5 ms·

I wasn't alive in 1956 nor have I studied the 1950s enough to make a valid judgement, but I graduated college this year and high school in 2012 and the attitude

I wasn't alive in 1956 nor have I studied the 1950s enough to make a valid judgement, but I graduated college this year and high school in 2012 and the attitude was definitely one of uncertainty. If you didn't get X grade or Y internship (or any random thing like that), your chances at a good career were well, uncertain. A lot of people paint the 1950s and early 60s such that you could do okay in high school and not go to a 4-year college and still manage to provide for a middle class family. Can anyone who has studied or otherwise know if this was true? The only thing I can be certain of is that this is only true if you were white.

pdonis 10y ago
> If you didn't get X grade or Y internship (or any random thing like that), your chances at a good career were well, uncertain. You left out one thing: if you do get X grade or Y internship, your chances at a good career are still uncertain. There is no magic bullet. > A lot of people paint the 1950s and early 60s such that you could do okay in high school and not go to a 4-year college and still manage to provide for a middle class family. To an extent this was probably true in the US, but the reason was something temporary: there was a huge economic expansion going on in the aftermath of WWII, with new markets being created, and many industries were willing to basically overpay their workers in order to increase production and capture market share. In the US auto industry, for example, most new car sales in the 1950s and 1960s were genuine new sales--families who had never had a car before or who were adding a second (or even third) car they hadn't had before. In that environment, yes, a person with a high school education can have a middle class income, because the cost of his labor is a minor expense compared to the potential value to be captured. In the current US auto industry, by contrast, almost all new car sales are for replacement of previous cars--the market is saturated. That means there is a huge price pressure being exerted, and hence a huge pressure to drive down wages and to automate jobs that used to be done by human workers in order to reduce costs. In this environment, a person with only a high school education is unlikely to have the skills that would make them valuable enough to a company to be able to earn a middle class income. (Note that I said "unlikely"; it's possible to develop such skills without a college education, but statistically few people do.) Does that mean things are more uncertain now? I'm not sure. I said the situation in the 1950s and 1960s was temporary; it was also not the same in all industries. So I don't know that one can make a general statement either way.
- sangnoir 10y ago
  > To an extent this was probably true in the US, but the reason was something temporary: there was a huge economic expansion going on in the aftermath of WWII Not only that, the economic expansion was tilted in favor of America as there was little competition from Europe and Japan, as they were rebuilding in the aftermath of WWII.
- nxc18 10y ago
  There certainly are magic bullets. Look at any software engineer who has ever interned at Google. For anyone else, the hiring process is uncertain, chaotic, and basically random. Success is a function of your past performance, your appearance, the emotional reaction your interviewer has to you, your interviewers mood and frame of mind during the interview, how stressed you happen to be that day, etc. There are exceptionally strong candidates who are rejected by the Google process and poor candidates who make it through. The latest thing in the Google interview crapshoot is a new emphasis on GPA - I've never (in the past two years) heard of someone with less than a 3.5 even being considered for an interview and they ask for a transcript with the application. There are lots of exceptional candidates who push themselves into hard subjects, work on personal projects, and lead on campus that are ignored because of that magic number. On the other hand, once you have that Google internship, every other tech company is falling over themselves to interview you and extend an offer - I've never heard of a Google intern not getting ab excellent full time offer months before graduation. Group affiliation helps, too. On my campus there is a very strong and old computing interest group with a strong alumni network. Every year, company recruiters do interviews directly with that group of people before even considering applicants at the career fair.
  - VLM 10y ago
    "a new emphasis on GPA" That's just an attempt at legalized illegal age discrimination. Given the statistical average grade inflation of a fifth of a point per decade, my 3.4 in the 80s is worth a 4.0 in 2016 but if the real intention is to avoid hiring people over 30 for whatever reason, it'll work as a strategy.
  - existencebox 10y ago

pdonis 10y ago

> If you didn't get X grade or Y internship (or any random thing like that), your chances at a good career were well, uncertain. You left out one thing: if you do get X grade or Y internship, your chances at a good career are still uncertain. There is no magic bullet. > A lot of people paint the 1950s and early 60s such that you could do okay in high school and not go to a 4-year college and still manage to provide for a middle class family. To an extent this was probably true in the US, but the reason was something temporary: there was a huge economic expansion going on in the aftermath of WWII, with new markets being created, and many industries were willing to basically overpay their workers in order to increase production and capture market share. In the US auto industry, for example, most new car sales in the 1950s and 1960s were genuine new sales--families who had never had a car before or who were adding a second (or even third) car they hadn't had before. In that environment, yes, a person with a high school education can have a middle class income, because the cost of his labor is a minor expense compared to the potential value to be captured. In the current US auto industry, by contrast, almost all new car sales are for replacement of previous cars--the market is saturated. That means there is a huge price pressure being exerted, and hence a huge pressure to drive down wages and to automate jobs that used to be done by human workers in order to reduce costs. In this environment, a person with only a high school education is unlikely to have the skills that would make them valuable enough to a company to be able to earn a middle class income. (Note that I said "unlikely"; it's possible to develop such skills without a college education, but statistically few people do.) Does that mean things are more uncertain now? I'm not sure. I said the situation in the 1950s and 1960s was temporary; it was also not the same in all industries. So I don't know that one can make a general statement either way.

sangnoir 10y ago
> To an extent this was probably true in the US, but the reason was something temporary: there was a huge economic expansion going on in the aftermath of WWII Not only that, the economic expansion was tilted in favor of America as there was little competition from Europe and Japan, as they were rebuilding in the aftermath of WWII.
nxc18 10y ago
There certainly are magic bullets. Look at any software engineer who has ever interned at Google. For anyone else, the hiring process is uncertain, chaotic, and basically random. Success is a function of your past performance, your appearance, the emotional reaction your interviewer has to you, your interviewers mood and frame of mind during the interview, how stressed you happen to be that day, etc. There are exceptionally strong candidates who are rejected by the Google process and poor candidates who make it through. The latest thing in the Google interview crapshoot is a new emphasis on GPA - I've never (in the past two years) heard of someone with less than a 3.5 even being considered for an interview and they ask for a transcript with the application. There are lots of exceptional candidates who push themselves into hard subjects, work on personal projects, and lead on campus that are ignored because of that magic number. On the other hand, once you have that Google internship, every other tech company is falling over themselves to interview you and extend an offer - I've never heard of a Google intern not getting ab excellent full time offer months before graduation. Group affiliation helps, too. On my campus there is a very strong and old computing interest group with a strong alumni network. Every year, company recruiters do interviews directly with that group of people before even considering applicants at the career fair.
- VLM 10y ago
  "a new emphasis on GPA" That's just an attempt at legalized illegal age discrimination. Given the statistical average grade inflation of a fifth of a point per decade, my 3.4 in the 80s is worth a 4.0 in 2016 but if the real intention is to avoid hiring people over 30 for whatever reason, it'll work as a strategy.
- existencebox 10y ago