A generation of American men give up on college • Hacker News Board

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#621

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:21 PM UTC

exporectomy wrote: post #240

WalterBright wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Don't you have codes and license requirements for electricians and roofers? In my country, most of what makes electricianing harder than electronicsing is the rules. There are rules about how close you can put mains and low voltage wires, which your guy should have followed even if he didn't know why, rules about what parts of the house you can fix them to, or if they can be laid loosely or must be stapled to the fra…

Three different electricians I used, from 3 different companies and 2 states, did not know what inductive coupling was or knew how to avoid it.

So I suspect it is not in the building codes. I don't think the codes say anything about about low voltage wires.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#622

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:26 PM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #160

blueblisters wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the thing with vocationals skills - they make you really good at understanding how something works or how to fix something without breaking something else, but beyond that range of problems and solutions, you need to talk to an engineer. Not that vocational jobs are not important - clearly they add value and create employment.

I'm not so sure they understand how it works, though. BTW, if you ever see an EE with a card that has printed on it: V = I*R I = V/R R = V/I it's a sure sign he's a formula-plugger, and has no idea how it works. He doesn't even understand algebra. https://testguy.net/content/266-Ohm-s-Law-Watt-s-Law-Cheat-S... A definite no-hire :-/

Downvote me all you like :-) but if you're an EE and carry such a cheat card, I'd keep it out of sight. I'm not the only one with that opinion.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#623

Post by jasonboyd » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:29 PM UTC

effingwewt wrote: post #85

jasonboyd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wut? Are those the only choices? Is there nothing in between? Lay off the drama. I don't feel like my degree was useless (and I'm not even working in the field I got a degree in) and I certainly didn't graduate with crippling debt.

Survivorship bias with a N=1 doesn't change the absolute fact that most if not all degrees are worth far less than the debt taken on. Why your personal story is pertinent here is beyond me, OP was talking about the person in the article. It's not dramatic at all when we have 1.73[1] trillion in student loan debt, with an average of 39k each student. Starting your professional career years in debt is the definition of…

Claiming survivorship bias really makes it sound like we are talking about something much riskier than getting a college degree. I didn't survive, I planned. I got a two year degree from a local community college for a fraction of the price that those same credit hours would have cost at a university. I then went on to a modest in-state University to complete my four year degree. I can't put a sexy Ivy League college, or private college, or even a top-tier state university on my resume now but I didn't graduate with crippling debt. That was the trade off I made.

Starting your professional career in debt is nobody's definition of "crippling debt". Whether 39k is too much student loan debt really depends on what the expected future earning potential is for a given degree. A quick search turns up plenty of resources that can help somebody make decisions about how much student loan debt they can comfortably or safely take on. Here is a teacher's guide[1] (it's a PDF link) from the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau one could use as a starting point.

[1] https://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/documents/cfpb_building_...

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#624

Post by WalterBright » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:31 PM UTC

pitched wrote: post #280

WalterBright wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure they understand how it works, though. BTW, if you ever see an EE with a card that has printed on it: V = I*R I = V/R R = V/I it's a sure sign he's a formula-plugger, and has no idea how it works. He doesn't even understand algebra. https://testguy.net/content/266-Ohm-s-Law-Watt-s-Law-Cheat-S... A definite no-hire :-/

I’m not saying that most people aren’t formula pluggers (and that’s a big problem) but, my first impression of that kind of card would be that’s it’s meant to be branding, not a tool. Someone is carrying around a piece of what they love.

If you want to brand, print Maxwell's Equations on the card. Or put a simple amplifier circuit on it.

P.S. Maxwell's Equations on a t-shirt are popular, I even sold one for a while.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#625

Post by kibbleble » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:32 PM UTC

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,…

The more relaxed gender roles a society has, the more men aspire to be musicians, philosophers, comedians, sports journalists, filmmakers, poets, or motivational speakers instead of studying for a useful STEM career.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#626

Post by thinkcontext » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:34 PM UTC

Kranar wrote: post #612

thinkcontext wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experience does not match research on the job market generally. Multiple studies show increased responses to resumes with "whitened" names. This is, of course, at odds with the white victimhood narrative that unqualified minorities are taking jobs, when it is in fact the opposite which is occurring. https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/minorities-who-whiten-job-resumes...

I just went over the actual study itself and it does not support your claim: http://www-2.rotman.utoronto.ca/facbios/file/Whitening%20MS%... It's a sort of interesting read but nothing too dramatic and whether it's evidence of racism is subject to interpretation. What isn't subject to interpretation is the claim that the study shows that "whitened" names increase callbacks. On the contrary whitening names has no effe…

> I just went over the actual study itself and it does not support your claim:

Good catch, I had been thinking of another study which looked specifically at only changing names on resumes. That's:

Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination

https://www.nber.org/papers/w9873

In any event, its not a single study that's looked at this. Have a look at this meta-analysis of 24 studies

https://www.pnas.org/content/114/41/10870.full

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#627

Post by bradlys » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:37 PM UTC

loonster wrote: post #597

bradlys wrote: post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except they’re not used as a measure of intelligence or skill? They’re used as a measure of ability to go through a series of rigorous tests and do a bunch of work you might not like doing. They’re a litmus test to see if you’d likely be good for doing a job you don’t enjoy either. End of the day - work is work and they need history to show you can do more than the bare legal minimum of graduating high school.

Wouldn't 4 years of work history be a better assessment?

Yes. However - why would an employer take a risk on a high school graduate when plenty of people with college degrees (often with internship experience) are applying?

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#628

Post by throwaway6734 » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:44 PM UTC

pwthornton wrote: post #32

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.

This is just not borne out by the data. The gap between high school grads and college grads pay is getting wider and wider. You shouldn't go to college if you aren't going to be a serious student and you'll be a legitimate risk for dropping out. But if you are willing to commit yourself and get decent grades, you'll be in much better shape than most people with just a high school diploma. Your advice is also sounds r…

I went to college and I wasn't a "serious" student. Went on a half scholarship, got pretty good grades (most of the time), and majored in CS.

Took on around 50k at around 5% interest. Wouldn't change a thing in the world about it. Easily paid it off over a few years.

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#629

Post by spoonjim » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

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.

What company can afford to be so exclusive in hiring?

Re: A generation of American men give up on college

#630

Post by Aerroon » Tue, Sep 07, 2021, 5:45 PM UTC

bigbillheck wrote: post #381

A lot of people in the comments here are spinning it as if boys are being systematically discriminated against when the article explicitly says the opposite: >>> “Is there a thumb on the scale for boys? Absolutely,” said Jennifer Delahunty, a college enrollment consultant And many aren't even putting in the proper diligence: >>> "Ms. Gereghty said she found that girls more closely attended to their college applicatio…

The issue isn't that college acceptance is discriminating against boys, it's that boys aren't as interested in education. The aftermath of this won't be felt for a while, but it does indicate some shift in society. Some of them might even view college as a hostile place.