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Ivy League degrees don't do anything if you don't know the right people. Ever tried getting a job after graduating from one? It's nearly impossible. Almost all students from those schools get jobs through internships during their student years or campus recruiters. Companies don't want to hire fresh from a pool of recent graduates. That's a major cause of the underemployment problems in this country right now. Call it the corporate-industrial complex.
As a few other posters mentioned this "black guy's" rant isn't just about his race. You find whites all over NYC and USA for that matter being hit with the same socio-economic forces and equally bitter. Or have we forgotten that news report from a few months about the high rate of white Americans dying from pills, booze and suicide?
African-Americans and the poor for that matter have been coddled in NYC for some time now, and to an extent that does continue. However neither have the power to stop or even mitigate the forces that are changing New York City.
Just as with San Francisco, Boston, Paris, London, etc... urban areas once again are "hot" places to live and "white flight" has ceased and is reversing. Young, middle-aged and even seniors who are white and or at least well educated and have money are moving into cities in increasing numbers. Those waves are doing what such demographic/socio-economic population shifts always do; cause displacement to previous native groups.
I and others have said this before; the only reason large parts of NYC were "affordable" was because no one wanted to live there. Well at least not white educated middle class persons. Just late as 1990's much of Brooklyn outside of Brooklyn Heights down to Park Slope was not on such person's radar, now you have multi-million dollar housing in *Red Hook*!
With all this movement into cities competition for well paying employment has increased. Employers at the moment can pick and choose from a large applicant pool for the "best" jobs. The sort of positions African-Americans and their supporters here in NYC have been fighting to get their people into.
Ivy League degrees don't do anything if you don't know the right people. Ever tried getting a job after graduating from one? It's nearly impossible. Almost all students from those schools get jobs through internships during their student years or campus recruiters. Companies don't want to hire fresh from a pool of recent graduates. That's a major cause of the underemployment problems in this country right now.
Ivy League education then and now often still goes hand in hand with family/personal connections. Just look at Obama's cabinet and appointments; there you'll find no small number of persons he knew personally or at least of from his Ivy League days.
What many do not seem to realize and minority students find out later to their dismay the entire prep-school to Ivy League college track not only still exists but is as powerful as ever. You have kids/persons that have moved in the same circles almost since birth. They know or know of each other, marry each other, travel to the same vacation places, etc.... in short an entire world that those outside of are totally ignorant.
Social and or family connections are still a powerful force in this country and indeed elsewhere in the world (France and London come to mind). Just look at many of the tech companies such as Facebook and who is at the top.
I found that out the hard way. Of course, Ivy League schools (and other high-end institutions) have done a good job of displaying the image that they are for the everybody and that everybody should aspire to be in them. That's absolutely not true (especially at the undergrad level), but people don't know any better. Most schools have good professors and academics for just about anybody but the difference with the likes of Dartmouth, Stanford, and others in the same ilk is that they have the management and financing that puts them in a special group. Those two things are what attracts the elite (because of the brand name for social circles) and the intelligent (more resources that other institutions may not have for specific research). That being said, at the undergrad level you're not going to find too many bonafide intellectuals among the student body.
See I find this statement very curious. I believe you as someone coming from an Ivy League. I did many, many internships with the Department of State where almost all the diplomats are ivy league alumni. I dated several men who were ivy league alumni. There's no question that they're intelligent, well-informed, and seem to have a good knowledge of obscure facts, but one thing common among all of them that really jumped out at me is this lack of curiosity or lack of interest in critical thinking. I always wondered why that was. Do you have any ideas?
Historically critical thinking was not a strong suit of WASP males or females for that matter.
You are so right here. I wanted to rep you but the system wouldn't let me. A transplant who comes here with a generic degree and no parental support is likely to have to leave the city soon. And as you noted they won't inherit money or real estate from parents, and they don't know how to exploit the government subsidies for housing. Therefore they need a masters degree from a top college or Ivy League (or a specific bachelor's degree like economics or computer science).
Los Angeles is the same way. I will probably go back out there (just vacationed there and am missing LA from the times I lived there before). But ultimately it is the same thing, to get decent jobs there you need to have graduated from a top school and you ideally need a masters degree (grad student now).
This is unlike the 80s where transplants could come to these big cities without legit plans and just get whatever jobs. Those days are permanently over.
Re: nothing will be done to save suburbia. The issue in these days people prefer to be closer to work and that's a factor in driving gentrification (along with government tax credits, low interest rates, and large sums of investment money flowing in from overseas).
Wow. I didn't know LA was like that too. I was under the impression that San Francisco was like such, no? I too want to check out LA soon. I know of a woman in my social circle. She is from Seattle with a generic degree. She had a 40k a year job and had a degree from a college in Washington state. Her roommates went to top college. One roommate even got fired and found a job a month later. This would have been difficult if one had an ordinary degree from a lower level tiered college. Any way, should could not hack it in NYC and left.
I would also like to add that 2008 recession cleaned out a lot of employees in the city who had lower level college degrees from their employers. Also employers pumped it up a bit and now asking candidates for credentials, a four year degree or higher, or even some a masters degree. Those days of going into the lobby and looking at the bulletin board for job opening are long gone my friend and are never coming back. I knew of a man that worked on Wall Street. He has a degree only from a community college, his position now requires someone that went to a top college or extensive background in financial services. Also Wall Street has changed in demographics. Wall Street a generation ago used to have more women and minorities, now its mostly made up of white men. I also read an article, even though its 2 years old about how hard it is for black people to get ahead even after the recession is long gone. The article takes place here in NY and these blacks folks were very professional folks. Had jobs such as corporate executives, sales men, actors and so forth.
As for suburbia? It will be alright especially suburbs of Austin, OKC, Houston Phoenix and such. Northeast suburbs will struggle due to high costs of living and taxes. What saved suburbia as of recently is lower gas prices for cars. I think their is a push to try to urbanize suburbs a bit so that young people can live there, as well as creating more office job parks. The future of suburbia will be those surrounded by a very small dense urban downtown. Sprawling cities with suburbs will be in trouble in the years ahead due to long commute times, taxes, cost of living. All of this puts pressure on nearby cities such as NYC, DC and SF which are just as expensive or more expensive as the outlying suburbs. Then you have to ask yourself, where are middle class people supposed to go if they cant afford city or suburb? THis is also only happening in liberal parts of the country. My biggest concern right now is the up coming industrial revolution which will bring A.I into the work force.
Transplants in my social circle that leave NYC really want to come back. I ask them "why"? THey said its something about it here that they like. I smh. I know a lot of transplants in my circle that I work with. I know what they go through.
Ivy League degrees don't do anything if you don't know the right people. Ever tried getting a job after graduating from one? It's nearly impossible. Almost all students from those schools get jobs through internships during their student years or campus recruiters. Companies don't want to hire fresh from a pool of recent graduates. That's a major cause of the underemployment problems in this country right now. Call it the corporate-industrial complex.
Yes I have and no it wasn't nearly impossible. It was pretty easy. Many of us to move up in the field end up going to grad school.
I can tell you guys are only going by what you heard.
Not everyone who had a successful career from an Ivy League did so just because they had these magical connections you speak on. Depending on the field and the quality of the person's research, word gets around and people know who has done what.
I've met top level researchers who did not come from particularly connected families and they are doing very well.
You do need a good background in your education k-12, and you do need the means to pay for it. And you may very well need the means to pay for a graduate school post graduation.
But you don't need to be a part of secret societies or whatever other ridiculous nonsense you guys are spouting. Sounds like you just watched a couple of movies and are imaging what the Ivy League must be like.
In East Flatbush (20s-80s streets) (Brooklyn NYC), that whole neighborhood hates gentrification. A White couple moved into the neighborhood when I still lived there, and they got robbed, and the was sprayed... then they moved out a couple months later. Sad, but true. It's a 90% Black neighborhood.
I was one of those people who were Hispanic, but I moved out eventually too. Just to live in a house, no moreapartment living. Too small for me. Nobody messed with me because my dad did some criminal work with the Crips in the neighborhood, and my grandparents moved there in 1973 (when it was still majorily Jewish). But nobody deserves to be picked on for trying to gentrify a neighborhood.
Every top school is different, but the common goal for most students is to build themselves into a position that will land them a great job or a shot at a well-known grad studies department. For some industries (sports management and sports media are good examples of this), it's often essential to attend certain schools. Many people are already well-aware of what kind of career field they want to enter before ever setting foot on any campus. The ultimate goal of careerism is to build one's career, but that doesn't require much thought if the path is already laid out. There are people who will do more than simply optimize their profile, but that's not the majority.
And I didn't even touch on all the wacky admissions stuff, such as athletic recruitment, legacies, and affirmative action. You can imagine how stuff like that will affect a student body each year.
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