come chat and vibe and vent. hows the first week into black history month treating you? how are you celebrating/ learning? any cool black history info that you wish was more well known?
I have been learning about black people in STEM on my own as I am a black people in STEM. There are tons and tons of black engineering big brains throughout history. I’m also encouraging my cousin in university to go botany. He told me likes organic chemistry and stuff but wants to transfer into computers because they are more profitable. Trying to convince him that he’s probably better-off learning the thing he actually likes rather than the thing he thinks will give him money. The real secret is he’s going to be broke either way, might well be broke and like the stuff you leaned about.
“Trying to convince him that he’s probably better-off learning the thing he actually likes rather than the thing he thinks will give him money.”
Yeah, and I think I have the same thing with my own brother. He’s likely Autistic like I am, but he hasn’t graduated college and he’s just past 30. He wants desperately to get a good job to live by, but I want to tell him to not be so hard on himself and try to find something he genuinely enjoys.
He wants desperately to get a good job to live by, but I want to tell him to not be so hard on himself and try to find something he genuinely enjoys.
I feel that man. I totally understand him trying to get some skills/a job that will provide that sort of material comfort and stability, but at the same time I think the sort of mental costs and taxation on the soul of a man. We all hate the fact we MUST have a job (thanks liberalism!), but there are certain small joys like being interested in the thing you do.
In my case for example, I’m a computer dork but I genuinely happen to like computers and shit. To be totally honest I’m very lucky “THE MARKET” deems it to worthy of a decent salary, however being honest I’d probably be a computer dork even if the the pay wasn’t as good as it is (it’s also on the decline with all these tech layoffs, and it’s getting hard to find a job in the tech industry). Again, it’s totally luck on my part, but I would encourage anyone to figure what they like first and focus their education on that. Some katz like computers, others maybe history, others maybe arts, whatever.
I totally understand folks concerned by their very real material needs, but I would imagine the toll on your heart and mind is very high learning something you don’t care about purely for stability
I think it’s being alienated from your own labor, like what Marx talked about in The German Ideology. I think that my brother should make a job of something that he likes to do, not be forced into doing a job that involves cyber-security.
I’m almost graduating (whereas he dropped out of college) so there’s that. I, like you, am also lucky that I’m interested in the topic that I’m majoring in. I just feel that my brother would have a better time if he could just do what he loves, but he feels now that he’s “wasted his life” (we grew up under an abusive father) and now he feels that he must do something that he doesn’t seem… all that interested in? I don’t know.