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A generation of American men give up on college

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Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#161

Post by lordnacho »

smitty1e wrote: post #74
baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

My brother in law is an electrician. I had enough EE in college to change a light switch without burning the house down. However, that book-learnin' fell apart when confronted with troubleshooting a strangely wired room, and I got very polite while asking him over to bail me out. These fellows eschewing the ivory tower, where being of European extraction and bearing a Y-chromosome on the college campus is an indictme…

A colleague of mine had a physics degree and decided to become an electrician. Took very little time to learn.

That's not to condescend on electricians, they clearly have a useful skill. And being able to certify a house pays a good few hundred pounds a day, nothing to sniff at.

But if you're used to looking at physical models, learning a few conventions and adding another model won't be terribly difficult.

I think a lot of people are actually better off doing that kind of work. There's a tangible output that is much easier to connect to purposefulness than if your job is mainly in the ideas realm. A cousin of mine that I grew up with is a carpenter and seems to cheerful all the time, now that he knows what his thing is. I grew up with him and it wasn't always so.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#162

Post by wwweston »

heurisko wrote: post #114
wwweston wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know anyone who believes this. Anyone who actually knows what adjectives are and how they work believes this. Or people familiar enough with the substance of the discussion to know it includes discussion of what healthy masculinity is. Here's an easy-to-digest example: https://ifunny.co/picture/if-you-ever-find-yourself-confused... > Do you think I could get away with calling it "toxic femininity" instead?…

> Oh, yes. Nobody would dare talk use the phrase toxic femininity. /s I think people certainly use the phrase "toxic femininity", but such examples are from the long-tail. In institutions, it is no-where near as discussed as much as "toxic masculinity", and probably discussing it would be be frowned upon. You can see mentions of "toxic masculinity" amongst United Nations literature, for example, which can't be said f…

> I think people certainly use the phrase "toxic femininity", but such examples are from the long-tail.

Forbes and Psychology Today are long-tail low-relevance now?

> What isn't said, is that the expectation to become a competent man who is tries to support his family can also be a positive example of masculinity

Something along these lines is said in many substantial discussions of masculinity (including the one I pointed to in GP). You want other examples?

https://umatter.princeton.edu/respect-matters/healthy-mascul...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2mzxeViCko

https://www.buzzfeed.com/sydrobinson1/examples-of-positive-m...

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/05/becoming-...

Nobody is attacking competence as toxic, or support of family as toxic.

What is actually critiqued is a normalization of social violence, commenting on bullying or assault with "oh, boys will be boys," dismissal of feelings with "walk it off," the idea that real men don't go to therapy or turn to people for emotional help, etc etc.

One can only think of that as a general attack on masculinity if... that's what you think masculinity is. Which sounds bona fide toxic to me.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#163

Post by mih »

WalterBright wrote: post #138
smitty1e wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My brother in law is an electrician. I had enough EE in college to change a light switch without burning the house down. However, that book-learnin' fell apart when confronted with troubleshooting a strangely wired room, and I got very polite while asking him over to bail me out. These fellows eschewing the ivory tower, where being of European extraction and bearing a Y-chromosome on the college campus is an indictme…

EE programs tend to focus on electronics, not electrical systems. But learning how house wiring works is a simple book away. But be careful - unlike electronics, house electrics can kill you. On the other hand, electricians have weird gaps in their knowledge. If I ask them to do something slightly out of the ordinary, this becomes apparent. For example, none of them understand inductive coupling, or even know what it…

Out of curiosity, why shouldn't one run low voltage wires through same holes as AC wires ?

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#164

Post by dkdk8283 »

spoonjim wrote: post #139
throwtheworld wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. This is very perspective dependent. I’m a black college student now and every conversation with friends back home includes some mention of dropping out because it’s not for us as well. When you see people with equivalent resumes already coasting by in the job market because they could get their last names and LinkedIn photos past…

You must have bad information because FAANG companies compete over hiring black software engineers. They want to get their numbers up and there aren’t many to hire.

My company is only hiring black engineers or women. You have no chance if you are a white man and don’t have an in.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#165

Post by notanzaiiswear »

zapnuk wrote: post #130
baron816 wrote: post #63

A lot of this is driven by narratives—A narrative that college isn’t worth it anymore. A narrative that (white) men are uniformly privileged and life is just easy for them. And a narrative that those men aren’t wanted by society any more. I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. They need to feel like they’re part of society. Nothing good can come of an entire gener…

I wonder how woman feel reading such comments. Men dominated better paying jobs and positions of power since forever. It took 50+ years between equal rights before the law to equal opportunities in the labour market and education. Men still have every opportunity a woman has. In addition, they are still recognized more for leading positions. They also dominate about every trade related job. Yet, they are 'left withou…

Women didn't and don't need well paying jobs to start a family.

What "equal right" do you mean, that "equaled opportunities in the labor market and education"?

Also you seem to miss on the fact that men get worse grades in school (which some say is because of discrimination), which makes it harder for them to enter university.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#167

Post by itronitron »

Simon321 wrote: post #131

To people recommending trades, there's nothing wrong with trades, but you can get more out of college than only a job. You can actually learn things that you wouldn't have learned otherwise. The environment also naturally stimulates and values learning, gathering knowledge and understanding. You can learn how to become a better person and think more critically. Seeing how many misinformation is going around and the p…

I agree that college should be for education and not 'to get a job'. But until the cost of college in the US comes back down to reality, it's going to fail the cost-benefit analysis.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#168

Post by atoav »

roenxi wrote: post #125
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do exactly do you get from "I could afford to go to college for a STEM professional degree and an arts MA without any debt or financial stress" to "Less choice"?

If he? hadn't consumed the resources necessary to get the MA, he would still have paid the same amount of taxes - most of which will be subsidising other people. But if paying the full cost, there would be a choice where down one path there is more money because less resources were consumed, and one that would be roughly equivalent.

Yeah, bit I am willing to pay more taxes if it benefits my environment. Because this is what I think it means to be part of a society. They made it possible for me to choose more or less free of economic pressure what I want to study, so me supporting them is only good and fair.

I mean, what is the goal of a good live? Extract as many resources from your surroundings as possible, kicking your competition down and then die in an slightly above average house? I want to live a good live and leave my environment in a better shape than I entered it in, because the two are not a contradiction.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#169

Post by tchaffee »

frankbreetz wrote: post #10

On the other side: A stat shared at my most recent tech companies meeting, they are trying to hire more women. 5000 people applied for a single position and 15 of them were women. This was for a high paying tech job.

What does your job description say? What are your company reviews on Glassdoor? What does the whisper network say about what it's like to work as a woman in tech at your company?

Using a low estimate of 15% of CS degrees going to women, you'd get 750 women applying.

What are you doing to get so many women to give your company an immediate rejection and apply somewhere else?

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#170

Post by notanzaiiswear »

pwthornton wrote: post #37

The thing that struck me right off the bat was that the lead photo of this story is of 18-year-old with a PS5 and pretty sweet setup in his bedroom. I don't have anything deep to add to this, but if you can sit at home in your childhood bedroom indefinitely playing video games and working menial jobs, maybe the allure is there.

Ever considered they might have picked that photo deliberately to give you a certain idea about the problem?
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