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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

#291

Post by belorn »

prawn wrote: post #282
belorn wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lead image is there to direct the reader towards a specific way of thinking, similar in way that if the article has been about prison it would be an image of black young men dealing drugs. It is a narrative and implication that if "group X" did not choose to do that then the problem that group X has would not exist. The author could as easily chosen an lead imagine of the same person in a class room with a narrat…

"The author could as easily chosen an lead imagine of the same person in a class room" Might vary where you live, but my understanding is that the author of a piece is not usually the one picking images and writing the headline. There are some instances where the writer and photographer are the same, but that's not the case here. It's a story about males who aren't in college, so why would they have photos of males i…

> It's a story about males who aren't in college, so why would they have photos of males in school?

Here is an example of a article with a different narrative called: Why Boys Are Failing in an Educational System Stacked Against Them (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-boys-are-failing-in-a_b_8...)

Note that the focus of blame here is on the education system and then look at the image. The person in frame is the teacher, representing the Educational System, and the boy. The article mentions both college rates and high school dropout rates.

You are right that its generally not the author of the written text that chose the image, through the words I would describe if I was being a more technical correct about it would be authors of the article since an article rarely if ever now days has a single author. There is the author/s of the text, the editor, the proof readers, layout design, image selection, and each participated in creation the collaborated created work.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#292

Post by zz865 »

I did tech degrees, but its pretty amazing going to other parts of the campus where there are 2 or 3 or more women for every man in the building. Its also weird to see lots of well educated female friends finding it really hard to find someone to settle down with. Yeah they should probably lower their standards but honestly deep down most guys dont want an over educated achiever wife.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#293

Post by ClumsyPilot »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #218
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed his point - the world has changed, its more complex, you cant keep applying strategy of 1900's and expect it to work.

…but we aren’t still applying the strategy of 1900s. That’s the entire point of my posts.

Yeah the cireent system is broken no matter what you are after

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#294

Post by dudul »

dkdk8283 wrote: post #164
spoonjim wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not as extrem for me, but I was told by HR that all female/non-white applicants had to move automatically to the phone screen step, regardless of the resume.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#295

Post by tchaffee »

simonh wrote: post #222
tchaffee wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many FAANG companies are there? I guess five from the name. Does every black applicant with a CS degree get a job if they apply? It's a free pass? Your sample size of five elite companies can't be taken as a serious attempt to describe the actual experience of black CS grads applying for jobs.

The top 5 have recruited over a million people between 2000 and 2018. That's an average of about 50,000 new recruits per year. Not all of those are in engineering of course, and those are global numbers, but still they hire tens of thousands of engineers every year. Here in the UK local software companies constantly complain that the cream of every year's CS grads emigrate to the US.

Doing the rough math, Google employs about 80,000 engineers today. Generously assuming the other FAANGs employ as many engineers, you get about 400,000 engineers. There are about 26 million software engineers in the world.

So that's 1.5% of all engineers. And that's being very generous. The real number is surely below 1%. No surprise that the most desirable companies hire the top 1%.

(Happy for someone to correct my numbers and the resulting percentage - it's based on a few Google searches).

Unless my numbers are way off, it's safe to say that over 99% of engineers in the world are not working at a FAANG. I stand by my claim that we should not be using what happens at FAANGs as reliable anecdotal evidence of the interview experience for most candidates.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#296

Post by lyaa »

icare_1er wrote: post #227
zapnuk wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One might think the whole sexism and gender roles thing and would be discouraging woman from perusing certain fields.

This famous hoax has been debunked many times. For a start, the countries where women pursue IT and science the most, are the most patriarchists (Turkey, Iran, Algeria, Middle-east, etc...). The more relaxed are gender-roles, the more women choose to study arts and litterature, or "gender studies", the same who then complain that there are not enough women building trains. Second, as many in the west have seen here,…

As someone who has experience with the educational systems of the middle east, I find it amusing how you are misinterpreting the situation.

It's extremely hard for women in these countries to get good careers in any field other than teaching or medicine especially since they are often forced to marry and leave the work force (they can't work without their husbands' permission and they almost always handle all child care). It is the norm for women to marry right after graduating from college and not doing so is seen as abnormal.

The combination of this results in women going to college and studying what they actually _like_ in their final years of "freedom." They choose STEM because they like it.

In the west, women are probably as inherently interested in STEM as in these other countries, but they also know that they need to get a job and they often choose career paths that would give them less pain due to harassment or discrimination.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#297

Post by mikewarot »

elil17 wrote: post #49
mikewarot wrote: post #12

Unless you're going to be a Professional Engineer or some other licensed individual, or you're getting a free ride, college isn't worth it any more. Going deep into debt for a credential that doesn't have a reasonably large future value is a huge mistake many are pushed into making.

I’m not sure why you focus on the PE licensure - the vast majority of working engineers do not need this (but do need a college degree).

In many places, If you're not licensed, you can't call yourself an engineer.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#298

Post by happythen »

icare_1er wrote: post #176
happythen wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No way. Being white is definitely a leg up. Well, at least for me, a white guy, no college degree. Life is much easier. I don't think there is any support missing for us, that actually sounds hilarious. We need to work on lifting others up.

Based on the number of "affirmative-action" initiatives that I see all over the US, in many tech-companies (I don't know about other fields), I'd say that being a women, or black, is definitely a huge plus to get your foot through the door, with many recruitment programs blatantly saying they are only for minorities, which sounds to me like pretty much segregation in reverse, but that indeed seems to be the agenda of…

> foot through the door

Yea, but we got no problem getting to that door. Minorities might get pulled over and get a knee on the neck. Women might get assaulted on their way. Being a white dude, I'll get a taxi there, no problem. So if I have to try harder to get the position, pretty understandable, since I got the head start.

Not saying life is easy for anyone, saying it's so much easier being a white dude with a nice hair cut. You know I used to be so broke I had to "beg" for gas money at a gas station to get to my first day at a new job, first person I asked gave me a $20. Life. is. easier.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#300

Post by exporectomy »

jpxw wrote: post #266
exporectomy wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that legal?

It isn’t. But nobody cares about that. Employment law appears to only work in one direction.

Yep. I've converted myself to a member of the native ethnicity because my government has a policy of preferentially buying from native-owned businesses but failed to define nativeness using any immutable or objective characteristics. I just have to remember my new ethnicity on any future forms that ask for it. It may also entitle me to enhanced healthcare services.
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