In article , Rob
wrote:
Jim Lesurf wrote:



Law is a profession that discriminates for example. So the 'high
earning' may correlate if you're a white man, and not if you're a
black woman. So the statistics only start to have meaning once you
know who they apply to - and that research doesn't seem to be in the
wild - although I can't imagine it'd be especially difficult to find
out.

I have my doubts that your comments about 'Law' apply generally in
physical science and engineering in the UK. Although for cultural or
other reasons there may be a bias in student preferences at the
outset. Don't have data so can't say.


Pleased to hear it. Mind you, google scholar throws up quite a few hits
when 'sexism engineering' is input.

Not doubt. Given fields with numbers of examples in the millions I assume
you could find examples of almost anything. I can't say I've noticed it.
But then I guess my only contact will have been because some of the people
I have hired/supervised/worked with have been from what might seem 'ethinic
minorities' (or whatever the nice phrase may be) in a UK context. So far as
I could tell, their mix of abilities, etc, showed no signs of being
different to others. But I don't doubt you can find examples of bias that
would pass me by. So I guess I am not well placed to comment in general.


So I can't help suspecting that such a breakdown by degree topic
might be of interest to those considering going to uni and comparing
that with simply getting to work.


It will be of use in some cases, granted.

Indeed. And unless a specific indivudual has relevant evidence to show
they are *not* average in a systematic way, then their best bet is the
averages they can find. That is likely to be so for most in that
situation. But for 'some' it will not.


There's plenty of evidence of discrimination on grounds of race, gender,
class, sexuality and disability for example - so that's always going to
skew things.

The difficulty here is akin to your waryness about 'averages'. Yes, there
will be examples of what you say. My experience is that it isn't common in
engineering or physical science in the UK. But no doubt I may have simply
missed it. I am sure I an just as guilty of ignorance as anyone else who
hasn't been in the sharp end of being badly treated.

I do recall a case some decades ago when someone was being interviewed for
a job at Armstrong Audio. He was turned down and became annoyed. Started
claiming he was being discriminated against for reasons of colour, etc. So
the director took him around the factory and showed him the people already
happily working there on the line, offices, etc Since the staff came from
around and about the North/East London area it was a bit like the 'United
Nations'. :-)

That has reminded me of one if the photos I think is on the Armstrong
website. This shows one of our test/repair staff of the time. He was
someone with superb 'diagnostic' skills for finding out faults in equipment
and fixing them. If curious, it is the lower image on

http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/pandp/prod2.html

Interesting that some people do develop a particular talent for being able
to find faults. Yet some people who design kit find this hard when their
magnum opus won't behave.

Maybe it was different elsewhere. But the Armstrong employees were all
essentially like a 'family'. Including coach trips together, everyone
getting a chicken or alternative at Xmas, etc. I thoughly enjoyed my years
there and pleased to have worked with all of them.

The company was taken on after it ceased making consumer gear by Twaleb -
who was originally from Mauritius (is that how you spell it, I can't
recall!) He'd joined the company years before as a 'tester' and ended up
running the place and owning it.

I used to envy him as his wife was a stewardess on the Mauritius arline so
he kept being able to get free seats there and back. Closest I ever got to
that was when I worked for a few months at Aerospat in Tolouse. Since Air
France were part-funding the work I could fly home most weekends with my
laundry. If the standard seats were full they used to shove me into 1st.
:-)

But this all becomes vicious - it'd be daft to dissuade
someone from studying engineering because they're going to face
discrimination when it gets to the job interview.

....or even to presume they will, or that differs from anywhere else.
Wouldn't do to discriminate against engineers and assume they are
abnormally bad in this respect, would it? :-)

In most cases that's to do with society and not the subject, of course.
Although as you probably know, study/teachng/research of natural science
has 'gendered moments' according to some ;-) Another topic on an
already OT subject.

Yes. :-) However so far as physical science or EE in the UK goes, the
main problem in the past seemed to be at school level, with kids being
given the feeling that it 'wasn't for girls'.


But the problem here is that some students may have totally
unrealistic ideas, and take subjects like 'media studies' because they
think they will be the next Jeremy Paxman, etc. One or two may. But
the vast bulk will not, and may find that some other topics would have
suited them better *both* for getting a job, *and* for jobs they
eventually find they enjoy.


I have to accept the strong possibility that some students do media
studies because it's the only course they could get on. Not so sure
about 'vast bulk' though.

The 'vast bulk' comment was wrt assuming they could become Paxman clones.
The problem here is that there are only a tiny number of jobs like that,
even if all the graduates in media studies were 'good enough' whatever that
might mean in the context.

I think media is fascinating: snippet news generation, Sky, Wikipedia,
film/violence, commercial vs state media, even boutique hifi mags.
What's all that little lot about? And waht's all this twitter-blog? I
think it's crucial we have people who can not only describe our media,
but have the skills to analyse and evaluate.

Yes. But to bring us back to the root of the discussion: I have my doubts
that anyone needs to go to university to spot when the media are talking
spheriods of revolution. Although in audio, some idea of EE or physics
might help a bit! And in some cases the technobabble is quite
mind-numbingly fancy. Baloney Baffles Brains... :-)

But I agree this is all wildly OT so I'll stop here.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html