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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

#201

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?

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

There were three in my cohort of ~35; and that was much more dense on that programme that was a (more CS-oriented) subset of the EE department's variants - something like 15 of 400 in first year, higher ratio (i.e. fewer female drop-outs/more doing MEng) by the end I think though. Only a few years ago.

And even then, your conclusion is only valid for a graduate entry role - for something more senior you'd need to at least look at grad rates further back, if not what happens to people once in industry. (We've also assumed 100% grads - or even male/female anyway - do apply to industry at all, vs. not, or something else, or staying in academia, etc. I expect that's roughly true though.)

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#202
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make several times 90k?? So like how much? Several has to be at least 3 right, so $300k+? What degree do you have??

Software engineers with ~5 years of experience (and probably less) can earn $300k-$400k annually in the Bay Area or New York if working for a large tech company.

This is a tiny fraction of software engineers. The vast majority in the wider Western world earn less than an average tradesman. The higher end of salaries in the UK is £40-50k, most earning substantially less than that.

The much higher salaries paid by the major US companies are so anomalous that they may as well be discarded in any comparisons.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#203

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…

> 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…

This doesn't match up with my experience as an interviewer at several FAANGs.

HR typically wants their diversity numbers up badly so if you're gay, a woman, and/or black they are already incredibly inclined to hire you, as long as you pass the interviews.

It's not a walk in the park, but you have this going for you and it's a big advantage imo.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#204
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about that, i've hear Professor Emeritus Mallard talk about his youth in the genetical field and the first use of computers to assist geneticists, he told me that he basically never saw men doing computer work, and that changed in the 80s, along with the culture.

There were a lot of women in computing in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, and they've mostly been forgotten by the "Women don't really like this stuff" crowd.

Were they 'into' it though, or did the nature of the secretarial work they were doing change? At least as I understand it, that was predominantly (of course there were exceptions, and female scientists, etc.!) the reason for the rise and fall of it.

I'm not arguing for or against '"Women don't really like this stuff"' - I'm just saying an example against it needs to be women liking this stuff, not merely doing this stuff.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this unfortunately prevailing attitude that you aren't successful in America if you aren't living in New York or San Francisco. It's absolutely bonkers. There are many other great places in this country besides those two cities.

If you can make NYC/SF money and save/invest a portion of your income, you can retire and do significantly better elsewhere. You can't do the opposite. If you can have a decent lifestyle in Ohio on 40k (big if, when you factor in retirement planning) you can still fundamentally never leave Ohio.

Until the city grows to encapsulate your neighbourhood, and you find yourself a 'boomer' who was so lucky to be able buy a house for 40k, whose children 'never will'?

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Using a low estimate of 15% of CS degrees going to women, you'd get 750 women applying. High paying usually means senior, seniority is usually 5-10 years, so you would need 15% 10 years ago.

Yep, that's why I used 15% because over the past 20 years it never dipped that low.

Here's one source that shows 10 years ago it would have been about 18%.

https://www.aps.org/programs/education/statistics/womenmajor...

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#207
I figured that this was more of less rational. In Australia, men have more options for decent traditional jobs without a degree. Construction, Manufacture, Mining, Agriculture, fisheries, warehousing, transport, utilities are all male dominated sectors, mostly not requiring a degree. Retail, food and accommodation services only just skew female. The big area where women are employed in much greater numbers than men is nursing/social work and teaching. All of which are increasingly becoming bachelor degrees. Historically these didn't require a bachelor's degree, just one year diploma or a two year or certificate. There is a trend for these work forces to become more qualified, take more responsibility and get paid more. Industry stats: https://lmip.gov.au/default.aspx?LMIP/LFR_SAFOUR/LFR_Industr...

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#208

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…

> A lot of this is driven by narratives…

You give three examples but only tie the last to the admissions issue. Could you expand on the others and how they might be relevant to this issue?

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#209
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why is it that you default to the idea that women want to start a family?

It's a big ass cool world we have going on, and starting a family effectively ties you down from being able to explore it.

Good grief.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#210
post #194

COVID has accelerated this big time. Why spend $5,000 a semester to watch a Zoom lecture from an average professor when you can open YouTube in a new tab and see a world-class professor share the same information for free? It makes no rational sense. The moment that a serious, legitimate credential system appears, every average university will disappear overnight. We'll be left with an oligarch class that attends the…

Because you don't pay for instruction, you pay for examination and certification.

You don't pay for instruction or certification you pay for signaling. A student from Arizona State can be more competent than one from Harvard. Who do you think is going to have more doors opened for them?
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