So here I am sitting in ECE461/561, a class of about 80 people, when I leaned over to my Indian friend and said "I am one of 8 white people in this class" to which he replied "This is grad school bro".

Do white people not go to grad school? Is 10% Caucasian a typical demographic for an ECE graduate class? Maybe white people just don't like this particular class?

1/8/2013 1:09:00 PM

It's because you're in ece. All the whites get MBAs.

1/8/2013 1:18:03 PM

you have to get an MBA or JD if you're white, your parents make you

1/8/2013 1:21:53 PM

I noticed this when I took my mixed grad/undergrad courses in ECE. It was pretty intimidating. Only classes in college where I was the minority.

1/8/2013 2:00:27 PM

I got my MBA at UC-Davis and was an extreme minority. Like 65-70% Asian.

1/8/2013 2:02:20 PM

MCRP is pretty damn white

1/8/2013 2:13:06 PM

About 50% of the NCSU college of engineering graduate school is international.

http://www.ncsu.edu/ois/faqs/stats.php

That means that over half of ECE graduate enrollment is international.

There is also the fact that undergrad rates sit at a measly 1%, maybe 2% international at the most. Exactly why the world found this arrangement to be a good idea, or event reasonable, is beyond me. But that's how it goes.

Of course, not all ethnic Asians in the program are international in the first place.

Also, NCSU has a low rate of international students compared to its larger peer institutions, although I think that the undergraduate enrollment drives this difference.

1/8/2013 2:17:07 PM

white people graduate, cant find a job, and decide to move to the west coast to "return to the earth"

1/8/2013 2:25:31 PM

Quote :

"UC-Davis"

Quote :

"Asian"

duh

1/8/2013 2:31:42 PM

Quote :

"Do white people not go to grad school? Is 10% Caucasian a typical demographic for an ECE graduate class? Maybe white people just don't like this particular class?"

Higher academia for the most part is incredibly white populated. Plus, State is prolly not in the top 30 for that program. But, in any top 15 program or so, yeah these programs are heavily dominated by white men.

I am in the UT grad program for chem/biochem (a top 10 program). There is one black guy, a hand full of girls and a small percentage of foreigners, but most of the americans are white men.

1/8/2013 2:41:09 PM

Quote :

"There is one black guy, a hand full of girls and a small percentage of foreigners, but most of the americans are white men."

You just described the entire state of TN.

1/8/2013 2:50:06 PM

A professor at another school told me that the good programs get white americans, the lower ranked programs get what they can and then fill in the rest of the class with foreigners to make money.

Also, I heard that most white people graduate and want to get a job immediately to make money as opposed to living cheap for another few years and getting a grad degree.

1/8/2013 2:55:42 PM

^ True, but if you want a 6 figure job in anything techy or science related, you must go to grad school.

Quote :

"A professor at another school told me that the good programs get white americans, the lower ranked programs get what they can and then fill in the rest of the class with foreigners to make money."

This is about as good a barometer that you can get when judging grad schools. It's icing on the cake when Western Europeans are considering your program.


[Edited on January 8, 2013 at 3:19 PM. Reason : s]

1/8/2013 3:16:56 PM

^ haha, let me know how that works out for you

1/8/2013 3:21:28 PM

^^ probably one of the most absurd comments I've seen by BM. A grad degree does not a 6 figure salary make.

I know plenty of folks making either close to 6 figures or above, and some don't even have a tech degree, working in the tech field.

Now in academia, or your med/bio fields, I could see need a graduate degree to move up the chain, but don't include the tech field.

1/8/2013 3:51:19 PM

Pharmacy school is about 90% caucasian for my class. However, the masters of clinical science and masters of research students are all Indian. I mean every single one of them.

1/8/2013 4:15:20 PM

social sciences are mostly white. I feel like it's easy for minorities to get in because there is always a professor with gender/race interests.

1/8/2013 4:23:02 PM

^^^

1/8/2013 4:27:08 PM

Quote :

"probably one of the most absurd comments I've seen by BM. A grad degree does not a 6 figure salary make."

I did not say that a PhD is a guarantee to get a 6 figure. On the contrary, what I said was that there are an absurd amount of companies in the science and tech industry that regularly hand out 6 figure jobs to PhD students. I am not in a top tier Harvard program, but people from my program (UT-Austin) regularly find jobs with Merk, Dow, Glaxo and what not every year. It is very common here, which means for the Harvards and such it is even more common.

When those are gone, then you start to get into a lot of the fuel industry like Shell and what that regularly hire in the 90 K to 100K +. The jobs are totally out there for the right fields in academia. You just have to go to the right school and not be a hack.

Some of you are so misinformed when it comes to school and jobs.

[Edited on January 8, 2013 at 4:32 PM. Reason : ha]

1/8/2013 4:31:28 PM

Quote :

"Pharmacy school is about 90% caucasian for my class. However, the masters of clinical science and masters of research students are all Indian. I mean every single one of them."

There is an important truth in this statement.



The professional degrees outearn the PhDs.

Now, the sociology of the matter is that whatever type of degree has the highest fraction of white people (the privileged class) will probably make the most money. Which causes which is still an open question, but it holds perfectly well in this case.

If someone wants to make a 6 figure salary, it is not the best advice to go for a PhD program. Those who do either have limited options or are optimizing on things other than salary/effort.

[Edited on January 8, 2013 at 4:50 PM. Reason : ]

1/8/2013 4:49:41 PM

Quote :

"Now, the sociology of the matter is that whatever type of degree has the highest fraction of white people (the privileged class) will probably make the most money. Which causes which is still an open question, but it holds perfectly well in this case."

and is a meaningless correlation until one can show a causative relationship.

1/8/2013 4:56:12 PM

When I went to grad school, my program was about 1/4 white, but only about 1/3 of them were American, and there were no non-white Americans that I could remember.

1/8/2013 5:29:08 PM

white people need to start selling bean pies and preaching about the cultural bias of post graduate admissions

1/8/2013 5:30:17 PM

Quote :

"True, but if you want a 6 figure job in anything techy or science related, you must go to grad school."

Wrong.

1/8/2013 6:14:27 PM

1/8/2013 6:31:40 PM

Quote :

"True, but if you want a 6 figure job in anything techy or science related, you must go to grad school."

What the fuck are you talking about?

1/8/2013 6:35:06 PM

for big pharma, which is a huge industry it is required.

Then for other molecule related industries (like pesticides and bombs) it is requirement.

Then the shells (fuel and gas).

Then you get into the polymer/techy stuff, like materials, computer material and lubricants it is requirement.

Now for computer engineering and what not, that isn't my field so I can't really say for sure.



[Edited on January 8, 2013 at 6:55 PM. Reason : s]

1/8/2013 6:54:30 PM

That's funny. I had the exact same realization with ECE463/563. Same deal, but what struck me was that all the graduate students asked a shitton of questions. I mean, Q&A took up 60% of class time. As one of my Indian friends in ECE used to say, "What can Brown do for you?"

I got over being the token white guy among Indians while working at TCS.

1/8/2013 7:26:34 PM

Quote :

"A professor at another school told me that the good programs get white americans, the lower ranked programs get what they can and then fill in the rest of the class with foreigners to make money."

this has been my observation as well. even in california where you would expect to see a large proportion of asians, white people basically dominate it. i think it goes a higher level too, where the top programs grab up all of the white females.

1/8/2013 7:49:10 PM

Whooooo, go white people!

1/8/2013 8:05:45 PM

Quote :

"and is a meaningless correlation until one can show a causative relationship."

The cause is already known. In fact, it's a "duh". If white people were richer in the 60s than today, then their kids should be expected to be richer today. Not only is that upbringing, there's even direct wealth transfer. If the rates of different educational attainment change, then more money should be where there are more white people. The causative aspect is simple accounting.

1/8/2013 8:39:32 PM

white people have a low to marginal IQ as shown in numerous studies; graduate students dum dum dum

1/8/2013 8:43:26 PM

All of my classmates were white

All of the class below us are white

And the third class is all white

Genetic counselors = a lot of white people (mostly females)

1/8/2013 8:46:45 PM

Quote :

"The cause is already known. In fact, it's a "duh". If white people were richer in the 60s than today, then their kids should be expected to be richer today. Not only is that upbringing, there's even direct wealth transfer. If the rates of different educational attainment change, then more money should be where there are more white people. The causative aspect is simple accounting."

Exactly, so when white people boast about how hard they work, usually they are just maintaining. Nothing against them, honestly, but landing a job when both of your parents went to school and have good jobs is nothing compared to the guy that has to come from a broken, low income home to go to school and get a good job.





[Edited on January 8, 2013 at 9:00 PM. Reason : ha]

1/8/2013 8:57:25 PM

My grad classes were definitely mostly white, but still had more diversity than many of my undergraduate classes.

This might have some interesting demographics data too:
http://oied.ncsu.edu/oied/diversity/fact_book_2011/2010-11_Factbook_accessible.pdf

1/8/2013 9:01:29 PM

Quote :

"you have to get an MBA or JD if you're white, your parents make you"

lol

1/8/2013 9:06:22 PM

You get used to it. Its weird at first when compared to undergrad. I loved grad school. I may go back for some courses just because.....

1/8/2013 10:31:01 PM

some classes are, some are more diverse

depends on the subject and prof

1/8/2013 10:36:31 PM

Quote :

"True, but if you want a 6 figure job in anything techy or science related, you must go to grad school."

Ahahahaha.

1/8/2013 10:41:09 PM

Quote :

"white people have a low to marginal IQ as shown in numerous studies"

I thought their average IQ was measured a bit above the "average"

but then there's the problem of just how "culture-free" the tests are and how well these tests actually measure intelligence, like I heard that reasoning (which is emphasized in these tests) is not well correlated with short-term memory and verbal ability (usually explicitly de-emphasized)

1/8/2013 10:53:02 PM

I went to UNCW for an MS in Math. All but one was non-white.

1/8/2013 10:54:57 PM

So, what are all of these 6 figure jobs that you get right out of college or high school? I am interested to know.

Because the jobs that I am listing go from student to work with a start off pay of at or near 100,000.

So, anybody care to tell me where/what these jobs are?

1/8/2013 11:25:46 PM

I never said right out of college/high school.

Software Architects
Software Engineers
Application Developers
Network Engineers

1/8/2013 11:32:16 PM

^

[Edited on January 8, 2013 at 11:34 PM. Reason : my first job out of college was 25k ]

1/8/2013 11:33:26 PM

the NE dept. is mostly white, grad school included

1/8/2013 11:37:27 PM

Quote :

"I never said right out of college/high school. Software Architects Software Engineers Application Developers Network Engineers"

Then what the hell is all this about? If you can't name me a job where you start at 100 K then STFU. Everything that I have stated starts there and goes up to the ridiculous salary. The ignorance in this country is just absurd. People go into a 5 year grad program in the sciences, where tuition is paid for BTW, as training for very high paying jobs all the time. It is not what I am in there for but most people are.

And BTW, looking for a job just to make a bloated salary is like only pursuing music in hopes to become famous. I feel sorry for people like that because they are gonna spend there lives working a job they hate for what, a big house and jet skis?





[Edited on January 8, 2013 at 11:48 PM. Reason : v have not disproved anything. ]

1/8/2013 11:43:41 PM

I'm not sure I understand. You made a false statement and I disproved it. QEF

1/8/2013 11:46:19 PM

Seriously, what the fuck are you talking about? You said nothing about starting salaries, you said 100k jobs. You can make 100k in tech jobs without a post grad degree pretty easily.

1/8/2013 11:48:28 PM

I think he's just mad at people who can afford big houses and jet skis.

1/8/2013 11:51:27 PM

Quote :

"True, but if you want a 6 figure job in anything techy or science related, you must go to grad school."

I can see now how I did not specifically say early or starting salaries, and I said techy when I really meant materials. Engineering is a field I know nothing about salaries and such. There, I clarified.

[Edited on January 8, 2013 at 11:53 PM. Reason : s]

1/8/2013 11:51:45 PM