anything that questions woman victim-hood! I would be hell banned even if I would write fact like "Erin Pizzey wanted to build domestic violence shelter for men and feminists tried to kill her for that!". Enjoy your hive mind.

Re: I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

#67

Post by adekok »

sampo wrote: post #34
adekok wrote: post #27

FTA: > My teachers recommended that I study economics and statistics as my A-level subjects, but I had my mind set on a life fulfilled by the arts. And in the next paragraph: > Without realising it, I was a victim of a gender stereotype reinforced since birth, that men do science and maths and women do arts or languages. Society was encouraging her to go into the sciences. Or was it that she was trapped by a "gender…

She also wrote: "Computer science, technology and physics just did not figure in my teenage world view. Nobody popular in my school chose to study those subjects." She gave more weight to the peer pressure from other teenage girls, especially from the popular girls, than she gave to the word of her teacher. Not very uncommon. Peer pressure on what is considered "cool" vs. "lame" is a strong force in teenagers. I don'…

> I don't know if it's fair to say that every teenager who is not immune to that is not accepting personal responsibility.

To give it some perspective, in 1942 there were 18 year-olds fighting in the war. The people then were under tremendous pressure. They had enormous responsibilities and enormous independence, compared to today.

What changed?

Are we supposed to expect that at 18, she's ready to live on her own, sleep with anyone she chooses, join the military, but she's still a child, and can't muster the wits or guts to fight peer pressure.

I, for one, have higher standards. It's demeaning (IMHO) to deny her own responsibility in her actions.

What do you think of her opinion now? She's clearly older, maybe in her thirties. And she's still denying all personal responsibility for her actions.

When I was 18 I did stupid things, and I'm adult enough to admit they were stupid things. Why can't she make the same admission?

Re: I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

#68

Post by Iterated »

bobbbinsIII wrote: post #58
izztmzzt wrote: post #55

Do what you love, not what you think is going to get you the big salary. If you love languages or art, there are certainly ways to support yourself and do them. I think it's pretty outrageous to say anyone not studying STEM is wasting their time. Sure, STEM enables our modern infrastructure, but the arts provide the things that just make life better -- movies, stories, music, etc... World would be pretty boring witho…

the vast majority of people studying humanities degrees do not LOVE the subject. they just choose a certain path after high school that seems interesting. the production of culture has very little to do with what people study at university...

Yup. "Math is hard, I'm going to study psychology! Weeeee!"

Re: I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

#69

Post by adekok »

acdha wrote: post #38
adekok wrote: post #27

FTA: > My teachers recommended that I study economics and statistics as my A-level subjects, but I had my mind set on a life fulfilled by the arts. And in the next paragraph: > Without realising it, I was a victim of a gender stereotype reinforced since birth, that men do science and maths and women do arts or languages. Society was encouraging her to go into the sciences. Or was it that she was trapped by a "gender…

> Society was encouraging her to go into the sciences. Or was it that she was trapped by a "gender stereotype"? … > But for it's shameless bigotry, and total denial of personal responsibility. Your privilege is showing: if you are born male, it's easy to forget that for every teacher pushing a STEM career there are many more people – often close relatives, family friends, respected community members, etc. – who encou…

> if you have a young female relative, watch how many times toys are oriented towards looking good vs. doing anything constructive

It's what sells. It sells because it's what the children want. The idea that gender is a societal construct is nonsense.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn13596-male-monkeys-pre...

Make monkeys prefer toy trucks. Female monkeys prefer dolls.

The doctor behind the "gender is a social construct" based it on David Reimer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

He wasn't entirely truthful. David knew from the beginning he was a boy, despite enormous pressure to believe otherwise. He ended up committing suicide.

This kind of gender nonsense kills people. I find it difficult to express just how morally bankrupt it is to deny human nature.

> someone reading for comprehension would have realized that the entire article was an extended version of “I should have listened to my teachers rather than the people who convinced me science wasn't for women”

I'm happy to note that you don't dispute that she did not accept responsibility for her actions. "I should have listened to them" is a far cry from "I made a bad decision".

I'm also happy to note that you also don't dispute she shows bigotry against STEM fields.

I'm someone who did a STEM degree because I thought it would pay the bills. Most of my friends didn't. So... I made new friends in the STEM fields. And I didn't do it by putting down arts people as "artsy-fartsy potheads".

Re: I wasted four years of my life – don't make the same mistake

#70

Post by dllthomas »

altrego99 wrote: post #43
sampo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She also wrote: "Computer science, technology and physics just did not figure in my teenage world view. Nobody popular in my school chose to study those subjects." She gave more weight to the peer pressure from other teenage girls, especially from the popular girls, than she gave to the word of her teacher. Not very uncommon. Peer pressure on what is considered "cool" vs. "lame" is a strong force in teenagers. I don'…

It is easy to not succumb to peer pressure. You have to just change the way you are thinking - people follow peers to become accepted. But if you do, you will not get noticed. You have to stand out. You have to do what the others are not doing - and make a stand for it. And you will get noticed. For example if everyone in your class smokes, and you politely decline everytime you are asked to, people will notice. If e…

I don't entirely disagree, but this is a high risk, high reward strategy if you're looking to get positively noticed. And with humans, dealing with disapproval is hard, so while the steps to "not to succumb to peer pressure" are not complicated it may well be misleading to say that it's "easy".
Post reply on HN