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From: matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Are Americans Intellectually Inferior?
Message-ID: <19611@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 28 Jan 89 02:33:43 GMT
References: <1461@trantor.harris-atd.com> <19554@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <00Uvr19Q3V1010d85Q6@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com>
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Reply-To: matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff)
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In article <00Uvr19Q3V1010d85Q6@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com> johnm@uts.amdahl.com (John Murray) writes:
>In article <19554@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>, matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff) writes:
>> Immigrant Asian-Americans tend to have a fantastically good "network,"
>> so they know that there are lots of openings for computer engineers,
>> and that one can get a good salary in this line of work.  Many of the
>> non-Asians do not know this.  I wonder if this knowledge would change 
>> their aspirations?

>This "network" phenomenon is not peculiar to Asian immigrants - or to
>computer engineering for that matter. It's a by-product of the "ghetto-
>forming" process which occurs among immigrants from many backgrounds. For
>example, much of the fresh vegetable trade in New York seems to be in the
>hands of people with a Korean background, many Irish immigrants end up in
>the bar trade, police, construction, etc.

Yes, I agree with all this, but there is a big variation in degree.

For example, I recently speculated in a conversation with some of our 
students from India that the Chinese students have a better network than 
the Indians do.  The Indians not only agreed with me, but also added
that they had just been talking about this the night before.

Also, I think there is even a variation among the various Chinese groups,
with the Taiwan students having a better network than those from China
and Hong Kong.

But, getting back to the subject at hand, I would guess that a large
number of even educated Americans don't realize how much opportunity
exists in the computer professions.  As an example, an American physics 
student recently came to me to investigate the possibility of getting
an MS in computer science.  I asked what his goals were.  He said that
he wanted to use the MS as an entree into the computer software industry, 
which he had thought would not open to him without a degree.  I told him
that with his physics degree, good grades, and prior summer jobs programming
in the aerospace industry, he WOULD be able to find a job without having 
a formal CS degree.  He was quite surprised by this.  By contrast, a
student from Taiwan would know examples of his/her friends, friends of
friends, friends of friends of friends, etc. who had done such a thing.

So:  If Americans COULD be made aware of the opportunities in the
computer professions (to the extent described above), would they then
be interested?

   Norm