He finished in two years. This is a good lesson for kids from poor backgrounds: go to your local state school and knock it out of the park. It will be very easy for a bright kid, and all the really brilliant kids have headed off to the Ivy and private schools. If you go directly to an elite schools you will be competing with students who have attended elite private school (50% of students at Ivy went to private school, yet 10% of students nationwide attend private), and the Stuy, TJ, etc college level courses at elite public high schools. I’m sure his high school experience was probably the equivalent to a good FCPS middle school. |
Vance could have looked like Elmer Fudd and ended up with her because they were setup by Chua as a power couple. |
Vance is at least an average looking clean-cut guy which is good enough, I would say he's actually pretty smart (and sometimes comes across as seekingly intellectual), he was in the military, and he managed to make something out of himself. All big positives compared to wrinkly geriatric born-rich guys of various flavors. The bar is low. I would say that Vance probably has excellent social skills. Most prominent politicians do, even if you don't like them or their ideas at all. It's certainly not all Amy Chua's doing. In fact, she and her husband got kind of cancelled at Yale recently due to personal scandals. I think Donald Trump recognized Vance as a young "comer". Maybe he miscalculated about the political benefits, but Donald Trump is also good at reading people. Even though I would never vote for Trump, I felt better when Vance got put on the ticket. Because he reads and thinks and I feel like he could read a CIA briefing and not turn around and share it with a golf buddy over cocktails. Trump told last go-around's VP candidates that they could run everything behind the scenes. What nervy young man wouldn't sign up to be defacto POTUS? |
So the career guidance I need to work on social skills and building mentor relationships. |
You're kind of a dumbass yourself, PP, because manufacturing and tech are intertwined. And there are huge national security implications. Reshoring is an active process right now. |
Geographic diversity. DEI/AA |
Yes. How old are you (decade-wise)? The older I get, the more I see the impacts of personal relationships on careers. Vance makes no secret of the fact that his wife trained him in etiquette/social niceties. As a woman, I can say that it's a very profound experience to help someone close to you develop and succeed. This instinct often expresses in the form of mothering but can also be something found in a young couple's relationship. It doesn't always work out well in marriages but can be very bonding. Vance may also give off confidence. That's a winning trait. However, my guess is that it is his intellectual side and his appreciation that won him the wife that he has. He was much more of a nobody when she met him. So...TL; DR for you...do you show appropriate, engaging confidence? And do you have a bright partner who teaches you things, fosters your success, and is wise counsel for your ambitions? |
This is a bit of a cynical take. A grain of truth. If you put it as, "a guy with billions met a bright guy with a good story who had national political potential" it sounds a lot less weird. Obama kind of ran this same play. He sold his book about his combo underprivileged/privileged early years before he became a Senator. Obama's a better orator, but his very interesting life story is a lot less relatable to everyday voters. He also didn't have money or a present father, growing up. But he grew up in Hawaii, Indonesia, etc. And his dad wasn't American, etc. Not as relatable to Joe Average. |
Hmm, interesting take. I guess my mis step was marrying someone with my same background — we are both strivers from poor families and ended up as govt scientists. Neither of us knew how to navigate these social waters; we hoped to advance from hard work and smarts, but clearly the wrong kind of smarts. |
This is fairly ironic. |
I'm sure that helps at the margina but I bet his stats were pretty good. Yale isn't letting in morons. |
Hey Stupid, you know what else is always intertwined? FANG engineer parents & domestic household workers. Guess what, only one of them is making $400,000 per year. Manufacturing does have HUGE national security implications. But no country is going to get rich through factories anymore and no person is going to get rich working in a factory either. But go ahead and encourage your child to skip college and look for a job on an assembly line. (My children have enough competition from Asia already.) |
Manufacturing doesn't necessarily require human workers. And the production of manufactured items requires technology. For example, Russia's entire war machine relies on imported US and Westerm European technology at critical points (machining equipment and software that runs it). I hope we never go to war with China. I don't think it's highly likely. But if you look at what happened just regarding masks and ventilators during Covid, you'd hopefully be a bit more humble. Oldco manufacturing companies had to clean that mess up. Not Facebook product managers or Apple iPhone designers. |
Science and politics are very different arenas of career advancement. What kind of getting ahead would you like to do? Here are some options: -Rise in management ranks -Get research published -Work somewhere elite -Get grants/funding -Win awards -Better employer/better pay You probably are missing out on some networking or mentoring. But there are different solutions for different issues. |
Strivers here too haha. It’s possible to achieve the technical competency to have a stable career thru hard work. But emotional awareness and social skills are mostly a trait you are born with. |