Quote:
Originally Posted by donquixote99
Finn, I'm fully willing to accept that your kids are exceptionally talented. Probably 95th percentile or better in the math SATs, right? And they had family tradition to build on, a secure economic background, and parents who understood what a technical education requires and helped them along. God help us if all those advantages can't pave the way for success.
Do you suppose it's valid to want the economy to work for the other 95% too?
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I was responding to the assertion that "people under 30 are screwed on the job venue." If you major in the right discipline, this is not even remotely true, regardless of where you find yourself on the economic spectrum.
In fact, minority kids in technical/scientific disciplines are in even higher demand that middle-class kids and are virtually guaranteed multiple job offers. I personally have been on multiple recruiting trips to traditionally black universities as well as the University of Mayagüez in Puerto Rico actively seeking out minority kids with engineering degrees, while deliberately ignoring graduates of prestigious universities.
It is, of course, true that minority kids need to want to go to school and study in order to succeed. I'm not sure what can be done to inculcate these values, but I can't help but think the best place to start would be with their own families. FWIW, my son's two best friends are first-generation Nigerian and Haitian-American engineering graduates of Florida A&M (a traditionally black university). Their parents came here from their native countries with hardly a dime in the pockets and without formal education and their sons are now highly successful Professional Engineers (one is mechanical, the other electrical).