Stereotype alert – For Pentecost, my church had a combined service with the local Chinese church. And since it’s the weekend before graduation, they asked all graduating seniors to come up to the front and say their names, majors, and plans for the future. Almost all the Chinese students were receiving engineering degrees; the Caucasian kids were getting degrees in philosophy (two!), political science, education and such.
Sigh.
2 comments:
be careful about teachers. it's one of the toughest jobs there is. also notice that there were no doctors, nurses, police, military. these are jobs that involve having to deal with people and the complexities of their lives rather than having to sit at a computer for hours as an engineer to problem solve and work with a handful of people in an office every day. by many comparisons that kind of work is easy and overpaid. smart, achievement oriented people enter the helping professions. their talents involve more than using numbers and software because they are challenged daily with the dynamics of human interaction. even the smartest of engineers would be mincemeat by the end of a week spent with 2nd graders.
i have a friend who's an engineer and his job is to trouble shoot designs. one project involved his having to redesign and reconstruct a bridge that had had to be built to get big equipment to a building project. a lot of time, money, and effort went into constructing a bridge that was too small to get the equipment across. duh!
there was a farmer/rancher out the north of town. he wore old coveralls and drove a beat up old truck despite being very wealthy. he had a ph.d. in biophysics. he found his country lifestyle more challenging.
my father had a mensa-high IQ, but found being a small businessman challenging and rewarding.
when you were a smart and talented student, did you study hard to maintain a 4.0 and aspire to great achievements? like blogging?
Great adhoc post, feel good and meaningless.
Like saying: Gee, garbagemen do harder work than engineers, therefore engineers should be paid less than garbagemen.
To bastardize your quote:
"even the smartest of engineers would be mincemeat by the end of a week spent picking up garbage"
a sixteen year old air head knows alot about "the dynamics of human interaction" clicks, groups, social structrures, etc. That doesn't mean jack in the real world.
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