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As a black guy who works in the field of STEM, I feel that my perspective is largely missing from this conversation. To my credit I've been a software engineer for 15 years, and I have worked with all of the big companies. I've worked with Apple, HP, and financial tech companies. I will say one thing, is that there is one thing beyond race. And that's logic. When you have a naturally logical and analytical mind I think people often forget what race you are.
My journey to my field was a very very difficult one. And to be perfectly honest, a lot of it was my fault. For one, I never graduated college. As a matter of fact I never even graduated from high school. I'm a straight up GED student, and dropped out of high school just a week after I turned 16. But it never mattered and I'll tell you why.
The day I dropped out of high school, and literally the very day I withdrew from all of my classes. I went to a broken down public library on the East side of Atlanta. And I went and picked up a calculus book. Now when I was in high school, I couldn't even get up to trig. And here I was, willing to bypass trig altogether and dive into calculus.
Needless to say, I did teach myself. And continue to teach myself even after I got to college. I had such a growing obsession with mathematics. The way in which I was teaching myself mathematics made me think to myself "Was it really this easy the whole time"? I remember how easy it was calculating the points on an integral. Now there would be multivariable calculus and differential equations. Which I never took the time to learn. At least not yet.
You see, in the world, logic is my armor. And no matter what anyone says, mathematics is the most powerful thing in the world. I started to understand the culture of mathematics. As it gave me even greater insight about mankind. How different tribes and groups no matter how technologically behind they were, always developed a system of mathematics. So when I started my computer science coursework, I was basically built to do it.
If you could actually engineer someone with a propensity to develop software. It was me. I was born to do it. Early in my career I didn't get very far. I had to take IT jobs, that weren't directly related to what I wanted to do. But after a few years I did it. And my lack of education was quite irrelevant. See I always felt, that if I go to a job interview and they don't hire me. It is because I couldn't convince them that I was smarter than them.
As a black person you have to try harder. But that's ok. Because I had a very odd path to get to where I am now. It has made me a lot more well rounded. I understand theorhetical computer science far better than my peers. I understand the abstract mathematics associated with computer science a lot better than most people I worked with. So working harder, and making less mistakes make you way more efficient.
Sorry for the length of this. But a lot of blacks are just not driven like that. And in IT you have to be. And you should want to be. You want to be exceptional. A master of your craft. And getting the easy path doesn't help with that.
As a black guy who works in the field of STEM, I feel that my perspective is largely missing from this conversation. To my credit I've been a software engineer for 15 years, and I have worked with all of the big companies. I've worked with Apple, HP, and financial tech companies. I will say one thing, is that there is one thing beyond race. And that's logic. When you have a naturally logical and analytical mind I think people often forget what race you are.
My journey to my field was a very very difficult one. And to be perfectly honest, a lot of it was my fault. For one, I never graduated college. As a matter of fact I never even graduated from high school. I'm a straight up GED student, and dropped out of high school just a week after I turned 16. But it never mattered and I'll tell you why.
The day I dropped out of high school, and literally the very day I withdrew from all of my classes. I went to a broken down public library on the East side of Atlanta. And I went and picked up a calculus book. Now when I was in high school, I couldn't even get up to trig. And here I was, willing to bypass trig altogether and dive into calculus.
Needless to say, I did teach myself. And continue to teach myself even after I got to college. I had such a growing obsession with mathematics. The way in which I was teaching myself mathematics made me think to myself "Was it really this easy the whole time"? I remember how easy it was calculating the points on an integral. Now there would be multivariable calculus and differential equations. Which I never took the time to learn. At least not yet.
You see, in the world, logic is my armor. And no matter what anyone says, mathematics is the most powerful thing in the world. I started to understand the culture of mathematics. As it gave me even greater insight about mankind. How different tribes and groups no matter how technologically behind they were, always developed a system of mathematics. So when I started my computer science coursework, I was basically built to do it.
If you could actually engineer someone with a propensity to develop software. It was me. I was born to do it. Early in my career I didn't get very far. I had to take IT jobs, that weren't directly related to what I wanted to do. But after a few years I did it. And my lack of education was quite irrelevant. See I always felt, that if I go to a job interview and they don't hire me. It is because I couldn't convince them that I was smarter than them.
As a black person you have to try harder. But that's ok. Because I had a very odd path to get to where I am now. It has made me a lot more well rounded. I understand theorhetical computer science far better than my peers. I understand the abstract mathematics associated with computer science a lot better than most people I worked with. So working harder, and making less mistakes make you way more efficient.
Sorry for the length of this. But a lot of blacks are just not driven like that. And in IT you have to be. And you should want to be. You want to be exceptional. A master of your craft. And getting the easy path doesn't help with that.
Good post, but do you really believe the bolded part, or is it just something that black people always tell each other to build comraderie? Is it really harder for you to get work in IT than it would be if you were the same person, with the same talents, but a different race?
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The biggest problem in pursuing a STEM career is the lack of good paying internships that allows a person to get a masters/doctorate in their field. People can not afford to work at Mc'ds or somewhere similar for 8-10 years as they try to secure their education. Let the industries that are crying for these people help by creating paying internships the way other field do then they will have the people they need.
Good post, but do you really believe the bolded part, or is it just something that black people always tell each other to build comraderie? Is it really harder for you to get work in IT than it would be if you were the same person, with the same talents, but a different race?
It's not hard for me because I have a ton of experience. And people with my level of experience is less than 5% of the population. So with my experience, and my command of my field, it's usually not hard. If I go to 3 interviews, 1 out of those 3 jobs will give me an offer. So pretty good odds.
I do believe the bolded part because black people fight 2 battles. First the hard battle of not being well represented in a certain field. And the second battle is overcoming perceptions. Since most people you're likely to work with have little to no interaction with black people. You have to go and be exceptional. You have to be so smart that they see you as a brilliant person before they see you as black.
I feel people of other races have a much cleaner slate. And don't need to actually fight the first battle of changing perspective. As a result, I don't think they need to be as smart as a black person needs to be. So as a black man, anytime I get a job, I know I'm probably at least 3 times smarter than anyone else who interviewed or applied. And why wouldn't I be. I literally have studied my field obsessively for 20 years.
It's not hard for me because I have a ton of experience. And people with my level of experience is less than 5% of the population. So with my experience, and my command of my field, it's usually not hard. If I go to 3 interviews, 1 out of those 3 jobs will give me an offer. So pretty good odds.
I do believe the bolded part because black people fight 2 battles. First the hard battle of not being well represented in a certain field. And the second battle is overcoming perceptions. Since most people you're likely to work with have little to no interaction with black people. You have to go and be exceptional. You have to be so smart that they see you as a brilliant person before they see you as black.
I feel people of other races have a much cleaner slate. And don't need to actually fight the first battle of changing perspective. As a result, I don't think they need to be as smart as a black person needs to be. So as a black man, anytime I get a job, I know I'm probably at least 3 times smarter than anyone else who interviewed or applied. And why wouldn't I be. I literally have studied my field obsessively for 20 years.
Not true. What about female software engineers ?
Blacks are not the only ones that have to prove themselves.
It was no easy road for me to work my way up the career ladder.
Female software engineer here. And I started in the late 80's.
I liked systems programming, coding to the metal, doing bringup work on new chips, paring down the OS for embeded devices, etc.
There are just as few women in those spots as their are Blacks.
Not true. What about female software engineers ?
Blacks are not the only ones that have to prove themselves.
It was no easy road for me to work my way up the career ladder.
Female software engineer here. And I started in the late 80's.
I liked systems programming, coding to the metal, doing bringup work on new chips, paring down the OS for embeded devices, etc.
There are just as few women in those spots as their are Blacks.
Female software engineer here too. I started in the early 80s when I was literally the only woman in my group. Boy have things changed. Now there are 2 of us.
I have a friend that went to college to be an Engineer. He worked summers as an engineering aide for the company that eventually hired him. He did his apprenticeship with pay. Not many companies are willing to do that. The benefit to them is he is a good Engineer that will probably be with that company for his career.
I think there might be a lot more people of different skin color or culture that would be really good in the STEM fields. The big problem is the companies that "need" these people are unwilling to pay them enough to cover the college loans so they import H1b immigrants to do an inadequate job at far less pay.
Not true. What about female software engineers ?
Blacks are not the only ones that have to prove themselves.
It was no easy road for me to work my way up the career ladder.
Female software engineer here. And I started in the late 80's.
I liked systems programming, coding to the metal, doing bringup work on new chips, paring down the OS for embeded devices, etc.
There are just as few women in those spots as their are Blacks.
I have to admit, I was once pretty skeptical of female engineers myself. But I've met quite a few smart ones, and I no longer have that notion. Most jobs I've worked though, most females start off as a software engineer, but then quickly move on to the business side or project management. There were a few women I worked with earlier in my career. On LinkedIn most of them are either business analyst or project managers now.
As to why this is the case, I'm not entirely sure. I think this is changing slightly though. I went to a Python conference in NYC last year. And there were a hell of a lot more women than black people. One black guy actually did a presentation. And I don't think I saw 1 black female. I think the only other black people was me, the guy who presented, and some other black guy. And of course the black presenter brought his teenage daughter if that counts.
The next generation will be quite interesting when we see the landscape. I think blacks and women not getting into tech is mostly a symtom of generation. For example, even the most low income blacks still grow up with technology as apart of their daily lives. And that will trickle down to children. In my mother's generation, they did not grow up with tech, and didn't make it a huge part of of their children's lives. I was pretty fortunate to have a mother who worked in finance and who took interest in computers. To the point she brought me home an broken down 80286 that her company was going to throw away. I got this in the age when 486s and Pentiums were the hot thing.
But I would have been interested in tech no matter what I did. My curisosity of mathematics and tech was just too strong not to be. I can't count how many alarm clocks I took apart as a kid.
I can only speak of my own experience when I was an electrical engineer major I never saw single black person in my cs or ee classes. When I changed majors to ChemE there was only one black female and male.
Female engineers are capable. I had few in my ChemE and they were all hard working and dedicated. An engineering degree is difficult and not for the faint of hearts. Actually, now that I think about it there were more women than black people in my ChemE class.
Also forgot to mention, in my cs and ee classes there were just as many women who wanted to become software engineers as my ChemE. There were a lot more women in my ChemE and environmental engineering classes. Our engineering department had the most number of women. I don't know why that was the case. Maybe it was because ChemE and environmental engineering was more hands on and less abstract like EE or CS.
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