This post will get downvoted so much but as a female who grew up on welfare, the first one in my family to graduate from high school, with a degree in electrical engineering and now self taught crappy but getting better software engineer, I literally want to cry knowing this antagonistic response os still the default of the
heartbeat in tech.
If anyone eants real stories about what its like for a female in hardcore tech not a priveleged woman in pro women tech events all the time (and honestly, traumatised to go in fear of the dillemma of how do I encourage women while simultaneously warning them of what an emotioal nightmare it is wading through biases much like the ones that exist in this conversation but not as a one off hn comment threads but interwoven in the fabric of your everyday interactions with coworkers, tech scene friends and original first impression to college peers) while not diacouraging them that hey deapitw the building, the perao al dignity you'll gain from prpving yourself if your willing to put in the effort and quite honestly lets be real, the security that financially you'll never hage to depend on a man, that the day he hits you you can take you and your children and leave his sorry ass behind and never have to worry about money or atleast meeting the basic needs of your family, is nkt the high money whire rich men on wallstreet feel bjt its a high you should feel everyday when you wake up in the morning when you ask yourself what is the minimum level of bullshit your willing to put up with and what is not, is forever worth it.
Theres always so many views on this idea (whether its worth it to go to college if you work in tech and the externalities involved) but Tldr: I would have loved to take a 6 figure job without $80k in student loans.
I am a female software engineer and encourage the girls I know to not worry about the fact they are in their mid 20s stuck in retail jobs. I tell them to take udacity etc. Bootcamps. At our company some of our best hires are girls and guys who are doing bootcamps or took udacity courses.
One great benefit to this is
1. From my view they arent tainted in tech. As a female I hated going to a tech school with men and I would have loved to haved skipped the four years of social hell.
Getting hacked keylogged and told I only got accepted into college because im a girl despite having a 4.0 and making perfect SAT scores was the norm and ive confirmed from other tech schools as well including but not limited to MIT.
2. They dont have egos or entitlement associated with having a degree. They only have their relevant work.
3. They have the ability and initiative to be self taught and learn new things without it being handed to them in a curriculum.
4. They often feel inferior because they dont have a college degree which is bad but often as a result they are incredibly humble, open minded, respectful, greatful, eager to learn and grow.
We are currently hiring two great female candidates from bootcamp and honestly they know alot more relevant to my job because the classes are very applied whereas im stuck paying off loans and teaching myaelf everything they learned as well.
Its true people are not equal in thwir ambition, raw intellivence (people can be intelligent in many waya even not know math but be a creative genius and do well as say a self taught film artist. I kmow some) but its not true the inequality is calibrated by each layer of socioeconomic demographic. Some really smart people Will percolate up through layers of poverty or whatever socioeconomic status by being curious hard working dedicated and iterating on a non self deatructive attitude towards themaelves and the people and communities that will support their growth. In the same vein people born into the top can be lazy entitled not very smart and shuffled into good colleges by helicopter parents managing connections at admissions offices and babystepping and forcing their kids into having the resumes other people garner on their own accord without any authoritarian guidance.
Therefore I think it is important to make sure that we minimise bias and othwr barriers as much as possible to help people who are naturlaly more ambitious experience less unnecessary setbacks. Because trust me as someone who spent the first half of their childhood on welfare there are plenty of barriers people will naturally face for the rest of their life without even considering financial barriers or others.
A lack of social support and being born into self deatructive habits and thught processes can take a lifetime to reverse and if someone can do that when noone else is around to support them has already in my mind shown an extraordinary level of mental strength ambition and dedication, and ultimately theres not a single college degree or career that can be saved if someone doeant have atleast a healthy dose of these things.
This article seems to address equality as if it exists by socioeconomic layer but we should consider it by trait.
An easy way to do this is to track movement. Most famous economists Will tell you what they care about in wealth inequality isnt that there are poor and rich people. They seem to accept there will always be a bell curve (the extremeities of this curve and taxes for each bracket I understand are go for debate and im not saying they shouldnt be) but actually in their data analytics what they are teasing out is movement.
They dont care/see an issue with someone beung poor what they care about is that economics allow for someone to be able to move from poor to rich and vise versa that rich people arent entrenched without any economic accountability to be moved around in the system, and it is particularly that, the fact that the upper echelon has the ability to exponentiate their wealth and that having a basic education in finance and education is mostly closed source and for the elite is what we should be worried about.
If anyone eants real stories about what its like for a female in hardcore tech not a priveleged woman in pro women tech events all the time (and honestly, traumatised to go in fear of the dillemma of how do I encourage women while simultaneously warning them of what an emotioal nightmare it is wading through biases much like the ones that exist in this conversation but not as a one off hn comment threads but interwoven in the fabric of your everyday interactions with coworkers, tech scene friends and original first impression to college peers) while not diacouraging them that hey deapitw the building, the perao al dignity you'll gain from prpving yourself if your willing to put in the effort and quite honestly lets be real, the security that financially you'll never hage to depend on a man, that the day he hits you you can take you and your children and leave his sorry ass behind and never have to worry about money or atleast meeting the basic needs of your family, is nkt the high money whire rich men on wallstreet feel bjt its a high you should feel everyday when you wake up in the morning when you ask yourself what is the minimum level of bullshit your willing to put up with and what is not, is forever worth it.