Quote: (03-20-2018 07:22 AM)heavy Wrote:
To which I add, we shouldn't push people into areas they aren't terribly interested.
I am in my late 40s. At 19 I went to an engineering college. The ratio of men to women previous to me being there was 10:1 or greater for undergrads. The year I went in was the year there was a HUGE push to get 'more women into engineering': Heavy recruitment with a degree of affirmative action. The ratio was closer to 5:1 my freshman year.
The results were not pretty. Two examples that were typical:
A woman I shared an apartment with (not a GF) was one of those 'recruited'. In her mind, it was her "duty" to 'girl power' to get a degree in STEM. That mind seed was planted of course by the feminists that pushed this nonsense. Now this woman was not dumb by any means. She was a competent student. However, she was miserable. She kept changing her major (mechanical, civil, chemical) to find SOMETHING in engineering that she didn't hate doing. She eventually dropped out, heavily in debt (despite generous financial 'women in engineering' grants). Worse, she wasted three years of her life.
A second example is a woman I unfortunately got paired with for a design project in senior year. This chick couldn't find her own over-sized ass with the aid of a flashlight, a hunting dog, and an AWAC. She got to where she was because she was good at memorizing, then regurgitating data on tests. In reality, she understood nothing.
Our design project required tackling an issue that wasn't conveniently spelled out in a text book. She was useless and should have been failed out. Instead, she got hired by the Cadillac division of General Motors; a job position that was ONLY to be reserved for the top 5% of any class. Being a woman and a minority, she was hired despite having empty space between the ears.
By my senior year, the ratio of men to women was back up near 10:1 due to attrition of the women. The ones that made it through all had jobs waiting for them, despite a horrible job market for engineering grads at the time.