Comment Diversity Candidate Preference. (Score 1) 307
The divisions are based on non-merit criteria.
The divisions are based on non-merit criteria.
To address the challenge of rapidly increasing CS enrollments and increasing diversity, reports the Computing Education Blog, Google in November put out an RFP to universities for its invite-only 3X in 3 Years: CS Capacity Award program, which aims "to support faculty in finding innovative ways to address the capacity problem in their CS courses." In the linked-to RFP document, Google suggests that "students that have some CS background" should not be allowed to attend in-person intro CS courses where they "may be more likely to create a non-welcoming environment," and recommends that they instead be relegated to online courses. According to a recent NSF press release, this recommendation would largely exclude Asian and White boys from classrooms
In other words, they're trying to remove White males and Asians for non-merit reasons, and making it look like it was a merit-based criteria.
The project suggested in the Google RFP — which could be worth $1.5 million over 3 years to a large CS department — seems to embrace-and-extend a practice implemented at Harvey Mudd College years ago under President Maria Klawe, which divided the intro CS offering into separate sections based upon prior programming experience to — as the NY Times put it — reduce the intimidation factor of young men, already seasoned programmers, who dominated the class.
Intimidation? That sounds like they're not interested in merit but in discrimination against Asians and White males - as in wanting to see them leave CS. As one of those "white males that dominated the class" through performance, I used that knowledge to legitimately help others (which might be an extraordinary concept at Harvey Mudd).
The only thing they want to do is to embrace and extend a false sense of diversity while extinguishing the supply of education to those not "diverse" enough.
Google Director of Education and University Relations Maggie Johnson, whose name appears on the CS Capacity RFP, is also on the Board of Code.org (where Klawe is coincidentally an Advisory Board member), the K-12 learn-to-code nonprofit that has received $3+ million from Google and many millions more from other tech giants and their execs. Earlier this week, Code.org received the blessing of the White House and NSF to train 25,000 teachers to teach CS, stirring unease among some educators concerned about the growing influence of corporations in public schools.
As long as you're a Diversity Candidate, they want you to learn. If you're a White male or Asian, they want you not to learn. That, and combined with the preference for non-US labor, they don't want White males or Asians in traditional lines of work either.
Wow, sounds just about like classes we had in the US until the 1930s when we adopted the Prussian designed "Industrial Education system" which made people smart enough to calculate artillery range but too damn stupid to question orders doesn't it? Oh, you may not know this part of history since it's buried in piles of bureaucratic shit to hide it.. but it's there!
Your epic contempt for public schools, however good they can get, is shining brightly. Then again, I doubt you've seen a well-run, highly-ranked public school.
On the other hand, no real problem exists with the people we have.
It certainly could turn into a cheap labor scenario, and I am no fan of the H1-B, having worked with many in my time, but businesses that do not have a good pool of candidates are in big trouble, because you need talent as well as skill on your coding bench to make money and get ahead unless you're already a giant, and even then it hurts when your coders suck. Many H1-Bs are sweatshop hacks. However, there are some who are very talented and I am happy when they manage to upgrade to green card or even naturalize.
That's what you get when you do nothing to counter the entitlement mentality of businesses.
Current immigration policy in the US, whether or not it was intended to do so, treats the citizen as having too good of a position in the world. Businesses read that as citizenship being business-hostile (unless it's their own).
Unfortunately, disparate impact can change that statement.
You are disposable. There will always be another one just like you that they can hire. They can get a dozen resumes with a single call.
Only if citizens are not given their proper prioritization above non-citizens.
That's if they don't just get someone on a H1B visa.
That's an even bigger problem since it presumes that a US citizen is never competent enough.
I am running my own business these days. but several years ago (2008-2012) I was working for an Israeli start up and was enjoying myself. They appreciated the life-long experience gained during dozens if not hundreds of software projects big and small.
Exception case of someone doing well in a unstable environment designed to be bad for most - versus a system of good pay & security that is better for most.
So, I would say consider setting up your own company and doing independent consulting. That way you can just help companies out when they need it and continue to stay on the technical side of things. Depending on what your skills are, your rate as an independent consultant will probably exceed what you would make going into management anyway.
Not only do you get to deal with the increased costs (which claw back any increases), you also have an increased lack of stability for when things go wrong (which they will).
I've been doing nothing but contracts for almost 4 years now and almost every week a recruiter or someone is asking me if I'm available for a contract. I haven't noticed any age discrimination yet. I've seen guys in their 70's still working contracts along with me and doing fine.
You're disposable, so they like you - which is the problem at hand.
You get the rarity of job security with the budget of a large company.
Are you an in-house programmer now? Move to a company that services clients.
Which means that you move to something with the stability of a tsunami-hit nuclear reactor, which is none.
Or if you currently provide services to clients, move the other direction.
The saner move.
Any reasonable person would be suspicious that age discrimination does not exist.
FTFY.
True, a young engineer will never get rejected for knowing only COBOL - but there's no excuse for a graying one to have that problem either. If anything, good older engineers should be *more* up-to-date because they can learn new technologies faster (having learned so many before), and are more abreast of useful trends (because their experience lets them discern fads from real evolution).
Which only justifies a greater push to kill off age discrimination to allow competent people their day. If it really was about competence, a whole lot of problems in finding people would simply not exist (especially with guest workers).
You presume that all should have that ability while not recognizing the good value of those that do not.
There are a lot of public employees in Detroit, Michigan who believed that too. Hell, it was in their State Consitution that their pension promises must be 'honest'.
Thank the Mackinac Institute/ALEC-run government for the final push. Not only did they establish one line of control of Detroit (state takeover that effectively nullified elections), but that they rushed through a bankruptcy filing to gain another. That, and the entities that take over the state call themselves *conservatives* for doing that.
Only if your state isn't under the control of ALEC(read: MI/WI/IN/KS/PA and lighter controls under OH). Such states have gone all out against those working for state agencies.
We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts. -- Patrick Moynihan
