Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom

The biggest issue I have with the article is that it presents SV as the only place you can go to be successful with a CS degree.

It very well could be that the article misrepresents the efforts of Prof. Burge and the Howard staff since the article is focused on SV.

But if SV is turning away energetic, engaged, intelligent and capable new recruits, then please send them to NYC, Seattle, Chicago, Philadelphia, Triangle Park, LA, or anywhere else where companies are looking to hire.

It might not give you a "direct impact" on SV itself, but it does get your people into good paying jobs where they can further develop their skills and experience (especially for those without a long childhood of working with computers). It's a small industry. Soon enough these graduates will be attending conferences and making an impact on this culture.

More importantly, they'll also be representatives in their local communities, helping to inspire the next generation of students who don't see themselves or their experience reflected in this industry. And perhaps that next generation will be more likely to pick up programming in middle school.

It'd be an irony if part of the reason students at HBCUs don't "mesh" with Silicon Valley is that they're not comfortable with diverse environments. Looking at a list of the "whitest" universities, their graduates seem similarly unrepresented in the places I've worked.

A flawed but interesting test: do black CS graduates from Stanford and MIT fit better into SV than black CS graduates from Howard?

I read it and the title really says it all with a clickbait premise like that. You'd think at Bloomburg they'd have someone who at least has an introductory knowledge of statistics because the claimed 1% is to be expected considering how small the black community really is and how there just aren't a lot of black CS majors.

I have a few minor issues with this article/approach at Haward. First of all, it makes it appear that companies like Google and Facebook are the end-all-be-all. There are more companies than the top tier. In fact, there are also companies outside Silicon Valley. Not only are they setting up students with potential failure, but they are painting a different view of what the industry looks like and where it is located. They are even discounting NYC, which is just a train ride away.

Also, the problem with Howard not being a top tier school applies to every school that is not in the top tier. Many do not even get the same access to recruiters that Howard does.

I also believe schools should be teaching fundamentals and theory and not be used as job training.

That said, the assimilation problem, "cultural fit", is real, but is often neglected. Many programs trying to fix the minority inbalance simply focus on outreach, the recruiting pipeline.

What a big steaming pile of political correctness. The author interviews a tiny handful of mediocre college students who blame their "color" for not getting hired right out of school by big, glamorous tech companies. Are we supposed to be sympathetic?

I remember my own struggles to break into the tech business, many years ago now. Although white and "privileged", i.e. no cultural barriers to entry, I found it very tough and had to jump through hoops, work my way up from semi-tech to actual development positions. I took night school courses on a credit card and got into debt. I bought whatever gear I could afford and stayed up until 3am writing code, then got up and went to my menial job.

The opportunities didn't just fall in my lap; I had to earn them. No glamorous technology titans came knocking on my door, begging me to come interview. I had to work for everything I got, and God, it was hard. It still is.

This same work ethic applied to everyone; I was on the chatboards in the late 80s, all through the 90s, and the 2000s, and the story is always the same. You have to have the right stuff if you want to build a career in technology -- be smart, creative, have some initiative, humility, humor, etc.

So maybe Black Americans don't get that in their upbringing. Maybe they're not taught to be smart, competitive, hard charging over achievers. Maybe they're not encouraged to be creative, to think outside the box, etc. I don't know. What I do know is, you can't compensate for that by handing people undeserved opportunities.

Affirmative action is a failure; it's nothing but a form of welfare. If Google reaches out and hires under qualified people from Howard or wherever, just to say it's trying to overcome "barriers" and achieve "diversity", that's all doublespeak that in the end means "We will hire a few token blacks because we have extra money. It will make us feel good, and it will fool them into thinking they made it. Whatever. We have to do it."