10 ms·
Moved from the Midwest to the Bay Area, and tech comes in two forms: IT departments at major industrial firms (manufacturing, chemical, pharma, etc), or compani
by dexwiz 6y ago
Moved from the Midwest to the Bay Area, and tech comes in two forms: IT departments at major industrial firms (manufacturing, chemical, pharma, etc), or companies that are eventually bought by West Coast companies. The pay cap is much lower. Becoming a millionaire through stocks and wages is harder, but you will still be in the top 10% of earners overall.
If you want to live in a mansion, the Midwest makes this dream obtainable. Buy a 6 bedroom, lake (reservoir) side, 4k sqr ft home for less than a million. Of if you want an acre of lawn, but not live too far in the country.
What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white). (EDIT: This gets more pronounced the more rural you are. Cities tend to be more accepting. What you will find is that rural areas have more relative sway on thought compared to the West Coast.) Towns outside of major metropolitan areas are dying as most major industries that supported that last two generations have left. Drugs are a huge issue, but its not as obvious because the floor for homelessness is so much lower. The only major infrastructure and building projects that get approved are sports stadiums, because idiots in local government rather have sports teams than functioning schools.
What the Midwest does have is solid engineering and research universities, that graduate thousands of STEM oriented students a year. Unfortunately there are often over an hour from the nearest 250k+ city. I went to one, and I think less than 25% of my friends stayed in state. The brain drain is real.
- humbleMouse 6y agoThis is a good summary
- shortandsweet 6y agoWhat are the big schools? I always thought that what was holding the Midwest up, not enough high quality schools.
- coreycr 6y agoMost midwestern states have a world-class research university. Northwestern, U of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Purdue...
- tolbish 6y agoMinnesota, Iowa State, and the University of Ohio State are very good schools too for tech prospects.
- OldHand2018 6y agoThe "Big Ten Academic Alliance" does more funded research than the Ivy League and the UC system combined [1]. [1] https://www.btaa.org/docs/default-source/reports/btaa-annual-report-16-17-accessible.pdf https://www.btaa.org/docs/default-source/reports/btaa-annual...
- DetroitThrow 6y agoThere are plenty FAANG engineers minted from the top Midwestern schools - think CMU and other state schools - even if they rank behind the top schools on the coasts. Top paying tech jobs tend to be found on the coasts though as well.
- santaclaus 6y ago> There are plenty FAANG engineers minted from the top Midwestern schools - think CMU and other state schools - even if they rank behind the top schools on the coasts. CMU is a private school, ranked number 1 in CS, and is not in a Midwestern state! That said, there are lots of top CS programs in the Midwest.
- dexwiz 6y agoCMU is on the wrong side of the Appalachian mountains to best East Coast. Pittsburg has much more in common with neighboring Ohio than it does with Philadelphia. Its regularly included in the Rust Belt which is a subset of the Midwest.
- santaclaus 6y agoIt’s certainly not East Coast, but it’s very North East - the rust belt spans well beyond the Midwest. Even culturally Pittsburgh feels like it has more in common with, say, Buffalo or other North Eastern rust belt cities than Wisconsin or Minnesota.
- throwawaygh 6y agoExactly. I think Pittsburgh has more in common with non-NYC New York than with Ohio. It feels much more like a non-Boston/NYC Northeastern city than like e.g. Columbus or Indianapolis.
- steveklabnik 6y agoI'm from Pittsburgh, my partner is from New Jersey. We argue about this (in a playful way) all the time; Pittsburgh is east coast, to me. Ohio is midwest. She counters with "a seven hour drive to the water is not on the coast."
- santaclaus 6y agoUniversity of Illinois Urbana Champagne, University of Michigan, university of Wisconsin Madison, and Purdue are all top 20 in CS.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dexwiz 6y agoMost of the Big Ten Schools are decent. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference They aren't Ivy League, but they do compete internationally. My alma mater, Purdue, boasts the most amount of astronaut alumni of any nonmilitary school.
- analog31 6y agoIn my view, what holds the Midwest up, is that not everybody gets to live in the high-wage cities, yet we don't just give up on inventing and making things. Wherever smart, creative people live, there will be stuff happening, albeit perhaps at its own pace. I tend to look at the high-wage regions like silicon valley, like they are a different country. Some folks will emigrate to that country, and I'm happy for them. Those of us who are left behind, for whatever reason, get on with our lives and find what there is to enjoy in our humble surroundings.
- ryansmccoy 6y agoWashington University in St. Louis?
- dole 6y agoI have a friend who graduated from WUSTL’s CS program, who suspected the lack of accreditation stopped him from numerous job prospects. While WUSTL was a cornerstone of the early internet, it’s never been known since (IMHO) for particularly strong CS.
- throwawaygh 6y agoThe midwest has the following top 20 CS schools: Illinois (tied for #1), Michigan, Wisconsin, Purdue, maybe Carnegie Mellon (also tied for #1). In addition, the midwest also has the following universities which are top institutions in some fields: Northwestern, University of Chicago, Washington University in St. Louis, Ohio State, Minnesota. I'm probably leaving out at least one Chicagoland school. Indiana is also quite good for CS, but is just not big enough to show up at the top of the rankings. The problem is not a lack of top-tier universities. The problem, especially in Computer Science, is that everyone leaves after university. E.g., here's a map from CMU (page 4): https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2017_one_pagers/scs/BS_SCS_One_Pager_2017_%20rev.1.18.pdf https://www.cmu.edu/career/documents/2017_one_pagers/scs/BS_... From CMU, only 2% go to the midwest while 67% go to the west coast and 17% go to the northeast. Similarly, from UW-Madison, only about half stay in the midwest: https://dataviz.wisc.edu/views/FirstDestinationSurvey_0/EmployerLocation?%3Aembed=y&%3AshowAppBanner=false&%3AshowShareOptions=true&%3Adisplay_count=no&%3AshowVizHome=no https://dataviz.wisc.edu/views/FirstDestinationSurvey_0/Empl... ------- US News 20 CS schools by state/region (note that UIUC is now in the tie for top): 1. Carnegie Mellon (Pittsburgh, regionally ambiguous) 1. MIT (New England/Northeast) 1. Stanford (California/West Coast) 1. Berkeley (California/West Coast) 1. UIUC (Great Plains or maybe Upper Midwest/Midwest) 5. Cornell (New England/Northeast) 6. UW (PNW/West Coast) 6. Georgia Institute of Technology (South) 8. Princeton (New England/Northeast) 8. UT-Austin (Texas/South) 10. California Institute of Technology (California/West Cost) 11. University of Michigan--Ann Arbor (Upper Midwest/Midwest) 13. UCLA (California/West Coast) 13. Wisconsin (Upper Midwest/Midwest) 13. Harvard (Northeast) 16. UCSD (California/West Coast) 16. University of Maryland--College Park (Mid-Atlantic/Northeast) 16. University of Pennsylvania (Mid-Atlantic/Northeast) 19. Purdue (Midwest) 20. Rice University (Texas/South) 20. USC (California/West) 20. Yale (New England/Northeast) 20. Amherst (New England/Northeast)
- pratik661 6y agoI think you will find the engineering brain drain from any US region that doesn't (currently) have high paying tech jobs. I went to Georgia Tech and a significant number of CS grads from there moved to NYC, Bay Area, Seattle, or Austin.
- strictnein 6y agoWhen factoring in the cost of living, there isn't much of a pay difference. This is especially true once you have a family and have to care about living in a good school district.
- lotsofpulp 6y agoThere's a huge pay difference for the top x%, including cost of living. And y% of people like to believe they are or will be part of the top x%, where y >>>> x.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoYour second sentence may be true, but your first sentence is most definitely not. The biggest thing that accounts for the cost of living difference is housing. If you can live relatively cheaply, which most people in their 20s can, you will always come out ahead (and usually WAY ahead) if you take a high paying job in an expensive area vs taking a lower paying job in a cheap area.
- throwawaygh 6y agoI can rent a $4,500 apartment and still save, post-tax, at least $100,000 more than I could save post-tax anywhere in the midwest except maybe Chicago. Even including the value of paying off a mortgage vs. rent. Tech jobs that pay more than $300,000 -- maybe $350,000 -- simply don't exist in large quantities outside major job markets. And the ones that do aren't the "trusted senior individual contributor with plenty of freedom to choose your projects" roles that exist in spades on the coasts. Last time I job marketed in the midwest I couldn't even break $250 all-in, the vesting schedule was pure bullshit, and that role would have included a lot of political BS. Basically moving from blissful respected individual contributor to stressed out disrespected middle management, and all for a massive cut in post-tax savings. I get why jobs are exploding in those areas, but they aren't the sorts of jobs I want.
- claydavisss 6y agoWhen will HN stop sneering at flyover country?
- jacobriis 6y ago"What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white)." Be aware that when people say things like this they often do so to feel virtuous themselves like only they are so enlightened that only they even consider being friendly to non white people. The idea that people in the Midwest (which has a population of over 65 million people similar to France and the UK) are only friendly to white people is pretty crazy.
- tolbish 6y agoYes, people who have seen trends of racism in the Midwest against minorities firsthand should be disregarded. They are the real racists. /s Have you considered that their experiences may actually be true?
- prepend 6y agoHave you considered that their experiences may be true AND people are friendly to non-whites. Racism isn’t some binary flag where an entire region is or isn’t racist. People can have racist experiences without meaning everyone is shitty or even that someone is likely to have a bad time. Note this doesn’t mean people who are the subject of racism are racists. I read GP’s comment as meaning that making an overly broad statement that people in the Midwest are friendly to only whites is not accurate or useful.
- DetroitThrow 6y agoIt is possible for someone to experience racism but apply a similarly out of touch generalization. I've experienced racism in Midwestern cities, but relative to other cities I've lived in the US? Talking in relative terms let's your anecdotes become broadly meaningful.
- Chris2048 6y agosarcastic hyperbole is unhelpful at the best of times, but in this case it isn't really established to what extent "trends of racism in the Midwest against minorities firsthand" has been seen. The sole reason we might assume is that dexwiz mentions that they "Moved from the Midwest to the Bay Area" with no more detail than that. How much of the midwest, where, for how long; what did they witness firsthand? what did they hear? It's a stretch to assume so much without projecting your own assumptions about the midwest. > Have you considered that their experiences may actually be true? We don't have experiences, we have conclusions. and without knowledge of the experiences that inform them, it's hard to judge their truth. There's also the issue of what "the midwest is unfriendly to non-white people" means; taken to either absolute is crazy: "any racism in the midwest means the midwest is racist", "any tolerance in the midwest means the midwest isn't racist". Clearly, the statement needs qualification to be useful, it's not a matter of "true or false" without clear thresholds.
- _qulr 6y agoThe "Midwest" is approximately 20% of the US population. Therefore, all generalizations about the Midwest are false stereotypes. The Midwest is large and varied.
- sarora27 6y ago> What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white). Grew up (Indian-American) in the midwest and can confirm this is true with a large majority of people there. If you don't look like them, they will be cordial to your face but then subtly make it very clear how they actually think about you.
- d33lio 6y agoEven between Austin and NYC I've noticed these differences. I'd still take the latent bible thumping in Austin over the insane political cliques of NYC though.
- sieabahlpark 6y ago> What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white). I think you're the racist here buddy.
- RickJWagner 6y ago"What you will find is that people are friendly, as long as you look like them (white)." I grew up in snow-white South Dakota. In my hometown of 15,000 I knew of only one African-American family. The father was the town mayor. I guess we had different experiences.