[quote=David J]
One of my interviews was with a department at UCSD for a job that my experience lined up with quite well. The interview went really well from my point of view… The technical questions were cake and there really didn’t seem to be any problems. At the end of the interview, the female Asian department head thanked me for coming, but said that my military background would cause problems because the staff is very liberal and conservatives would not fit in with the other employees. I was taken aback for a couple of reasons. First, I couldn’t believe she was admitting this, and second, I was, politically, very much a liberal! I didn’t see a point in arguing with her, so I left.[/quote]
I have to say that would p**s me off too.
On the flip side, there are employers out there who actually FAVOR veterans, and many of them like veterans with math skills.
And I know quite a few liberals in the military – I have no idea where this concept comes from that, if you’re in the military, you’re far right. Not true at all.
A couple years back, my son was looking for a dog. We quickly found out that the only dogs at the shelters were chihuahuas and pit bulls, neither of which my son wanted. “Animal Rescues” now suck up any other type of dog in the shelters and even import dogs from other countries to find homes for.
We determined the type of breed that my son liked, so the “Animal Rescue” for that breed in SD sent a woman over to interview us to see if we would make a good home. that I have to pass an interview to get a pet really irritates me – shoot I don’t have to pass an interview to bring a child into the world!!! And if these pets needed rescue and I’m offering to take one, well WTF. It’s a nice little mafia they have going there.
In any case, she sat on the couch and began interviewing us. yes we’ve had pets before. yes, they lived a long life. yes, we took them to the vet for their shots…shoot we spent thousands on surgeries for them. Then she asked what my son did. I said at that time he worked for a well known company that supports the defense industry. Her attitude immediately changed and she made a snide comment about war. I couldn’t believe it! He had a great paying job and she was sitting there judging us on the industry my son worked for!
I bit my tongue and didn’t say anything else. My family can read me like a book and they were well aware that if it would have been anyone else I would have asked them to leave. But for my son’s sake, I didn’t.
We found another “Animal Rescue” mafia in LA and took in a dog from them. That dog is treated like royalty in my home.
And back to the topic: I don’t really think that California in general is terrible at teaching math. I can tell you that my grandsons do math problems in their head when we travel places in the car. They are about at the same level I was at when I was their age, not noticeably behind and not noticeably ahead. But they love math and it gives us something to do while driving. It’s fun!
And San Marcos has a strong STEAM (Science Tech Engineering Art Math – not sure how art wiggled its way in there) program as does PUSD I believe.
Working with them and visiting their school, I can tell you I feel good about the state of our school system.
But…I do get this very odd mommy clique feeling when I stand there waiting to pick them up after school. I guess I should get over it, just a few more years and they’ll be asking me to park blocks away so they can act like they were hatched from an egg.
David, I enrolled in community college full time when I was 15 and it was a good experience. Over the years I have met quite a few other people who have done this and they too appreciated the faster and less rigid college experience a few years early.
