Michael Jackson is the skinniest, whitest, most health-obsessed black man on the planet and he dies from his heart?
Doesn't that sound like a conspiracy to you?
You know what? This is going to end up like Tupac's death and Elvis's death - and I'm going to fuel the fire as a contributing citizen: "Michael's not dead! He's not dead! He's still alive! It's a conspiracy".
You know what's even funnier is that MJ died the same year I finished school. 20 years from now, I can say "I graduated when Michael Jackson died". Now that's just awesome.
Please don't make empathetical comments on this blog entry. It is rhetorical. Thank You.
I can remember as far back as middle school reading about the "glass ceiling" in my social studies textbook. Thinking back now, it was quite provocative material for a 7th grade textbook. I've transformed the term this time as it relates specifically to my experiences job hunting in an academic environment - as I'll describe some more later.
A less-cloak-and-dagger introduction to this narrative would be: my dissertation is almost done, and naturally I'm looking for a paycheck, and have had a well-involved job hunting experience, especially a healthy, unpleasant overdose of all the characteristics of the hunt: Travel. Hotels. Taxis. Being Grilled. Taxi again. Hotel. Taxi. Travel. Home. It sucks. After the 2nd or 3rd onsite interview you get sick of it. It's not that I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I might actually acknowledge the existence of the horse if I had an offer =).
So, I'm rolling the problem around in my head. Unfortunately, graduate school is a bubble. Academia itself, actually. From the inside, it looks like a comfortable bubble after you've spent enough time inside of it. The problem I have with it is that graduate school is good at graduating students, but it lacks the forced bottom-line that creates the focused intent that industry demands from a product. It's also significantly different from the open-source bubble. The open-source bubble doesn't require interviews - at least not explicitly. One can "ease" into an open source project. One can even ease into graduate school provided one has found (and should be able to find) an adequate amount of funding.
To date, I have had 4 on-site interviews at unnamed corporations. I consider myself a well trained problem-solver. I have my advisor and the philanthropic efforts of fellowships to thank for that. I can write a paper. I can pick a problem to pieces. I can build a solid, coded system. But I can't land a job outside of the academic bubble in a job market where demand for "people" like me is high. (Notice the quoted 'people').
So, frankly, I've been thinking about - well - what the interviews I've had so far have all had in common. Of the 4 software development locations I've set foot at, would you believe me if I said that there was not a single female, international citizen, or minority employee engineer that ever interviewed me? Ever? Can you believe that? Engineering interviews are not exactly cake walks. They take all day. They're 9-to-5 interviews with multiple engineers. And that's *after* you've spent another couple hours on the telephone with these companies. So, here's the kicker: I get through all the algorithms questions on the telephone just fine. The problem is that the moment I show my face in someone's cubicle answering the same questions in a suit and tie - I then get "the look". A man knows when another man can see straight through him. When you look a man in the eyes and realize that if this were a phone call, he'd have a completely different expression on his face than the one he has now - AFTER I've flown my ass all the way down to bum fuck egypt to talk to the engineering team.
Yes, you read the previous paragraph correctly: I've literally had face-to-face interviews with upwards of 30 or so white, male, american engineers. All identical. (Perhaps shorter or taller, but each with that "look".) And when I make the flight back home, I repeatedly get the call back from a white, female HR lady in voicemail form (cause I'm sitting on an airplane of course) with the message: "Sir, you don't seem to be a good fit for our team. Please call us back if you have any questions". (Funny how that they throw the second sentence back in there. I should actually try calling them back just to scare the shit out of 'em). The first sentence is equally as funny: "good fit." I got those two words *verbatim* from two different companies. They like that wording. It's ambiguous. It's ambiguous enough to say: "you've might have a PhD, but you're too black to work here."
Graduate school is definitely a bubble. Some might argue why I don't just accept the bubble. What's so bad about it? Well, I believe industry drives research more than academia does. Academia is a nice way to experiment with systems design and operating systems concepts without having to pay a stock holder. But when someone's demanding a dividend, the things you draw on a whiteboard look a whole lot different and the code you write better not blow up. That's why I want to leave it so badly. My advisor wants me to stay - in part because he needs tenure.
But I have zero ambitions for leadership right now. Or for fame. Or glory. I'm bored with that stuff. Respect, however, is human. I want to be able to solve problems in jeans and a t-shirt with an imaginary brown bag over my head (I can wear long-sleeve shirts to cover my arms if necessary). So, I call this problem I've described an "opaque" ceiling because the combination of the gradschool bubble mixed up with my "blackness" seems to create a sort of less-than-clear ceiling. I can see through it but the individuals on the other side of it don't see a goddamn thing. Or rather they see what they want to see.
I've gotten everything I wanted out of graduate school. But now I'm forced to consider that academia has not gotten everything it wants out of me yet.
Taken from slashdot.... (I can't wait to get a job and go build a house. Screw apartments...)
"At a time when the question of what a good job looks like is wide open, a book excerpt in the NY Times magazine says it's time to take a fresh look at the trades. High-school shop-class programs were dismantled in the '90s as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers' in a pure information economy. Was this a huge mistake? A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic instead of accumulating academic credentials is now viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive, complains Matthew Crawford, who took his University of Chicago PhD and opened a motorcycle repair shop. Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. The latter will find their livelihoods more secure against outsourcing to distant countries. As Blinder puts it, 'You can't hammer a nail over the Internet' (never say never). Guess we all should have paid more attention to Nicholas Negroponte's landmark-in-retrospect Being Digital (ironically, no Kindle version)."
Oh, the woes of being a driver (and a student). Every six months there's SOMETHING I have to fix on my 20-year-old car. If only I could sprinkle pixy-dust onto it and make it fix itself. Unfortunately, I refuse to pay exorbitant amounts of labor to some random guy with a beer-belly to tell me something that I already know.
Yeah, I'm still a student, but things are wrapping up. (No, I don't know yet, I'll tell you when). In the meantime, it's time for a job. I have no immediate ambitions for academia, but I've been told that I should not dismiss the possibility.
I'm desperate for a road-trip. The weather is getting nice up here now. My code in the lab is doing well, so I just might feel justified to roam around new england.
Almost every one of my hobbies has practically been put on hold since I moved to New York. And it drives me crazy. Next year, that's all going to change.
Michael Jackson is the skinniest, whitest, most health-obsessed black man on the planet and he dies from his heart?
Doesn't that sound like a conspiracy to you?
You know what? This is going to end up like Tupac's death and Elvis's death - and I'm going to fuel the fire as a contributing citizen: "Michael's not dead! He's not dead! He's still alive! It's a conspiracy".
You know what's even funnier is that MJ died the same year I finished school. 20 years from now, I can say "I graduated when Michael Jackson died". Now that's just awesome.
Please don't make empathetical comments on this blog entry. It is rhetorical. Thank You.
I can remember as far back as middle school reading about the "glass ceiling" in my social studies textbook. Thinking back now, it was quite provocative material for a 7th grade textbook. I've transformed the term this time as it relates specifically to my experiences job hunting in an academic environment - as I'll describe some more later.
A less-cloak-and-dagger introduction to this narrative would be: my dissertation is almost done, and naturally I'm looking for a paycheck, and have had a well-involved job hunting experience, especially a healthy, unpleasant overdose of all the characteristics of the hunt: Travel. Hotels. Taxis. Being Grilled. Taxi again. Hotel. Taxi. Travel. Home. It sucks. After the 2nd or 3rd onsite interview you get sick of it. It's not that I'm looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I might actually acknowledge the existence of the horse if I had an offer =).
So, I'm rolling the problem around in my head. Unfortunately, graduate school is a bubble. Academia itself, actually. From the inside, it looks like a comfortable bubble after you've spent enough time inside of it. The problem I have with it is that graduate school is good at graduating students, but it lacks the forced bottom-line that creates the focused intent that industry demands from a product. It's also significantly different from the open-source bubble. The open-source bubble doesn't require interviews - at least not explicitly. One can "ease" into an open source project. One can even ease into graduate school provided one has found (and should be able to find) an adequate amount of funding.
To date, I have had 4 on-site interviews at unnamed corporations. I consider myself a well trained problem-solver. I have my advisor and the philanthropic efforts of fellowships to thank for that. I can write a paper. I can pick a problem to pieces. I can build a solid, coded system. But I can't land a job outside of the academic bubble in a job market where demand for "people" like me is high. (Notice the quoted 'people').
So, frankly, I've been thinking about - well - what the interviews I've had so far have all had in common. Of the 4 software development locations I've set foot at, would you believe me if I said that there was not a single female, international citizen, or minority employee engineer that ever interviewed me? Ever? Can you believe that? Engineering interviews are not exactly cake walks. They take all day. They're 9-to-5 interviews with multiple engineers. And that's *after* you've spent another couple hours on the telephone with these companies. So, here's the kicker: I get through all the algorithms questions on the telephone just fine. The problem is that the moment I show my face in someone's cubicle answering the same questions in a suit and tie - I then get "the look". A man knows when another man can see straight through him. When you look a man in the eyes and realize that if this were a phone call, he'd have a completely different expression on his face than the one he has now - AFTER I've flown my ass all the way down to bum fuck egypt to talk to the engineering team.
Yes, you read the previous paragraph correctly: I've literally had face-to-face interviews with upwards of 30 or so white, male, american engineers. All identical. (Perhaps shorter or taller, but each with that "look".) And when I make the flight back home, I repeatedly get the call back from a white, female HR lady in voicemail form (cause I'm sitting on an airplane of course) with the message: "Sir, you don't seem to be a good fit for our team. Please call us back if you have any questions". (Funny how that they throw the second sentence back in there. I should actually try calling them back just to scare the shit out of 'em). The first sentence is equally as funny: "good fit." I got those two words *verbatim* from two different companies. They like that wording. It's ambiguous. It's ambiguous enough to say: "you've might have a PhD, but you're too black to work here."
Graduate school is definitely a bubble. Some might argue why I don't just accept the bubble. What's so bad about it? Well, I believe industry drives research more than academia does. Academia is a nice way to experiment with systems design and operating systems concepts without having to pay a stock holder. But when someone's demanding a dividend, the things you draw on a whiteboard look a whole lot different and the code you write better not blow up. That's why I want to leave it so badly. My advisor wants me to stay - in part because he needs tenure.
But I have zero ambitions for leadership right now. Or for fame. Or glory. I'm bored with that stuff. Respect, however, is human. I want to be able to solve problems in jeans and a t-shirt with an imaginary brown bag over my head (I can wear long-sleeve shirts to cover my arms if necessary). So, I call this problem I've described an "opaque" ceiling because the combination of the gradschool bubble mixed up with my "blackness" seems to create a sort of less-than-clear ceiling. I can see through it but the individuals on the other side of it don't see a goddamn thing. Or rather they see what they want to see.
I've gotten everything I wanted out of graduate school. But now I'm forced to consider that academia has not gotten everything it wants out of me yet.
Who the heck are you interviewing with?!? Get your bum out here on the west coast! I feel your pain, but I think I get turned down cause I suck at tech interviews.
Michael during June 24, 2009, 9:37 am
Hehe. I'm definitely trying. Being "good" at a tech interview is over-rated, I think. Only the snappy brains get all the questions right. And if you don't, it kind of stains you - irrespective of whether you're male or female.
Adara @ the 607 during July 3, 2009, 12:26 pm from Hidden
Interesting. My job just hired some programmers including a female (former nurse, still completing her CS degree) and guy from India (just graduated with an MS degree in CS from Binghamton).
Taken from slashdot.... (I can't wait to get a job and go build a house. Screw apartments...)
"At a time when the question of what a good job looks like is wide open, a book excerpt in the NY Times magazine says it's time to take a fresh look at the trades. High-school shop-class programs were dismantled in the '90s as educators prepared students to become 'knowledge workers' in a pure information economy. Was this a huge mistake? A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic instead of accumulating academic credentials is now viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive, complains Matthew Crawford, who took his University of Chicago PhD and opened a motorcycle repair shop. Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. The latter will find their livelihoods more secure against outsourcing to distant countries. As Blinder puts it, 'You can't hammer a nail over the Internet' (never say never). Guess we all should have paid more attention to Nicholas Negroponte's landmark-in-retrospect Being Digital (ironically, no Kindle version)."
