Accepting Corrections
An ambiguous post (When You Cannot Take the Road Less Traveled) led to someone contacting me and criticizing my heavy handed writing on the topic of STEM. I am always open to someone contacting me, especially, when they think that I’ve crossed a line. To be fair, the person didn’t think that I had crossed a line, but thought, I had misrepresented a group of people who truly enjoy STEM and working in those fields. They thought I had been condescending and didn’t represent the people who had chosen that pathway, because they wanted to go into a STEM field. Rereading that post, I agree with them.
Originally, I had wanted to argue that the emphasis and incentives surrounding a STEM education could lead people who didn’t want to be in that field to that line of work. I wanted to portray the fact that STEM’s monetary incentives could lead someone to making a choice against what they actually wanted to do. Yes, I agree that underrepresented individuals deserve opportunities to pursue high paying careers in STEM. But by making STEM programs cheaper, better funded, and more prevalent than other programs, we as a society are choking off culture and humanities.
However, I sometimes feel that many people make the choice to go into STEM not because they want to, but because, it is lucrative and well funded. They throw their dreams to the wayside because a pathway to a career has opened up to them and the uncertainty that surrounds their life is solved by these incentive programs. So, I don’t dislike STEM, I dislike incentive programs because I feel they pray on individuals who want stability in their life or a cheaper degree.
In the end, that post doesn’t portray my feelings properly and it is hard for me to write about the topic as I am conflicted. The take away here is this: If you have a disagreement with what I’ve said or posted, contact me, I am more than willing to speak with you in a civilized discourse and will take your words to heart.
Read MoreConcerns of Alienation
On of my top fears when I am writing a piece is having it misinterpreted. With public shaming so prevalent and capable, I am cautious releasing my weird mind into the world. I tend to sit in the middle of many issues and when I write I am exploring an issue or trying to understand it in a very blunt and focused way (it can come off as closed minded). So, when I look at something like STEM, I know that it is beneficial to under serviced populations when the barriers are lessened. I agree with making it easier for under represented demographics to get an assisting hand from various directions because society is based on the past. If you have 100,000 dollars in 1990, and you invest and grow it and then pass that to your family that is your right, but I also understand that the process creates a barrier to others. Since the past was uneven, it is responsible to smooth the conditions in the present.
Read MoreBusiness and Social Responsibility
Regularly, there are news articles about how corporations have pulled funding from something for some reason, and usually, it is to be socially responsible – actually it is to keep us from boycotting them. Now when endorsements for a racist disappear, the reason can vary, but honestly, businesses don’t do this to be social responsible. It is in their interests to be viewed in a favorable light and keep us from screaming at them. Some of these decisions can be a knee jerk reaction to get ahead of an issue that is coming down the line, but I have seen small businesses do the same thing but on a smaller scale. The interesting thing about a small business, if you frequent the same ones regularly like I do, you know their personal views on many social issues. Which leads to an interesting juxtaposition of a person’s view point, keeping their kids fed, and the doors open.
Read MoreCrazy Coincidence
Often when I am writing, I can hear the voice of a distant and faraway asshole: “That’s way too coincidental.” I know other writers have wrestled with events in their book being too specific and spectacular to have probably happened and knowing that someone would point that out. Yet, we all know that crazy coincidences happen. Most of the time, when you aren’t looking. However, we have entered a state… nay a need, to have all of our entertainment be realistic. So we rail against coincidences when they appear even though they happen often and surround our best real life stories.
For example, I was walking into work a while ago and I have four possible routes into the building. These possible avenues to my cubical are on a spectrum, the closest to my parking spot forces me to walk to my desk mostly indoors and the farthest from my parking spot forces me to walk the most outdoors. From here there are four primary routes, of those four, there are three possible doorways I can enter. Two of the paths lead to one door and both keep me outside the most. Depending on where you park, you can cut through the cars to get to one of the paths or just take a pathway that is the same distance but setup for those parking at the back of the lot – total distance is the same, but one forces you to weave through parked vehicles. Now, I have four choices throughout my walk – watch the sunrise, look at my phone, stare straight ahead at the doorway, or look down. Prior to this day, I received a new prescription and I’ve been dealing with a wonky eyesight where I feel a foot shorter due to my eyes adjusting to my new lenses in my glasses. So, I had been looking down a lot more to help gain experience with the lenses. At the moment I took a glance down, I caught a leather glove blending in with the woodchips. It was the same make, brand, and color of my gloves. So I stopped for a moment, laughed at the fact (literally laughed because I am unaware of what I look like in public), figured the owner would come looking for it and continued walking. Then, I wondered, is that my glove? So I checked my pocket and noticed I only had one glove, the right one. I backpedaled, grabbed the glove, noticed it was the left hand glove, and the same size as my other glove. Then, I had an OJ moment and put the glove on, unlike OJ, it fit. So, in that one walk I found something I hadn’t lost yet. I had lost it, but my perception hadn’t known that it was gone, so, it was a surprise when I came across it. So many things came together in that one moment to let me find a glove I had lost but had not lost – it was Schrodinger’s Glove.
Isn’t that amazing? It is boring but it shows so many things coming together to place me on the path to find the glove. Insane things happen in a similar way, and the people who are involved in those events create a historical progression to make sense of how it came to be – those are coincidences.
What I like about my example is the simple fact that if I asked a series of questions about that event with the glove, most people would answer them opposite of what I have written. They would believe, more than likely, that I noticed the glove, that I chose the path to retrace my path to work, to scour the ground to find the glove, but I didn’t. Instead, I saw a random glove and build the history of losing the glove to make sense of the past.
Read MoreWhen You Cannot Take the Road Less Traveled
I once had a question for my friend and it was simple: “If you offer incentives to go into certain careers, is it not a form of mass manipulation?” They answered with a common argument that you have to offer the disenfranchised the opportunity to gain these high paying jobs that have been isolated for some time. Yet, isn’t the reason we live and work to enjoy ourselves? Is it not dangerous to offer cheap education, but in doing so, force someone to choose a career path? For me, I see all the STEM programs as a structured issue that’s goal is to produce workers for companies. This is fine, and a lot people love being creative within the STEM field, but isn’t it dangerous to over produce and create a surplus of STEM qualified individuals?
For me, I work in an engineer concentric company. However, I carry a philosophy, sociology degree, and a masters in business administration. I am beyond happy that I got my liberal arts degrees and I use them regularly for my other career aspiration: novelist. Yet, I feel somewhat sad for those who were coerced into getting a STEM degree because they look longingly at my fiction writing and wish they had some skill that wasn’t only effective for a company. I am not making this up, I was directly told by a coworker with a masters in engineer that they wish they had some skill that could let them venture into the world on their own and use their own ability to generate an income – they don’t realize I don’t generate an income from my writing (yet).
Read MoreWebsite Down for 24 Hours
Sorry about the issues with the website over the last 24 hours. I was working, in the production environment, and pushed some changes that broke a connection to the database. I know that making changes in a production environment isn’t a good idea, and I apologize if it caused anyone an inconvenience. We are back up and everything is running properly right now.
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