I earned both B.S. and M.Eng in Nuclear Engineering degrees at Texas A&M. Looking back I should have majored in Finance and made bigger bucks. But even 50 years ago the Taiwanese guys ran circles around me academically. But I'll bet they couldn't have made a presentation at a sales meeting, or run an engineering group.

Don't worry Trump will stop them from coming over and going to college here. So a less qualified person can replace them.

Just a snide comment in response to "where did all the smart white people go" highlighting where the majority of our discretionary "public education" dollars are emphasized/demanded.

Certainly don't see schools passing bonds to support the robotics club.

Sims said:

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Just a snide comment in response to "where did all the smart white people go" highlighting where the majority of our discretionary "public education" dollars are emphasized/demanded.

Certainly don't see schools passing bonds to support the robotics club.

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Well, duh.

Bond issues are for capital improvements and not ongoing expenditures. That's why bonds can't be used for teacher pay.

And really, it's less about funding than parental input and societal support/expectations. I don't recall the exact numbers but we spend exponentially more on education today, even without bond issues for palatial facilities, than we did 50 years ago and achieve worse outcomes.

Max Stonetrail said:

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This is not a new phenomenon. This demographic was wrecking the curve back in the 80's when I was flunking engineering at A&M.

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FIF….me!!!!!!

The reason why you don't see many white kids in these endeavors is the same reason you don't see many white kids in the NBA (outside of Europeans).

They self-select out because of either 1) overt discrimination or 2) they see other avenues where they can be be around like-minded peers and still be successful.

It's a work ethic vs reward thing. It's cultural. We had brilliant 'white' R&D people on our team, but if you wanted someone to spend 74 hours a week plus weekends at the office poring over white papers and formulas to solve a tough problem and improve a product, you asked the Chinese guy because the rest of us were taking off at 4:45pm and you weren't going to hear from us until Monday at 9am.

Office Space highlighted your typical worker...as they said "work just hard enough to not get fired."

I had a Philippino roommate one year at A&M, who I believe was some type of an aeronautical engineering major.

He studied every minute of every day, and had nothing resembling a life. The week of spring break, he stayed at home and studied all week.

Not exaggerating. Every minute he was awake, he was studying.

I couldn't live like that. I don't know many other people who could either. If that is what it takes to be a high end engineer… that's why not many Americans want to do it.

JB!98 said:

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This.

Any race, ethnicity, color, whatever, they're all nerds.

TarponChaser said:

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Sims said:

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Just a snide comment in response to "where did all the smart white people go" highlighting where the majority of our discretionary "public education" dollars are emphasized/demanded.

Certainly don't see schools passing bonds to support the robotics club.

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Well, duh.

Bond issues are for capital improvements and not ongoing expenditures. That's why bonds can't be used for teacher pay.

And really, it's less about funding than parental input and societal support/expectations. I don't recall the exact numbers but we spend exponentially more on education today, even without bond issues for palatial facilities, than we did 50 years ago and achieve worse outcomes.

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Keep telling yourself that.

Or...

You could pay attention to why things have to be bought new so often instead of maintained.

I'll give you a hint...it's so opex can be amortized into capital improvements and the resulting breathing room on the opex side of the budget created by less maintenance can be used to increase the capacity for other operating expenses.

Thus, bonds pay for opex because of the ability to shift operating expenses to interest and sinking funds.

To get to that level it takes an incredible work ethic and singular focus. That is why you see a disproportionate percentage of Asians as well as males willing to take that path than females.

The shift for the USA IMO(International Math Olympiad) probably occurred in the late 90's/early 00's if you want to see trends:
https://www.imo-official.org/country_individual_r.aspx?code=USA

cecil77 said:

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I earned both B.S. and M.Eng in Nuclear Engineering degrees at Texas A&M. Looking back I should have majored in Finance and made bigger bucks. But even 50 years ago the Taiwanese guys ran circles around me academically. But I'll bet they couldn't have made a presentation at a sales meeting, or run an engineering group.

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That doesn't really apply to 2nd and 3rd generation immigrants.

Bob Knights Liver said:

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What is an American supposed to look like? Saying a mix of different skin tones and ethinicities doesn't look American seems backwards thinking. Fake outrage story.

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Like this, all 5 of these guys are multimillionaires from things other than sports and have families.

These guys look prototypically American.

infinity ag said:

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Rebel Yell said:

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They are Americans.

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Yes they are.


The insight is that 50 years ago, scientists, tech, medicine was all white doctors. The numbers relatively are dwindling compared to the 70s and maybe getting into business. Chinese, Indians etc are in tech and finance and increasing.

Make what you want of it but I think the change is interesting.


1975 Microsoft

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Point well taken, but pretty sure no on in that picture would have won a physics Olympiad in HS.

Gates certainly would not have. He had pretty good business sense, but was a pretty bad coder.

WestAustinAg said:

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Blame our state controlled high schools. Very few of them provide rigorous enough teaching in STEM fields.

There are a few around that have engineering focuses. They are the ones that have respectable robotics teams and decent math and science tracts.

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The AP BC Calculus test is not for the light at heart. I was looking at what my daughter was studying for that test, and I certainly didn't take a course that would have taught me all of that stuff. Fourier transforms, 2D surface integral curves, etc.

If you want to be challenged in high-school, it's not that tough to find an opportunity to.

Stone Choir said:

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Bob Knights Liver said:

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What is an American supposed to look like? Saying a mix of different skin tones and ethinicities doesn't look American seems backwards thinking. Fake outrage story.

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Like this, all 5 of these guys are multimillionaires from things other than sports and have families.

These guys look prototypically American.

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There is a joke about corn-fed high-school jocks in here somewhere.

Taking a look at the group of kids standing behind Trump, I don't see a single defensive tackle among the bunch. While we may lose our dominance on the gridiron over time, we look to excel in cricket and ping pong.

cecil77 said:

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I earned both B.S. and M.Eng in Nuclear Engineering degrees at Texas A&M. Looking back I should have majored in Finance and made bigger bucks. But even 50 years ago the Taiwanese guys ran circles around me academically. But I'll bet they couldn't have made a presentation at a sales meeting, or run an engineering group.

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If you want to make big bucks strictly in finance, get ready to say goodbye to your weekends until your are 45.

Some stem, a healthy amount of accounting, and enough finance to understand budgets is probably the best way.

Honestly, if you are a 19 year old kid with ambition and good brain for common sense, an associates degree in accounting and an electrician's license (or similar trade) is probably the smartest way to go.

Most parents don't push their kids. They want to be their friend instead.

I still remember the brown-out we had in college station back during my second year, in '06. Power all over the city was out and no one knew how long it would last, but we were all hoping classes would be canceled the next day. My friends and I just hung out all afternoon and evening, having fun. Pretty much everyone was outside throwing a football or doing something fun.

We decided to walk across the street to McDonald's once it got late. The only two buildings anywhere nearby with power was McDonald's and Taco bell. Both restaurants were COMPLETELY packed with Asians. I am not exaggerating in the slightest. Absolutely no hyperbole. Every single seat, and many not in seats, was filled with an Asian and they were all studying.

Am I supposed to be mad about this? I have no problem with someone working harder than another, and therefore being more successful. The issue with the H1B crap is the fact it's just a vehicle for companies to hire cheaper international labor. Nothing is guaranteeing the talent they're bringing here is superior to the talent we already have here. It's simply taking people out of a third world hellhole and bringing them here to take advantage of their poverty and neediness. Everything about this practice seems wrong to me, and i'm glad to see it removed.

At the end of the day, it really won't matter once AI has screwed up all these industries. It will be interesting to see how everything is affected.

Red folks die of smallpox. Blame whitey for the blankets.

Brown folks cross the border illegally. Blame whitey for giving them jobs no one else wants.

Black folks don't succeed. Blame whitey for white privilege

Asians work hard and succeed. Blame whitey for being lazy.

Whitey is the cause of all our prolems

cecil77 said:

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I earned both B.S. and M.Eng in Nuclear Engineering degrees at Texas A&M. Looking back I should have majored in Finance and made bigger bucks. But even 50 years ago the Taiwanese guys ran circles around me academically. But I'll bet they couldn't have made a presentation at a sales meeting, or run an engineering group.

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But their kids can and likely better than most kids.

Two of my buddies have been on those national olympiad teams. Both had foreign parents, one born here, one arrived as a teen. They and most of my other nerd friends had parents working on PhDs and postdocs at major universities and were poor to lower middle class.

When it came time to choose classes to take in high school, they chose the classes that allowed them to acheive the highest possible GPA. They did orchestra and PE class to avoid the time commitment of traveling to football games or competitions with band and minimize the non-honors classes.

They had PhD parents helping them with their homework, their class projects, and tutoring. They had one goal in school: get into the best college possible. I'm convinced that a Chinese parent would rather have a kid that went to MIT and became a doctor than a billion dollars in the bank. When I got into MIT and then went to A&M, there was a lot of resentment from those friends. I had taken a spot away from one of them and then "dishonored" myself and my family by going to the local state school. Didn't matter than A&M paid me to attend.

These kids are generally very successful, but a disproportionate number of them also commit suicide. When all you care about is one thing, it's feast or famine lifestyle. I will always be grateful that I was around those people because they pushed me to excel just trying to keep up. Don't know that I would've even gotten into A&M without them. But I'm also very glad it was my choice to try to compete. If my parents were on me like their Tiger Moms were on them, I would've hated it like they did.

Sims said:

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Just a snide comment in response to "where did all the smart white people go" highlighting where the majority of our discretionary "public education" dollars are emphasized/demanded.

Certainly don't see schools passing bonds to support the robotics club.

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Robotics has actually gotten huge in Texas and we are one of the top states for it. Texas has had several different teams win the World Championship in Robotics in both FRC (large budget and larger robot that is typically made almost completely from scratch) and FTC (small budget, smaller robot that typically starts with a kit and is modified). California still has the most strong teams overall but it's definitely dispersed. The Asian countries really don't have that many competitive teams especially compared to the US. The rest of the world tends to have a few teams here and there that are elite.

My son's public HS in Texas had a budget in excess of $300k for Robotics and has it's own building and we aren't the biggest and best funded team (that's team 118 which is sponsored by NASA in League City). Houston, Austin, and Dallas all have elite level teams that consistently perform well at the World level.

There are a lot of Asian kids on many of the teams of course. Many Asian parents treat STEM competitions and Robotics the same way others treat football and other sports. Some absolutely insanely smart kids doing robotics nowadays, my son's team had 3 kids who were Sophomores taking Multivariable Calculus before they can drive.

This is directly related to 1st generation immigrant kids. They are outsiders at public school socially, parents drive them to excel.

Does it matter what race the U.S. Olympiad Team is?

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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Does it matter what race the U.S. Olympiad Team is?

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Everything matters.
What you see today ives a clue into tomorrow.

infinity ag said:

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cecil77 said:

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I earned both B.S. and M.Eng in Nuclear Engineering degrees at Texas A&M. Looking back I should have majored in Finance and made bigger bucks. But even 50 years ago the Taiwanese guys ran circles around me academically. But I'll bet they couldn't have made a presentation at a sales meeting, or run an engineering group.

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But their kids can and likely better than most kids.

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Simply not the case. The ones who study like that are still lacking in social & communication skills.

I am second generation Indian-American. The push for education with my parents generation is more because its was a generally safe way to go and they saw it yield benefits for them. Its not like we had generational wealth or extended family here to back us up. They saw their hard work in STEM fields yield some modicum of "success" so they encouraged us to follow a similar path. My parents have a profound respect for this country and it was hammered into us that we were lucky to be here compared to where they grew up. My dad worked his way up the ranks of "big oil" and always reminded us we would have to work twice as hard to get the same level respect as established Americans and that there was no safety net if we failed.

Deputy Travis Junior said:

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Everybody gets a trophy began in the 80s, and things have only gotten worse. Good chunks of gen Z and alpha think experiencing discomfort is violence (not great for the old work ethic and high achievement), the public education system is engaging in rampant grade inflation, something like 2/3 of kids perform below grade level in reading and math (and writing is an absolute disaster), some states are beginning to remove basic math proficiency requirements to hide the magnitude of their failures, a few years ago the Smithsonian called hard work and punctuality "white" virtues while simultaneously stating that white virtues were bad...

What did you think was going to happen after a couple of decades of this? You think it would be business as usual? there's a reason a lot of conservatives have been screaming about the insidious impacts of these policies for years and years. The consequences we're experiencing today were completely predictable

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I think it was actually in the early 90s.

TarponChaser said:

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TexAgs91 said:

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JB!98 said:

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You can be something of both. The body fuels the mind and high achievement in both is the ideal.

Signed,
Former D1 athlete (football) and high-academic/career achiever and,
brother of 2 former D1 athletes (football & swimming) who are also high-academic/career achievers

PS- raising my boys to be both as the oldest is top-4% of his HS class and on path to be a D1 athlete (too soon to say for the younger one)

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oh yeah, I don't believe you.....unless you put liquid heat in your own jockstrap

CDUB98 said:

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*Haven't read thread


If they are Americans, why the hell do you care if they have non-white ancestry? Good grief.

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Integration?

BusterAg said:

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Stone Choir said:

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Bob Knights Liver said:

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What is an American supposed to look like? Saying a mix of different skin tones and ethinicities doesn't look American seems backwards thinking. Fake outrage story.

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Like this, all 5 of these guys are multimillionaires from things other than sports and have families.

These guys look prototypically American.

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There is a joke about corn-fed high-school jocks in here somewhere.

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Nah, those mofos ate it.