<p>Maybe they don't determine race, and it just so happens that the underrepresented minorities are randomly not selected. Remember, not to many apply to begin with, but those who do and qualify may just not hit the lottery.</p>
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At least in NYC a full time custodian makes from 65K to 80K a year. Guidance counselors can even make more than that.
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<p>Look up average salaries of custodians in NYC, as I did, and you'll get a number ~22k. For guidance counselors, a number ~55k, and for engineers a number ~85k. And those are averages for NYC alone, not the nation. So, who was the smarter person? Looks like Person A.</p>
<p>You sir, haven't mastered the custodial arts. Or watched half baked. A janitor and custodian isn't really the same. LOL </p>
<p>Custodian</a> Salaries - Free Salary Search
engineer</a> Salaries - Free Salary Search
guidance</a> counselor Salaries - Free Salary Search</p>
<p>Truth hurts, engineers get paid more than a custodian and a guidance counselor. Your very theoretical and I agree that if the pay was the same I rather be a guidance counselor and sit on my @s.</p>
<p>salaries are not based on intelligence, they are based on the rarity of the job and or scarcity of employees that are willing to and can perform the job. For example, let's say there's a job cleaning feces, Everyone can do it, but no one wants to, so it will be high paying.
CEO's not everyone can do the job and aren't many opennings for it so it demands a high pay.</p>
<p>I just finished a brief analysis of the Engineer vs. Janitor debate you're having here. My study was conducted on the popular TV show "Scrubs", and while Fiction it is true the art imitates life. So, it must be a good representation.</p>
<p>In the show Janitor drives an A-Team van, which is totally cool, and he wields all the power in the hospital. We are not privy to his salary, but he was able to work for several episodes after being fired while still receiving pay, and when hired back he told the accountant to himself a raise; so I gather he makes a pretty good income. </p>
<p>There are no engineers, but if there were they'd probably be patients with poor insurance.</p>
<p>Conclusion: Janitors rule.</p>
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The vast majority of engineers will never see wealth in their lifetimes. I have no solid numbers but my guess would be well over 90%, whereas most managers will see wealth.</p>
<p>An engineering degree gives you no more depth than the sum of wikipedia articles for each subject. Its nothing special. It is all open knowledge, none of it is secretive to those who study it, opposed to some other majors.</p>
<p>Think all CEO's that are engineers and take the number of them and compare it to the annual graduate rates of engineering students.
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At the end of the day, its all about what and how much money can you bring to your company, regardless of your major or your education. The more money and profit you can bring to your company, the more "wealth" you will see... engineers, scientists or psychologists.</p>
<p>The obvious flaw with Dr. Horse's logic is he's not comparing the average engineer with the average (anything else profession).</p>
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We live longer and rape the planet of its resources, with our increased lifetimes, we only leech more and more from the planet and by doing so threaten our species.
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<p>Well, we're threatening our species current standard of living, but that doesn't mean we wouldn't survive even if we nuked ourselves back to the stone age. Also, trying to figure out how "destroying" the planet is necessarily a bad thing. I mean, from a human perspective, sure, it's bad as long as you want to keep with our current standard of living. But if we manage to destroy the earth, who's going to be around to care?</p>
<p>Can we go back to the topic??</p>
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Can we go back to the topic??
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<p>Sure.</p>
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So your argument is now that more minorities need to be pushed into engineering because a handful might be self-conscious that they're the only brown/black/white/purple person. While this is a valid argument, it has nothing at all to increasing innovation or advancement in engineering other than furthering some murky goal of diversity.
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<p>I think that it is too bad that we don't see a lot of female, hispanic, or black engineers/physicists/mathematicians. They should be encouraged to do engineering. Offering minority-only scholarships and opportunities is perfectly fair, given that they have gotten the short end of the stick for years. I even think that it is fair for college admissions to discriminate against well-off white males and give their spots to slightly less qualified minorities. I'm sure that they will still do well in life.</p>
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This stupid phrase has been trumpeted by everyone who's jumping on this bandwagon, but not a single person has explained exactly why it would be good for the field or how.
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<p>Well, I think that it is stupid to overlook how much of a white sausage-fest math/physics/engineering are and just say "well that's how it's always been, so it's okay" You are onto something though. This sort of debate is a recurring one because it really boils down to a matter of opinion. Here you cannot apply pure reason; mostly you only appeal to sentiment and hope that others agree. </p>
<p>However, I do agree with you in one sense. The idea that being black will give you a different perspective on an engineering/physics/math problem is pretty silly.</p>
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However, I do agree with you in one sense. The idea that being black will give you a different perspective on an engineering/physics/math problem is pretty silly.
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<p>Thank you for summing up my thoughts exactly. Every time I even suggest that racial diversity does nothing in the area of math-based problem solving, people point out something completely unrelated, like how the workplace will benefit from more diversity or something.</p>
<p>At the same time, I can't agree that it is alright to discriminate against well-off white males or any other social group like that. There's a very 'stick it to the man' attitude that's popular in admissions and what-have-you but honestly it's not fair to apply a value system like this to people's applications. Are a black female's accomplishments worth twice as much as a similarly accomplished white male? I'd feel pretty ****ty if I knew that my accomplishments were viewed as less valued because of something that I had no control over (how much my parents make, what skin color or gender I am, etc). </p>
<p>Even if the candidate admitted is only slightly less qualified, it's still reverse discrimination. And lowering the standards for any one group is an indirect insult, and it seems to say that they couldn't manage to get in if they were evaluated on an equal basis. Why not focus on bringing the educational quality of the disadvantaged group up in order to get more minorities in? That should be THE concern among those who worry about the lack of diversity and it would have immense positive benefits to everyone, not artificially lowering the bar. The end goal of a college should still be to admit and produce the best engineers possible, whether they're white, black, or purple. I'm a 'minority' (in some academic areas anyways) but I want to know that I got into my field and passion fair and square, based on my merits and not because someone in admissions felt sorry for me or was looking to fill a quota.</p>
<p>I do agree with you on minority-only scholarships, though. They are usually privately funded and a great idea that makes a lot of difference in people's lives. Especially since there are a lot of bright, young minority students who have the smarts to go to college but maybe decide against it because they couldn't afford it.</p>
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Why not focus on bringing the educational quality of the disadvantaged group up in order to get more minorities in? That should be THE concern among those who worry about the lack of diversity and it would have immense positive benefits to everyone, not artificially lowering the bar.
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</p>
<p>Isn't this the entire thought process behind affirmative action? </p>
<p>In any case, this is hardly limited to engineering or even education. Minority and women owned businesses get advantages all the time.</p>
<p>Math is nondiscriminatory against age, gender, race or sexual orientation. However, diversity is beneficial towards solving engineering problems because it involves more than just math and physics; engineering problems are linked to the real world through social, economic, and environmental factors that a group of similarly narrow-minded individuals cannot solve in an efficient manner. The economy has shifted towards a global economy with the rise of the internet and mass telecommunication, a shift that requires companies to build their next generation of technologies with a global perspective in mind. GM and Ford cannot survive without realising that they need to produce products that represent the demands of its consumers. The consumers come from all walks of life and from every corner of the world, a trend that must be utilized by corporations in hiring their engineers, lawyers, marketers, etc. Even in America, the fall of segregation helped lead to, after a generation or two, a consumer base with the diminishing strength of the white, middle class American. The minority population has slowly begun to become stronger in their market influence as their collective income grows, therefore, they can no longer be ignored. I believe that by 2050, the white American will no longer be a majority compared to the collective minority population. If these companies snooze, they will inevitably lose.</p>
<p>
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Quote:
Why not focus on bringing the educational quality of the disadvantaged group up in order to get more minorities in? That should be THE concern among those who worry about the lack of diversity and it would have immense positive benefits to everyone, not artificially lowering the bar.
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Isn't this the entire thought process behind affirmative action?
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<p>No, because affirmative action is just artificially lowering the bar again and setting quotas. I meant educational quality in high schools and downwards. What I meant was that things like improving the education at schools in 'bad areas' or setting up an outreach program to get younger minority kids interested.</p>
<p>joewhiz: Yes, I agree that America is getting more and more diverse but I still think that the math and science parts of engineering make up the most important and most difficult parts of the job. The rest is basically consumer research and market demands. And you don't need to be a minority to know what the American consumer or company wants, so this argument isn't all that convincing to me, unless you suppose that only minorities can know what minorities would want to buy. They're not a different species, for god's sake; they want the same things everyone else wants (inexpensive, good quality, and/or large quantity).</p>
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What I meant was that things like improving the education at schools in 'bad areas' or setting up an outreach program to get younger minority kids interested.
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This is clearly the ideal solution that everyone is striving for, but colleges and adcoms can't do anything about this now. They're too busy reading applications.</p>
<p>Remember, even with AA minorities are STILL very much underrepresented in top colleges. Even if they got in with a slightly lower GPA from high school, these people should be proud of the social and/or economic obstacles that they have overcome to get where they are.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"At the same time, I can't agree that it is alright to discriminate against well-off white males or any other social group like that. There's a very 'stick it to the man' attitude that's popular in admissions and what-have-you but honestly it's not fair to apply a value system like this to people's applications. Are a black female's accomplishments worth twice as much as a similarly accomplished white male? I'd feel pretty ****ty if I knew that my accomplishments were viewed as less valued because of something that I had no control over (how much my parents make, what skin color or gender I am, etc). "
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that in certain circumstances a person's accomplishments are more impressive. Take for instance myself, every year since 7th grade I have completed indpendent physics research projects. If you look through my post history you can see the research I did in my bedroom and the awards I got for it. My project last year studied the probablity for photons to undergo quantum tunneling and I developed an equation to model the probability as a function of the distance traveled. I got numerous awards from that project from Jacobs Enginnering, the American Physical Society, and the Regional science fair.
Seems like my parents would have helped me right? No, neither of my parents have a research degree and my step-father did not attend college. I worked during the summer and used the money to buy the materials for my research and taught it all to myself over the course of years. </p>
<p>Contrast my situation with those who family members have friends in research labs and instead of working they go to the university lab to conduct research with the same outcome, which would be more impressive?</p>
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"but I want to know that I got into my field and passion fair and square, based on my merits and not because someone in admissions felt sorry for me or was looking to fill a quota."
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</p>
<p>This is ridiculous do you honestly think that the minorities who are accepted to top schools are inferior? Really, so if I got accepted to yale or Princeton and you saw me walking would you naturally assume that I got into both because I was black? Oh that's right you would, because you don't know what goes on in an admission office so you didn't see the 16 page research paper I submitted to help my app, of the hundreds of hours in debate or the eight years I played football or all the trumpet competitions I have been to. People need to shed the concept that the minorities who are getting admitted to these programs are less qualified because although that may be true in some instances it is certainly not a rule. </p>
<p>
[quote]
"I do agree with you on minority-only scholarships, though. They are usually privately funded and a great idea that makes a lot of difference in people's lives. Especially since there are a lot of bright, young minority students who have the smarts to go to college but maybe decide against it because they couldn't afford it. "
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I certainly agree with this as well and as a recepient of a 40K scholarship from a generous family I can whole heartedly attest to the fact that their generousity does in fact change lives because I had no idea how I was paying for college without it (except for thousand of dollars in loans :(). I thank God daily that He has blessed the Randall family and for thier generosity. Although I feel bad because my asian and white friends need money too.</p>
<p>I also think that people who are not minorities do not realize the tacit subconcious discrimination that occurs on a daily basis. I am smart I know that but when I was in a class where I was the only minority for the first time (my honors pre-cal class) I seriously thought about dropping down not because I mentally couldn't handle the work but the psychology of not seeing others like you pursue a field really does have an impact because it results in negative reinforcement. In fact if you go to the minority subcategory you will see the numerous posts by other blacks such as myself who have had similar experiences of being the "token" and how it feels.</p>
<p>Where do you guys live? I think there are tons of Asians major in engineering.</p>
<p>So if the minority students admitted are judged by the same standards that all the other students are, I have no issue! I have an issue when they relax standards for certain groups and give preferential treatment. That is AA and I believe it is incorrect and unfair. </p>
<p>I respect your accomplishments and I think that you earned your place at your university several times over. however, I am slightly worried if you constantly think everyone's judging you. As I said again, I am a minority in my field as well but, guess what? It doesn't bother me in the slightest so I have little to no sympathy for "Wahh! I'm the only black/white/purple/female/blonde person in X class!". Your accomplishments clearly speak for themselves and you'll never be able to change what people think, so I have no idea why making rules and false standards makes people think you'll change opinions. Do you think AA or preferential treatment will make people see minorities as smarter? If anything they'll just start thinking "Oh, Dbate only got in because he's a minority." Be careful so your grand scheme doesn't backfire.</p>
<p>Somehow it seems that you feel like admitting more minority students will alleviate the problem of stereotypes and I have no problem with this but only if they're equally as qualified as the other students. In this day and age where there is a serious shortage of science and math graduates in the US, we'd be better served by admitting the brightest, and race, gender, or any other superfluous fact be damned.</p>
<p>^^I actually oppose AA because I feel that it completely reduces the accomplishments of minorities who earn their places in schools. Also the minority experience of being the only girl is totally different the experience of being the only black in a class. There is a lot of social things that occur subtly bc people really view black people in a negative way, but the same is not neccessarily true of girls. It is a different type of marginalization.</p>
<p>Yes, fine, whatever. Some people clearly revel in their pain so I almost feel bad taking it away. Without going all feminist-y on you, black people got the right to vote before women, a black president was elected before a woman president, and women still make something like 70 cents to every dollar a man (white or black or purple) makes. Let's not play the 'who suffers more' game.</p>
<p>But I do agree with you on AA, so it seems that we were arguing, at least in part, about nothing for a bit there.</p>