Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
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Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#2Is it that they don't hire black coders? Or is it that there are very few black coders to begin with? African Americans make up 13% of the US population and they graduate college at a lower rate than other ethic groups.
It would also be interesting to look at selected majors across ethnic groups. I suspect that blacks go in to CS at a lower rate than other ethnic groups.
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#3Did you read the article?
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#4I would say some of the students in the article probably aren't SV material - "They’d begun studying computer science in college"? So you've been involved with computers for 4 whole years and you think you're qualified for a top tier job? I'm sure not all of the students only started in college - I'm also not naive enough to think there isn't prejudice in SV, but didn't start until college...
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#5It's interesting that it describes Silicon Valley as being too white, when it seems like there are quite a few Asians. Even working elsewhere, a high percentage of our programmers are Asian, higher than the metro's demographics would suggest.
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#6Did you read the article?
Should we bother? With a title like that, they don't seem interested in meaningful dialog.
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#7Is it that they don't hire black coders? Or is it that there are very few black coders to begin with? African Americans make up 13% of the US population and they graduate college at a lower rate than other ethic groups. It would also be interesting to look at selected majors across ethnic groups. I suspect that blacks go in to CS at a lower rate than other ethnic groups.
Indeed. To put some numbers around the touchy-feely slice-of-life reporting in the article, education statistics [1] suggest that only 4-5% of BSc CS degree graduates are black, and only 1-2% of MSc CS graduates are black, despite most US universities discriminating in terms of admissions in their favour.
If the applicant pool is disproportionately skewed, you cannot expect the employee base to be any different, and minorities will stick out (which in turn is not necessarily bad for the people if they are good at what they do)...
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#8[deleted]
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#9> One senior, Sarah Jones, ... “There are not a lot of people of color in the Valley—and that, by itself, makes it kind of unwelcoming."
This statement may be true if "people of color" means African American. Otherwise, it is just not the fact. I do think, through my personal experience, the Valley is probably the most diverse place that I have been. I've seen people all over the wrold here: Asian, Latino, European, etc.
Re: Silicon Valley and Black Coders: Howard University fights to join the tech boom
#10Did you read the article?
Did you? Google FB etc. are hiring MIT, Stanford etc. graduates what a surpise :) they are hiring people who started coding when they were kids as opposed to people who picked up SE in college no way!