[quote=deadzone]Regarding my point that Ivy league is irrelevant for a tech career, I just checked the Bios of the Officers at Viasat and just like Qualcomm, not a single one attended an Ivy school at any point. Also interestingly, the CFO has a BS degree from SDSU (no masters or mba), a school that most of the “elitist” folks on this board don’t seem to hold a very high regard for.[/quote]
For every company you can find without any sort of ivy league or degreed people running the company, you can find plenty of them that are run from ivy league degreed people. What does that mean in terms of ivy league or non ivy league? I don’t know. Maybe San Diego isn’t the best place to be if you’re a techie, because most of the innovation happens elsewhere? Maybe San Diego is just a small town when it comes to tech, and if you’re serious about wanting to get ahead, go somewhere else first where it can open your eyes to things you haven’t seen or will see here?
I think often times I hear that techies in san diego complain that the community is so small, there aren’t many startups, aren’t many different choices in employers, it’s not competitive here for engineer comp packages,etc. And that’s probably true. You ever wonder why? I mean, locally, we probably are graduating a lot of STEM degreed kids that are equally capable. Why is the local tech market still, as some of you say, “suck”? Why, in San Diego, is your only talked about big tech company success story still Qualcomm only?
Talk to one of their partners about your ideas. Then you can probably get a better feel for what matters or doesn’t matter, what degree from where matters doesn’t matter, what experience matters or doesn’t matter, what is for show or doesn’t matter, and about just about every other intricate detail that matters or doesn’t matter. It might open your eyes to a completely different world, once you look beyond being an employee for a company in San Diego(which I can see your point to an extent for many “jobs” out there, that it doesn’t matter as an employee, no matter how well paid that employee is)
In my more youthful days, been there, done that, and failed miserably at it, and that’s why I’m an employee now. 🙁 Good luck to the ones that are trying everyday. Hope it works out for others. It’s cool to see people who actually make it. There are probably a lot more easier/better ways to make more money doing other things than going this sort of roundabout way trying to do tech. But for me, personally, it’s hard for me to do things that I don’t enjoy doing even it can be more financially lucrative.
My viewpoint kinda differs from people. And it’s probably hard to explain. I don’t disagree that all these for things actually help keep the status quo on the 1% and what fancy titles and details might give you a slightly edge up to those aspiring to be.. It’s just that as an individual that isn’t already there, a lot of these things have to come together for them to all work out, and some of this stuff isn’t even within your control. For me, things didn’t work the way I had hoped. And life is full of disappointments, when that effort comes crashing down, because you just realize you wasted years of your life and that it didn’t produce anything… But for others, with the right personality, luck, experience, attitude, and motivation, etc, it could be a completely different story. I guess, it boils down to how tolerant are individuals to disappointments and setbacks along the way, versus being just “content” to doing the easier, less disappointing path. For the longest time, I thought I had a pretty high tolerance of adversity, setbacks, and disappointments. It took awhile to realize that my tolerance for it is lower than a lot of people. One colleague I asked how he managed to succeed, and he laughed and said he just learned how to fail fast and kept failing fast until something finally stuck, getting drunk all along the process.
Personally, I don’t know what’s worse. Not knowing what’s out there, or knowing what’s out there and realizing it wasn’t obtainable for you. It’s like being given the keys to a Ferrari, even getting lap time in it for a few hours, and at the end of the day, being told you have to return the keys and here’s your POS miata. And no matter how much money you put into the POS miata, at the end of the day, it’s still a POS miata. Lol…That’s one of the reasons I’ve never stepped foot in an auto show so far..ever… What is the point of seeing, touching, experiencing things temporarily, that most likely you know will not be unobtainable during your lifetime? Ignorance can be bliss! It’s worked for me so far. I’ll take the blue pill please. Someone else can eat the red pill.
