> E.g. The poor are usually uneducated. Meaning they can't help with homework.
> Even in poor black American communities, house work is often more important than school work.
You pretty much nailed what I wanted to described earlier. My mother works from home and although she has a bachelor's degree, since the education system (esp. in her times) was poor, she is not even at the level of a high school grad in terms of knowledge regarding math, humanities and science. This is not to mention that she (nor my more educated, late father, who was a doctor) wouldn't be able to help her/his children with their homework due to lack of knowledge/education or time.
One thing I remember though is that after finishing homework, my mom would expect us to help out with house chores like sweeping the floor, collecting clothes from clotheslines, buying small grocery items, etc.
I grew up in a poor SE Asian country, and felt the same as you (that my experience with parents' involvement in education is quite limited). I think most of what we read about in the US are biased toward China or developed Asian countries for better or worse.
Hmm...a bit different experience by me growing up and graduated from high school in a poor Southeast Asian country.
There, a lot of parents (esp. from lower and mid-middle class) invest a good chunk of money/resources on their kids' education. BUT, unlike this article claims, they aren't that heavily involved in kids' homework. The parents in my country seem to believe that once they pay money to send kids to after-school classes, the progress in students' learning is up to the teachers in those after-school programs.
Most of them don't have time or mental energy left to tend to their kids' homework because they are too busy working (both parents working is typical in poor countries too) and/or running errands (thanks to inefficient bureaucratic system and insufficient infrastructure such as frequent power outages, life's chores take enormously more time than they would in developed world...)
As a male in his early thirties, who have been to several OKCupid dates, I can tell you that you are in a minority because you seem not to care much about your partner's earning power. Among the women I've met in those dates, at least 1 out of 3 will start conversation to find out how much I make in the first two or three dates; almost all of them will ask that question by the fifth date. I already wrote in my profile that I'm a programmer, so they could guess I make a decent amount of money. Still, they seem to be interested in finding out more about my income.
I, on the other hand, start to become very self-conscious about my income level and wonder whether it is too low sometimes. I also have a close friend whose girlfriend broke up with him after dating for >5 years because he was just a mere accountant (making just about 70k at the time) and she, after grad school, got a six-figure job as a risk analyst at a big bank. She said to him that she wanted a more ambitious man who can support her and make sure they can afford a nice house with a yard and a nice car. That's the reality most men have to deal with.
I had a very similar problem with an abusive ex-. She tried to bully me into starting a business in an area I was (am) totally unsuited for (when I was too young to be doing anything like that anyway), as well as studying for a career that she felt would earn "enough" money, all while helping herself to my bank account. She also spent up big on several occasions, and then came crying to me when the debt collectors came knocking. I was young and naive, so I think you can see how that ended up.
She eventually left me because I wasn't trying hard enough to please her; I was studying from 8am to 5pm, then working until 9pm, and she wanted me to stop eating lunch for several months so I could smother her with roses. I suggested that she should go fk herself because I was working 13 hours a day plus catching up on study at weekends while she did four hours on a Sunday if she felt like it, so she wandered off with .. well, a pile of my furniture and equipment, plus a few grand from my bank account and my one (emergencies only) credit card, as well as my overdraft, all of which took me a few years to pay back.
I sure that not all women are like this, and I wonder if the masculine version of this is the trophy wife. Most of the women I've known have been the opposite. Maybe you could adjust your profile in some way to discourage that sort of approach?
Maybe I should amend my advice to include a warning not to look for someone who's looking for someone. Thinking about criteria and whatnot, trying to control or assert rationality on the process never leads to anyplace good, in my experience.
> She said to him that she wanted a more ambitious man
Most likely that was not the only reason why she dumped him. May be she wanted to have children and he was against it. May be he was not intellectually challenging enough.
Yep. I was born in SE Asia and came to the US for high ed (and have since been living here). Most of the people who I met on the internet and in the US, who are interested in the political situation of my home country, posses a view from a bubble that is very different than the perspective from people there. Overall, people just want to have food, shelter and a good living. They could care less about who is ruling them. It's like some people from Europe think Americans are idiots because of our current leader's doings. Not a lot of people in the US, who reads NYT, Economists and such, do not understand that their glimpse into other countries is very much biased and limited.
> posses a view from a bubble that is very different than the perspective from people there. Overall, people just want to have food, shelter and a good living. They could care less about who is ruling them.
Seems like just different bubbles, actually. I'm somewhat skeptical of taking at face value the opinions of a population subject to authoritarian information controls. Even in such a case, you're likely to get very different opinions of a government like China's in Xinjiang or Tibet than you will in Beijing. Both groups are only able to form their opinions of the whole from the very limited pieces available to them.
I think the most interesting perspectives come from people with a foot in both worlds. I have friends who don't want China to become a democracy, at least not right away, because they're afraid of what it would do. The CCP has kept the necessary civil society weak, and encouraged popular nationalist sentiments that could be very dangerous if put into action.
Do you mean not a lot of people understand or "do not understand"? Your wording is a bit confusing. Apparently more self-awareness is good but indeed I'm afraid if they keep being imbued in the mainstream media who keep feeding them ideological nonsense and agendas from their own elite politicians they'll know very little about the reality. Talking about China, Tibet, Xinjiang all the time without even actually having been there at least once and talked to actual people living there. That's laughable.
Same in my country (somewhere in SE Asia) too. I went to med school there for 2 years. It takes a total of 5 years there and doctors who are trained there eventually leave the country to practice in UK, US, etc. I have a few friends who graduated in my country and are making big bucks; all of them came to the US as IMGs (international medical graduates) and did well in USMLE exams to get into residency programs and hospitals eventually. That's why I don't think the 4 additional years of undergrad education (implicitly) required in the US is necessary. It only adds more debt to the would-be doctors.
I agree with your point. I never understood why making >150K starting at the age of 32 with a debt of about ~300K is an insurmountable burden. I have a close friend who fits the above profile. She actually makes about ~200K/year (after tax and everything, she nets about 100K); her work hours are nothing unusual--~9-10hours. With this rate, she can comfortably pay off her debt in ~10 years top.
Changing careers is definitely an issue when you end up with 200k+ in debt. Although, even without the debt 10 years has a large opportunity cost. However, not saving because you make money is up to you, if you want to live lavishly to make up for the 2 decades living like a student who is to say thats wrong. You'll obviously end up with less savings but if your a doctor I think you can figure that you.
> Once you account for hours worked, time spent in the workforce, and debt accumulated to achieve their income, a doctor will only have a 10-20% boost in lifetime earnings compared to a UPS driver.
Do you have any reference to back that up? Not doubting it. Just curious.
I did this math when I was 27 and wanted to leave programming to enter medicine. When I realized I wouldn’t come ahead financially until near retirement (and that was assuming I’d make a lot less in programming than I actually have) I decided to pass. It didn’t matter what specialty I picked except a few like plastic surgery or dermatology and there’s no guarantee of getting a residency in those. That’s also not considering that extreme hours worked in medicine and the loss of your youth. My spreadsheet also didn’t account for the fact I’m making mid-six figures in programming already at my mid thirties (!!)
Medicine is not a place to go to become rich. If you already have the brains and aptitude to overachieve in medicine you can succeed elsewhere even more greatly AND retire younger.
Base salary is low-six figures. I work at [insert deca-unicorn here] and a lot of that comp is locked inside non-public stock (I've been here a long time), so it could go to $0... or it could be enough to retire on. That's just the nominal risk-adjusted value of my compensation. Even assuming my stock is worth $0, just my base salary puts me ahead of going into medicine. The only way going into medicine makes financial sense over programming is if you fast track your way into it from high school and end up in a lucrative specialty, and even then it doesn't come that far ahead. Given the loss of your entire youth, I'd say it comes out even at best, unless medicine is a natural passion of yours.
I think that factoid comes from that shitty graph where the suppose that the UPS driver starts working straight at the moment they turn 18 and they will have maximum pay rate that is available for the UPS driver position.
While in reality, the average wait time to become a driver from loading is 11 years. During that time you make about $13/hr part time where the schedule can be horrible and you could work less than 15 hours a week.
When you do become a driver it takes another ~2 years (on avg) to get your own route until then you are a part time worker and your hours worked will fluctuate a lot over the year. The first year is paid at 17.50-18.50/hr (~$36,000/yr @ 40 hours a week) and then goes up.
> they turn 18 and they will have maximum pay rate that is available for the UPS driver position.
That's not the assumption. It's that they receive median pay their entire career, which would be reasonable if they never left their job. Getting paid 60, 70, and 80 over a 3 year period is the same as working three years at 70 ignoring inflation and investments. That's the assumption
> While in reality, the average wait time to become a driver from loading is 11 years.
Then compare it to the countless other blue collar trade skills that don't require any educational debt. The point continues to stand unless you want to focus on the example rather than the concept.
I ran the numbers recently and the numbers were even more grim, but I'd need to track down all my sources again.
I just think the main point is that income is not the number to focus on. Wealth is the end result of the equation, and income is only one part of that.
He doesn't have a reference because it's nonsensical.
Say it takes you 15 extra years to get into the workforce over a UPS driver, that you're saddled with $400k of debt and that UPS driver is the highest compensated driver in history at $100k.
$350k over 30 years is $10,500,000 - $400k = $10.1MM
Thank you for sharing the links. Is there a pure JavaScript library that helps with reading and writing data from/to Google private spreadsheet? From the links above, I think node-google-speadsheet repo comes closest to what I'd like to achieve, but it uses node, which I'm not very familiar with.
> For example, students and professors I met in college that grew up in the USSR thought engineering was stereotypically women’s work. But ability to do those jobs?
Can anyone with similar experience comment on this? I am just surprised (if what one of the interviewees said is true) because I'd assume the math/engineering/science are highly regarded in the USSR and both genders would pursue that.
Side note: People in my country (from southeast asia) don't have a notion that girls are not as good as boys in math. In fact, when I was in (elementary/middle/high) school, I--along with most students in the class--always looked up to my female peers who are always the top 3 in the classroom (from among ~80 students). In fact, it's almost always natural to assume that girls would outperform boys in the class (meaning, more girls would become the highest ranked student in the class and/or more girls would be ranked as top ten in the nationwide high school exam--a.k.a. matriculation exam). As a result, engineering classes have plenty of female population (although, of course, the number of women in such classes is always fewer than that of men).
In general after WWII women had to take traditional men's roles since entire male generation was gone and from then on it became the new normal. STEM is not physically hard so it can be considered a more suitable field for women, also STEM paid less in USSR.
I am from one of ex-USSR countries and graduated in 2008. I did not see many gals in college in CS/Engineering degrees. They were presented, but in minority. About the same I see females presented in tech companies in engineering departments.
> Even in poor black American communities, house work is often more important than school work.
You pretty much nailed what I wanted to described earlier. My mother works from home and although she has a bachelor's degree, since the education system (esp. in her times) was poor, she is not even at the level of a high school grad in terms of knowledge regarding math, humanities and science. This is not to mention that she (nor my more educated, late father, who was a doctor) wouldn't be able to help her/his children with their homework due to lack of knowledge/education or time.
One thing I remember though is that after finishing homework, my mom would expect us to help out with house chores like sweeping the floor, collecting clothes from clotheslines, buying small grocery items, etc.