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She Came to the US to Study with Only $300 – Now She’s a NASA Director
- usr1987 6y ago... but systemic racism...
- konjin 6y agohttps://www.federalpay.org/employees/headquarters-nasa https://www.federalpay.org/employees/headquarters-nasa That's a painful looking salary range.
- mc32 6y agoMaybe the Feds can tax Mega Tech more and grow NASA's budget accordingly.
- minhazm 6y agoNASA's budget isn't the reason they don't pay more. They're just not allowed to because of federal pay scales. People generally don't like the idea of their tax money funding cushy salaries. If you look at the defense industry the contractors can pay way above the federal pay scales. That's why people with security clearances often just move to a contractor and they literally end up on the same project doing the same work but get paid double what they were while working directly for the government.
- thebradbain 6y agoIf a majority of those salaries are in Florida or Houston, I'd say that's a generous salary range, plus they're eligible for a pension (of course, I still think NASA should be funded more to compete for top talent and resources) The problem isn't that NASA tops out salary in low-cost cities barely above entry/mid-sw engineer salary levels in SV, it's that entry/junior engineer salary levels are the "minimum" amount to live comfortably + save in those high cost cities in the first place. I don't think many would mind a pay cut (and the subsequent tax cut) if their rent + cost of living was cut accordingly. (E.G. $150k in Houston, TX is equivalent to $312k in SF: https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare/houston-tx-vs-san-francisco-ca https://www.nerdwallet.com/cost-of-living-calculator/compare...)
- konjin 6y agoI don't get how people can think like this. I buy a SF house and start paying the SF mortgage with my SF salary, I spend the next 10 years living there with a cost of living that's around 40% higher than Texas. At the end of it I sell at SF market rates and move to Texas. I now have an extra $1.24m even if prices didn't increase by a cent.
- mpmpmpmp 6y agoIt’s easy. I don’t want to live in San Francisco for 10 years to have an extra $1.24m. Most of my family would not be “just a plane flight away” where as right now I make good money and it’s a 3 hr car ride to see them. Those things mean something to me that money won’t replace. The cost of living being nice here just means I can also do all the things I want to do easier with less money.
- thebradbain 6y agoSure, but you're anticipating CA housing prices keep rising or the very least don't crater and that Texas real estate prices don't continue skyrocketing (in the past 5 years, the average 3bd/2ba home in Dallas has doubled from 200k to 400k. As all major cities in Texas are among the top fastest growing in the US each year, it looks like there's a good 5-10 years of 10%+ property value growth, at minimum). Like almost all arbitrage opportunities, the spread will eventually be narrowed as more and more people take advantage of it. Furthermore, your 1.24m figure is over-inflated, as CA has high state/local sales/income taxes. And don't forget San Franciso transfer taxes on real estate (around $50k-100k due at close)! Texas has no state or local income taxes, aside from property taxes. Not to mention that if you have kids, you don't really have the luxury of waiting that long. You can put them into a better school district for cheaper, or you can even send your kid to top-tier well-known private schools for $25k/year rather than $60k/year. Even in-state college tuition at UT, a nationally renowned public university on par with UCLA and UC Berkeley, is only $5k/year, versus near $20k in CA. I live in Los Angeles now, but I grew up in Dallas. Obviously I'm choosing to stay in California for a reason, but I'm not ignorant as to why someone would move from CA to TX.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- avs733 6y agoThat perspective fails to consider some things like really good healthcare and a pension. The perks don’t look like tech but they are really really good
- bpodgursky 6y agoPensions are deeply under-appreciated when comparing government to private jobs.
- avs733 6y agoIndeed. I have a pension through a state job with a pension and my partner has a federal government job with a pension. It makes retirement planning much easier and it allows us to be much more financially aggressive in our 30s. Also good health insurance, paid parental leave (in the US!), job security, a known and transparent progression path...honesty I’ll take lower uncertainty for slightly lower pay because it saves me money over time.
- konjin 6y agoI've had better health care on private plans and promises of pensions in 30 years are worth less than startup stock options. Which is really saying something when I consider stock options from startups to be worthless.
- cambalache 6y agoI am a latino and I really like Colombians, but this is a pathetic piece of pandering. At her personal level it is a nice story of course, but there are hundreds of thousands of cases like that. So she lived in Colombia, in what it was more probably than not a middle-class family (money to study in a exclusive and rare HS offering the IB and money to be sent to the US to live with family).She worked while getting a title at a community college (wow, unheard of) later got her BS, made her career at NASA and now she is a middle manager there.And that is now supposed to be some sort of incredible accomplishment for a "latina" woman. Talk about condescension, and setting the bar low.This is like the 6th different article I have seen about her in the last 2 weeks,so either some people is using her to "celebrate diversity" or she has a PR working efficiently to prop-up a future endeavor.
- systemvoltage 6y agoLet's put all the D&I bullshit aside. Someone, immigrating from a country, with so little money, working hard, going through the process of building rapport, reputation and delivering results, to attain a title of Director, taking up new responsibilities is inspiring to me. Really, it feels great in the heart. NASA PR is one thing - they gotta do what they gotta do, but if you see past all that, its nice to hear the story of someone from Columbia, perhaps going back home and telling their families that they work for NASA. Can you imagine the pride their loved ones feel? I feel your frustration with the publicity, PR machine, etc though.
- wernercd 6y agoPride is fine... pandering and focusing on everything that divides us isn't.
- Swizec 6y ago> Can you imagine the pride their loved ones feel? As a fellow immigrant, they do! Unfortunately it can also come with a lot of sour grapes. “Heck yeah you’re going to USA!!” from your friends soon changes to “Bah USA, I bet it sucks anyway”
- melling 6y ago
- BeetleB 6y agoThe obvious question I have: How did she handle the visa situation? I know lots of people do it, but doing housekeeping jobs while on a visa is technically illegal, and they really started cracking down on it after Sep 11.
- ardit33 6y agoDACA? F1 to OPT, to H1B to Green Card? Marriage (real, or not)? Those are a common paths.... Her house cleaning job might have been something under the table. Either way, kudos to her. Dealing with immigration over time is a true burden/hassle. People that jump all those hoops tend to be extra motivated.
- gene91 6y agoAnd this news article is enough to put her in stressful years-long proceedings to revoke her green card and citizenship, if the government wants to.
- mcny 6y agoThis isn't so hypothetical to me anymore. The position of the US government is it can revoke citizenship based on failing to disclose a speeding ticket. This is an extremely dangerous position. > They asked about a form that people seeking American citizenship must complete. It requires applicants to say, for instance, whether they had ever committed a criminal offense, however minor, even if there was no arrest. A government lawyer, in response to questioning, said that failing to disclose a speeding violation could be enough to revoke citizenship even years later. The Supreme Court rejected the arguments: > The justices unanimously rejected the government’s position that it could revoke the citizenship of Americans who made even trivial misstatements in their naturalization proceedings. However, it isn't immediately obvious at least to me that the SCOTUS can't revisit this issue in the future. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/politics/supreme-court-citizenship.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/politics/supreme-court... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/supreme-court-naturalization.html?_r=0 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/supreme-court... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslenjak_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslenjak_v._United_States
- controlweather 6y agoStupid AF
- shard972 6y agoPride is fine, as long as you aren't white.
- kaitai 6y agoThis is total whining. I'm proud of my white father who came to the US with not so much education, worked four jobs, and put all his kids through college. Don't fall for this victimhood mentality of "I'm white so I have so many problems boohooo". That's divisive. Props to Trujillo. She worked hard, did a bunch of cool stuff, and at this moment also has the communication skills to do a bunch of science outreach. My daughter & I watched the NASA broadcast in Spanish (first one!) and the kid actually learned something about what this rover plans to do. Great way to spend an evening. Good message. Better than Paw Patrol. Of all the crappy things in the world... I'll take a feel-good science story any day.
- dang 6y ago"Don't feed egregious comments by replying; flag them instead." a.k.a. please don't feed the trolls https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- p1necone 6y agoBeing proud of being Scottish, or Norwegian, or Irish or whatever is great. Nothing wrong with being proud of your roots. But being proud of having white skin specifically without any other context is... odd. Conversely black people in America do have a common cultural context binding them regardless of what specific culture their forebearers were originally taken from - they all came from ancestors in slavery, they all share a common cultural understanding of being in America because of this. This is why black pride (and Colombian pride) is okay, and white pride is not.
- vimy 6y agoPersonally I think it’s a dumb thing to be proud of. But saying a group of people can’t do something because of their skin color is the definition of racism. These double standards have to stop if we want healthy race relations.
- redis_mlc 6y agoFYI: when I talk to wealthy, young South American legal immigrants to the US, we generally talk about which jet airplane they're planning to have their father buy them. Just saying.
- 2pointsomone 6y agoHey this is the exact story of every Indian father who came to the cities! Except this one is probably for real.
- mssundaram 6y agoEr, can you explain what you're meaning?
- oh_sigh 6y agoI think OP is saying that Indian fathers will dress up their poverty in order to appear more virtuous than they actually are. Like grandpa who walked uphill to school both ways. I don't really agree with this racist aggrandizement of lived experiences, but I think that is what OP was getting at.
- 2pointsomone 6y agoYep, exactly what I was getting at. It is a way common running joke. I should've realized HN is not the right place for such humor.
- oh_sigh 6y agoYou must be a woman with a sense of humor like that. Am I doing it right?
- pdevr 6y ago1. The most important point is, this is indeed an inspirational success story to many people. While discussing the rest of the points, let us not overlook that. Kudos to her. 2. For those asking how she was able to work, while being here: A student can work part-time under OPT program. The catch is, your work needs to be somehow related to the course. 3. Most immigrants I know came to this country with a few dollars. So that is not that rare. However, when an immigrant succeeds, there will be press releases and news stories about that. It is not unique to her case. In some cases, it may be them promoting themselves. In most cases, it is the media running away with an inspiring story (if it is not sufficiently inspiring, don't worry - they will make it so). 4. It is better to see these kind of stories (albeit slightly hyped, dressed up) than those spreading gloom and doom.
- f430 6y agoaffirmative action at work
- Yabood 6y agoHm... Maybe I should get my story published someday too. Born and raised in Baghdad. Lived through three major wars and participated in the last one as a translator for the US army. Built Baghdad's first correctional service access database, which ended up being used at three prisons including Abu Ghraib. Spent over a year living as a refugee between Syria and Jordan before getting admitted to the US. Started with 20K of debt and.. who am I kidding.. No one gives a shit.
- oh_sigh 6y agoI was actually really interested. I'd definitely read your biography.
- Yabood 6y agoThank you! Well, the rest of the story is pretty vanilla. When I got to the US, my best friend managed to get me an unpaid internship that later converted to a full-time job. The first year or so was tough, but I had good friends and good mentors who helped me move up the corporate ladder. I'm currently working on my own startup like most people here.
- spoonjim 6y agoYeah, getting people interested in the person who writes infrastructure software for torture sites is going to be harder than getting them interested in someone who shoots robots onto Mars.
- refurb 6y agoSuper judgey. Would love to see the choices you’d make. Well done.
- Yabood 6y agoYour comment makes it sound like prisons are nothing but torture sites, and that couldn't be farther from the truth. The database was necessary to establish a reliable paper trail and prevent corruption, which was widespread.
- smoll 6y agoThere’s a character on For All Mankind (the tv show) who sounds like she could be based on her. I wonder if that character was based on her or if there are others at NASA who came from a similar sort of background.
- ARandomerDude 6y agoI'm sure she's a smart, capable woman. But it doesn't take much imagination with articles like this that in a government bureaucracy she's advancing in part because she's a woman from South America, not in spite of that fact. If we really cared about minorities and believed they were equal (which we should) we wouldn't write articles about career success as though it was completely unexpected. If I were her I'd be insulted.
- dublidu 6y agoPeople like you are why it’s still hard to get ahead as a women. Imagine in every meeting, people assume you’re less qualified for the job before you even start talking.
- ARandomerDude 6y agoI literally just said the opposite of that.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tastyfreeze 6y agoNo, you said she only got anywhere because she was a woman from South America not because of hard work and skill.
- selfishgene 6y agoUnfortunately with actual real-world policies like affirmative action that implement reverse racism and sexism in corporations and universities throughout the United States, often the people at these meetings *are less qualified* than ones who did not get hired under same policies. Human brains are Bayesian filters. Affirmative action policies will understandably influence the prior even among individuals who believe in diversity and inclusion. When she "starts talking," a fair-minded individual will develop a posterior that appropriately updates any suspicions that were previously held.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- whoisjuan 6y agoWhy are people so fucking sour here? I critique shit all the time. Just look at my comment history. But is this really something to be critical of? A lot of people trying to poke holes, when this piece is not even meant for the HN type/crowd. The name of the website is Good News Network. Just feel good about it or don't.... Why wasting so much energy in trying to shit on a feel-good article? I really don't understand HN sometimes.
- Rapzid 6y agoI know right? "Good News Network"... If you don't want fluff pieces pandering to an audience looking for GOOD NEWS then I don't know what to say. Certainly going to roll my eyes if you are using these articles as a vehicle to drive hot takes across enemy lines in your own personal war against pop-culture.
- what_ever 6y agoHN is more about being argumentative for the sake of it than actually needed. May be more and more people feed on trying to prove others' wrong than proving themselves right. As one of my previous comments said, "HN is not full of smart people, HN is full of people who think they are smart." And I may very well belong to the second category but I don't comment on every issue at least.
- pm90 6y agoThere probably are other factors at play here. But the whole framing of dirt poor immigrants coming to the US, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps and achieving success seems like a patronizing trope at this point, used by the elites (most of whom had far less interesting stories, mostly through being born in wealthy/upper middle class families) as a goal for everyone who may be struggling financially in the US. The reality is that most immigrants are just like other humans; they're not "work machines" and their successes should be lauded but not used as something that everyone should necessarily aspire for.
- imtringued 6y agoThere was a submission about people wanting to help a cause and that the vast majority of people will merely do symbolic work that shows that you are working on the problem but not actually doing much to solve the real problem. Common examples are unconventional water sources in remote places when the real solution is to just give them the same thing the "rich people" are having, namely access to tap water. It's basically a sort of hero complex. Poverty tourism also falls into this trap. People go to some poor slum or village, help out for a week and then leave. It looks good on social media but you accomplished nothing. This article is the exact opposite. Poor person gets the same treatment as all the other rich people and unsurprisingly stops being poor.
- vatican_banker 6y agoSmart and driven people is gonna build/create good sh*t regardless of gender or where they were born or any other cultural/societal factor.
- justtryingasay 6y agoHonestly, I read an article about how Microsoft hacked the student visa program to avoid hiring Americans recently: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-opinion-optional-practical-training-problems-stem-graduates-deserve-better-jobs-opportunities/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-opinion-optional-pra... Reading about how foreign workers get imported who have no money then somehow end up in high value position now makes me deeply curious about why those roles at United States government agencies can’t be filled by local workforce? I am actually completely skeptical that there is an engineering shortage in America and stories like this make me wonder why this back door pipeline is needed? And why am I supposed to celebrate this?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- the_resistence 6y agoThank you for your service and commitment. The best the US has to offer--decent, hard working people + the environment to thrive.
- moralsupply 6y agoNot dismissing her accomplishments or anything, but to keep things in perspective, do understand that NASA is a government organization, and the incentives for vertical growth within government organizations are quite perverse, as they are not meritocratic and mostly related with politics.