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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

#551

Post by jimbokun »

bmj wrote: post #234
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’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. This. We are seeing the results of what was reported in the book Boys Adrift . My older son just graduated high school. He has no interest in college at the moment, and has shown a gift for working with his hands. He is currently doing a carpentry apprenticeship with an acquaintance that runs a renovation and design company.…

> [0] His crew is run by Swedish woman who was trained as a metal worker, so it isn't just a bunch of dudes, which is also great.

I find it fascinating you needed to drop this comment in order to justify your son's work environment, implying that all male environments are inherently toxic. It's very rare to find people suggesting that an all female work environment is inherently bad.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#552

Post by babyblueblanket »

snakeboy wrote: post #481
yardie wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot more people of color trying to break into the field than there are companies willing to hire them. There is a big difference between what they are saying and what they are implementing and I can say with absolute confidence that diversity is just lip service. FAANGs primarily recruit from other FAANGs. If none of those companies are diverse how are they going to diversify their recruitment?

> FAANGs primarily recruit from other FAANGs How could that be? I was under the impression that a huge amount of new hires come in each year from fresh university graduates.

There was actually a big twitter thread by a black recruiter at Google (now cut) who out and out said that Google's interviewing engineers looked down on black seniors and ranked them universally lower than white seniors, particularly black seniors from historically black universities. She had to fight tooth and nail to accomplish getting the first black entry-level-from-college hire in all of Google's history.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#553

Post by dnissley »

happythen wrote: post #450
dnissley wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you hear yourself though? Can you put yourself in the shoes of a young white man? They are recipients of this message on a regular basis. When many of them end up having a difficult time despite being told how easy they have it, and how if they received help that would just be resources being taken away from less privileged people, it's easy for them to think something's wrong with themselves, to feel unwanted, d…

I was young once, and I am white. Yea sure, I understand it. And this is no way new, I had plenty of other white people feeling sorry for me because, "the country is being taken from the white man". That is ooooold, old, old. Fear based racism been around. But to your weak sauce point, some folks are just going to have a hard go at life, but is it easier being white through life, no matter what? Yea, for sure. No one…

My observations are not racist, or rooted in fear. They are, however, rooted in compassion for my fellow human beings who find themselves in the crosshairs of reactionary political ideologies, even if they wear labels like "progressive", "feminist", or "anti-racist".

I'm mixed so I can generally wriggle out of such accusations by playing the race card. The only situation I ever feel good about doing so are ones like this.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#554

Post by 10x-dev »

yardie wrote: post #270
10x-dev wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are a lot more people of color trying to break into the field than there are companies willing to hire them. There is a big difference between what they are saying and what they are implementing and I can say with absolute confidence that diversity is just lip service. FAANGs primarily recruit from other FAANGs. If none of those companies are diverse how are they going to diversify their recruitment?

Why attribute malice to people at these companies when it is possible that all the challenges and disadvantages minorities and women have to surpass, in the end, result in those groups not coming up at the top, with the ultimate sorting function being the hiring process?

I see getting hired as the last stage in the pipeline, with the first stages being your family, then your education and then employment.

The more things go wrong in the first stages, the less likely it is for one to succeed at getting to the top of the next stage.

If people from underprivileged families can only afford to go to the 50% best school in the state, then to the 75% best college, then by the time they enter the job search page, they won't be at the top of the list (again, on average).

I'll use myself as an example: I had the privilege of coding for entire weekends when I was young, while my peers had to work the land. This gave me a distinct advantage early on, which I capitalized on, so at an interview with a company I am more likely to get hired than if those same peers had hypothetically applied, again because it wouldn't make sense for a company to pass on the best candidate when they are all competing for talent, regardless of race, gender, height or other ways of splitting people into groups.

I think everyone agrees that the current situation when it comes to diversity in the workplace is not acceptable, and we should definitely fix it, but in my opinion, if companies are competing fairly for talent, then that part of the pipeline doesn't really need fixing. We can instead use it as a test to see if the attempts at fixing the earlier stages result in better numbers.

P.S. This a difficult subject and I don't intend to offend anyone. Despite my relative privilege above, compared to my peers in the US, I still grew up in a poor and underprivileged family and am behind my current peers both financially and socially, so it's a topic that hits home for me.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#555

Post by jimbokun »

tck42 wrote: post #538
nemo44x wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's advocating for "anti-racism" which claims there is no such thing as "not racist" policy, only racist policy and anti-racist policy. But he jumps through hoops to redefine racism so that it can suit his argument that "not racist" doesn't exist. That if you don't consider race in literally everything then you are racist, by his definition. This is in direct opposition to the Civil Rights act of 1964: "Since the 19…

I think the redefining racism you mention is simply pointing out, at a high level, that one law does not erase injustice ingrained into power systems that were instructed by racism for literally hundreds of years, or the effects those systems have had on the targets of this racism and their offspring (things like generational wealth accumulation), and everyone else subject to those systems. The other thing is the ide…

In the linked article, for lower income groups white men trail black men for college admissions. (Let alone black women.)

You can't always unequivocally state that white people are privileged over non-whites in every circumstance. Obviously it's going to be true in many cases, but it can't always be just assumed.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#556

Post by gjvc »

michaelcampbell wrote: post #392
bmj wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not convinced that all those men need to go to college, but they clearly need something. This. We are seeing the results of what was reported in the book Boys Adrift . My older son just graduated high school. He has no interest in college at the moment, and has shown a gift for working with his hands. He is currently doing a carpentry apprenticeship with an acquaintance that runs a renovation and design company.…

I have a 20 year old (21 in 2 days, god help me) son in college now, and one of his friends and our neighbor the same age dropped out and started welding school. As far as I know he loves it. As a son of a blue collar mechanic, I am all for this; we need more tradespeople in the US, and I suspect he'll be well on his way to financial security at least as early if not earlier than my son (if he takes care of his finan…

Amen to this, Sir.

There's this from the .uk perspective https://www.fixradio.co.uk/fix-feed/features/post/everybody-...

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#557

Post by treis »

dougmwne wrote: post #394
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #360

Great news, the concept that you need college to succeed was one of the greatest lies told to my generation. Pleased the next generation is waking up. End of the day if the loan can't be written off, if the loan is just handed out to 18 year olds and has almost no limit then the organization that asks for the loan will inevitably balloon out of all proportion and no longer be reflective at all of the value you get ba…

I don't think your conclusion is suggested by the statistics in the article. There is a decline in enrollment, but it is heavily focused on men and white men are even slightly behind other ethnicities. This holds true even for very high household incomes where the ROI on a degree is less important than the social prestige of being in a white collar career. If college was a bad deal, you would see women opting out as…

A large generalization but in my experience women operate under the assumption that they will marry a partner that has equal or greater earning potential. Men assume that they will have to support their partner.

The other part of this is kids and biological reality. Can't imagine doing a trade or physical job while pregnant. Even after birth it took my wife a solid year or more before she was physically back to "normal".

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#558

Post by zefool »

dougmwne wrote: post #394
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #360

Great news, the concept that you need college to succeed was one of the greatest lies told to my generation. Pleased the next generation is waking up. End of the day if the loan can't be written off, if the loan is just handed out to 18 year olds and has almost no limit then the organization that asks for the loan will inevitably balloon out of all proportion and no longer be reflective at all of the value you get ba…

I don't think your conclusion is suggested by the statistics in the article. There is a decline in enrollment, but it is heavily focused on men and white men are even slightly behind other ethnicities. This holds true even for very high household incomes where the ROI on a degree is less important than the social prestige of being in a white collar career. If college was a bad deal, you would see women opting out as…

Overall enrollment is down as well. It's mentioned in the article.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#559

Post by thehappypm »

hellbannedguy wrote: post #184
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…

I've was a union electrician for a few years. Get in early. Get in a union. 25-30 years to retirement in most unions. You don't want to be 60, and still in construction. The test is easy, but figure 1000-2000 guys are taking the test too, so you need to get most of the questions right to get in. An oral interview counts for 1/2 the hiring process. Just say you love working with your hands--love unions, but understand…

This sounds like a lot of advice that boomers give, "do exactly what I did".

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#560

Post by commandlinefan »

exporectomy wrote: post #259
dkdk8283 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How is that legal?

Breaking the law is only illegal if the law is enforced.
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