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You disagreed with me, but upvoting your comment because the counterpoint is compelling. It's easy to assume resources are the key point - are people with less

You disagreed with me, but upvoting your comment because the counterpoint is compelling. It's easy to assume resources are the key point - are people with less time/money well served by these bootcamps? However, it makes sense that individual personality traits like motivation, ambition, and comfort level with uncertainty / cutting your own path could matter. As aside I've always felt successful STEM people receive unbalanced praise, always credit for some ethereal genius, not enough credit for maniacal drive, near clinical obsession with goals, gall. Does the general public realize that everyone from Einstein to Musk would have been greatly diminished without these qualities?

speedplane 9y ago
Motivation, ambition, and comfort with uncertainty are definitely huge factors in a successful career. STEM people are experts in their field, and they have a mountain of seemingly magical knowledge, but respect for their "genius" ignores these more universal and often more desirable attributes. I friends with an incredibly intelligent patent lawyer who quit her job to become an FBI agent. I know another really smart guy who took a huge pay cut from his big-tech job to be a reporter for the Wall Street Journal. They didn't quit their technical fields because it was too hard, they could easily handle the STEM jobs when they were thrown at them. I look at them now and see an even greater level of professionalism than they had in their previous positions, and that comes with a greater respect. Many STEM jobs often get that self-respect, and probably also FBI agents ans WSJ reporters, wish the same could be said about many other positions.