How to Change US Culture?

[shah269 0]

http://cnn.com/video/?/video/living/2011/05/13/dean.kamen.changing.culture.cnn
Thoughts?
Please don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy being an engineer. And I greatly enjoy creating new technology and developing solutions.
And growing up I was never a straight A student in math or science but in the end I became an engineer partially due to my enjoyment in being creative also due to family pressure of working in a technical field.

As an immigrant I live in both sides of the fence. And have a good view on both sides.

Case in point, prestige. When my Persian mother is talking with her Persian friends regarding her three sons two of which are engineers, she boasts about how two of her sons are practicing engineers for where she is from an Engineer has as much prestige as a doctor.
However when she speaks with her American friends she boasts about how well my brother and I are doing financially.

What are your thoughts? What have been your experiences? Do you think we will ever see someone who invents and designs in the same light as someone who can throw a football or dribble a ball? Or...are we like the Roman Empire. We will be grateful of the engineering that makes our lives popular but those doing the designing will never be privy to any of the prestige for our culture values athletics and financial engineering?


ps
while working in Finland, it was rather funny, bus drivers were the "hot ticket" with the ladies. And engineers....not at all.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[Arvoitus 1]

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while working in Finland, it was rather funny, bus drivers were the "hot ticket" with the ladies. And engineers....not at all.

That is probably because, at least in southern Finland, most bus drivers aren't natives.

The best pick up line

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Years of observations compel me to do a public service: if you are a spanish guy coming to finland, be sure to mention spain at every opportunity.

This goes as well for french, americans, brits, scots, especially aussies. Use this info, and feel free to abuse it.

Your rights end where my feelings begin.

[shah269 0]

In Finland I stuck out like a sore thumb.
Here was a guy with an odd name, a tan and for some odd reason keeps giving the bartender a few Euros after he orders his beer.
Nice place to visit, but sure would not live there. Too cold and well the food...though quite good was a bit bland.
And then there was the X wife from Finland thing.

But never the less we digress. I know that countries such as Belgium and Holland are running seriously low on engineering, but they are well enough to do that they can simply outsource such activities to their neighbors. Yet I don't think, though very financially and physically viable, the US is in the same position. We are lucky enough to have enough immigrants such as myself and my brother who entered into the engineering field.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[Andy9o8 2]

So what does the 3rd son do?

[shah269 0]

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So what does the 3rd son do?

My youngest brother is at university.
He started off in engineering, seeing his two older brothers as engineer he thought it was what he wanted to do. But after experiencing the university level problem set he was not too excited so he is now studying to be a high school physics teacher.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[DanG 1]

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We are lucky enough to have enough immigrants such as myself and my brother who entered into the engineering field.

The country thanks you. Clearly, without you and your brother, America would be nothing but mouth breaters who can only aspire to the fry cook position at Denny's.

Are you really as arrogant in real life as you come off as here?

- Dan G

[shah269 0]

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The country thanks you. Clearly, without you and your brother, America would be nothing but mouth breathers who can only aspire to the fry cook position at Denny's.
?

OH Judas will you relax!

We as Americans, are lucky to have a vibrant immigrant population who bring their culture regarding higher education with respect to the sciences and engineering and as such supplement our current national culture which does not put as much emphasis on the sciences and thus we as a nation still have just enough engineers and scientists within our ranks to meet current demand.

Better
Yeesh! Wow you would think I had just kicked someone's dog in the jimmy!

So back on topic, what would it take for us in the US to adjust our culture to maybe educate more students regarding the viability of a career in the fields of engineering science and technology?

FYI
Longest serving engineer on prime time TV, Homer J Simpson.
I don’t think he qualifies as a role model.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[quade 4]

"How to Change US Culture?"
"Case in point, prestige."

Such foolishness.

Plain and simple; anything anyone attempts to do with the goal of gaining "prestige" or bragging points is almost certainly doomed to failure.

It's the wrong motivation. Because it's the wrong motivation a person will almost never have the commitment to doing what is necessary to succeed.

In order to really succeed, a person has to truly love whatever it is they're going to do, start early in life doing it and continue to do it for decades. Simply seeking "prestige" is almost never going to be enough.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[shah269 0]

Prestige, money....basic biological drive? To be in a position of greater income to be able to mate and reproduce?

But that aside, how many moms what their kids to be doctors, lawyers or.....professionals?
And well why not scientists and engineers?

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[quade 4]

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Prestige, money....basic biological drive? To be in a position of greater income to be able to mate and reproduce?

But that aside, how many moms what their kids to be doctors, lawyers or.....professionals?
And well why not scientists and engineers?

Mom's should want their kids to be whatever it is the kids want to be. Moms shouldn't attempt to live vicariously though their children; it's an almost certain recipe for disaster.

Guidance of what might make for a good future isn't a bad idea. I wish I had more. However how many stories are there of the kid who's parents wanted them to be one thing when they grew up and the kid that didn't want to have anything to do with that career? How does that make any sense at all?

So tell me, what is the root of that? The vanity of the parent. Again, wrong motivation.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[champu 1]

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So back on topic, what would it take for us in the US to adjust our culture to maybe educate more students regarding the viability of a career in the fields of engineering science and technology?

I don't think people doubt that STEM careers are viable. I think what's lacking is how accessible said careers seem (i.e. you don't have to be a super-genius) and how engaging said careers seem (i.e. despite often dry course work you get to do cool stuff at the end of the day.)

Trying to look for or manufacture some messiah engineer in popular culture who will finally make engineering cool seems like a pretty silly way to go about things, but then again I'm already an engineer. I think if folks like your brother (the high school physics teacher, not the other engineer) are interesting enough and encouraging enough to their students that will go a long way.

[shah269 0]

champu
Do the STEM fields look very unaccessible?
Look for me as a new guy in the country there was no real choice. Want a good life? OK then study, work hard and maybe you will be OK. I had no real family network here. So my choices were very limited.

But I see what you mean, maybe more local outreach will go much further than a global one?

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[champu 1]

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champu
Do the STEM fields look very unaccessible?
Look for me as a new guy in the country there was no real choice. Want a good life? OK then study, work hard and maybe you will be OK. I had no real family network here. So my choices were very limited.

This ties into what quade was getting at about doing things for the wrong reasons. A lot of people in and from developing countries, for example, are getting engineering degrees because someone told them that it was a straight-forward path to a viable career. That alone, never mind what they might enjoy doing, was enough for them to keep their nose in text books and get a degree.

I don't think it's a good idea to try and foster this kind of culture domestically just so we can say we "produce" as many or more engineers than country x. Our focus should just be on making sure those that do have an interest to begin with see it as something they can do, and continue to want to do.

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But I see what you mean, maybe more local outreach will go much further than a global one?

*shrugs* I'm not a developmental psychologist but it make sense to me.

[kelpdiver 2]

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This ties into what quade was getting at about doing things for the wrong reasons. A lot of people in and from developing countries, for example, are getting engineering degrees because someone told them that it was a straight-forward path to a viable career. That alone, never mind what they might enjoy doing, was enough for them to keep their nose in text books and get a degree.

in the worst manifestation of this, you get fake degrees. We talk last month about how Indian outsourcing firms like Wipro find that most of their applicants (over 95%), despite having the degree pedigrees, are incapable of doing the work needed.

[kelpdiver 2]

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What are your thoughts? What have been your experiences? Do you think we will ever see someone who invents and designs in the same light as someone who can throw a football or dribble a ball? Or...are we like the Roman Empire. We will be grateful of the engineering that makes our lives popular but those doing the designing will never be privy to any of the prestige for our culture values athletics and financial engineering?

Well, no one is going to buy a $100 ticket to watch an engineer work for a day. That's like watching paint dry. Not the same as watching Aaron Rodgers hit a crossing pattern for a TD while running for his life from a 260lb LB.

[SivaGanesha 2]

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Do you think we will ever see someone who invents and designs in the same light as someone who can throw a football or dribble a ball? Or...are we like the Roman Empire. We will be grateful of the engineering that makes our lives popular but those doing the designing will never be privy to any of the prestige for our culture values athletics and financial engineering?

In general America values people with strong people skills. Engineering tends to be a good ticket into the USA providing new immigrants with one of the more lucrative paths to US citizenship--but continuing success, even for the immigrants, depends a lot on having (or acquiring) those people skills. Great athletes tend to be major celebrities in the USA when they are young (well, in some sports--not necessarily skydiving), but as they age, if their dealings with people are not as admirable as their athletic skills, they often experience a fall from grace (eg Tiger Woods and many others).

As for bus drivers, they seem to have a bit of a stereotype for being a bit taciturn in North America, but it is certainly a field with the potential to exercise wonderful people skills. I suspect the bus drivers in Finland are much more fun to deal with than some bus drivers in the USA might be.

The question is whether a country that fundamentally values people skills above everything else has misguided or sensible values--some might say that people skills are, indeed, worthy of great respect.

"It's hard to have fun at 4-way unless your whole team gets down to the ground safely to do it again!"--Northern California Skydiving League re USPA Safety Day, March 8, 2014

[Arvoitus 1]

Have I understood this correctly? Your mother is Persian, dad is American, you were born in states therefore you are a US citizen and you consider yourself an immigrant?

Your rights end where my feelings begin.

[shah269 0]

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Have I understood this correctly? Your mother is Persian, dad is American, you were born in states therefore you are a US citizen and you consider yourself an immigrant?

Both my mother and father are Persians.
My mom remarried to my step father.
Though i consider myself an American there are some basic facts that force to view myself as an immigrant.

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[Andy9o8 2]

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Have I understood this correctly? Your mother is Persian, dad is American, you were born in states therefore you are a US citizen and you consider yourself an immigrant?

Both my mother and father are Persians.
My mom remarried to my step father.
Though i consider myself an American there are some basic facts that force to view myself as an immigrant.

Shah, this post, in the context of others of yours I've seen in the past, has roused my curiosity: where were you born? where did you grow up?

[champu 1]

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Shah, this post, in the context of others of yours I've seen in the past, has roused my curiosity: where were you born? where did you grow up?

Birther.

[DanG 1]

Nice.

- Dan G

[Andy9o8 2]

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Shah, this post, in the context of others of yours I've seen in the past, has roused my curiosity: where were you born? where did you grow up?

Birther.

Ha, ha. I ask because the tenor of his previous threads/posts over in Bonfire left me with the impression that he was born and at least partially raised in Iran before immigrating to the US at some point. If I am not correct, I'd like to know.

[steve1 5]

Is your mother less proud of her son, who is choosing teaching as a career?

I was wondering too of your own thoughts on that...I know a ton of people who have a low opinion of educators in America...

[shah269 0]

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Ha, ha. I ask because the tenor of his previous threads/posts over in Bonfire left me with the impression that he was born and at least partially raised in Iran before immigrating to the US at some point. If I am not correct, I'd like to know.

We came to the US when I was 7.
I've lived all over the place. From Bolivia to Finland.

As for my mother, it's an example of culture. As immigrants we tend to live in dual worlds. One of our adopted land and the other of where we came from.

As stated when my mother speaks with her Persian friends she is very proud of her two sons being engineers and her youngest at university.

With her American friends it's more about how well we are doing.

Thus, the crux of the thread, what will it take for the US culture to value engineers and scientists as much as say doctors and lawyers?

Life through good thoughts, good words, and good deeds is necessary to ensure happiness and to keep chaos at bay.

The only thing that falls from the sky is birdshit and fools!

[Darius11 12]

Hey man.

We have lived in the same culture so I know what you are talking about. There is a huge emphasis on education in some cultures. “Seek Knowledge till the day you die” thing.

I think it has many positives: almost every Iranian I know has some sort of higher education. Therefore they tend to have more money and more prestige (if that shit matters to you to many it does).

However I think the reason there is such a huge emphases on higher education is because you can’t make a decent living in Iran unless you have a masters or more. I don’t think that’s a good thing I also have never liked the arrogance of our culture. I hate that people who do manual work are looked down on.

All in all I think the culture here is better, please understand I didn’t say perfect but if I had to choose I would like the low pressure do what makes you happy and what your passionate about method more then become a doctor or an engineer or be looked down on.

At the end of the day its your life and you should choose what you want, what if you don’t want to be an engineer? And in that environment are you ever really able to even know what you want to be? Every kid in Iran was going to be a doctor or engineer how many of them would have wanted to if they had the freedom of mind to think about something else.


I guess I am from the Omar Khayom Iranian way of mentality. Drink be merry as there might not be a tomorrow. Oh and FUCK prestige.


The disclaimer to everything I said is that I was an absolute BLACK SHEEP in Iran. Even some of my cousins were told not to hang out with me.
So i know i was not the norm.

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain