Silent Technical Privilege

Philip Guo:

As an Asian male student at MIT, I fit society's image of a young programmer. Thus, throughout college, nobody ever said to me:

"Well, you only got into MIT because you're an Asian boy."

(while struggling with a problem set) "Well, not everyone is cut out for Computer Science; have you considered majoring in bio?"

(after being assigned to a class project team) "How about you just design the graphics while we handle the backend? It'll be easier for everyone that way."
"Are you sure you know how to do this?"

Although I started off as a complete novice (like everyone once was), I never faced any micro-inequities to impede my intellectual growth. Throughout college and grad school, I gradually learned more and more via classes, research, and internships, incrementally taking on harder and harder projects, and getting better and better at programming while falling deeper and deeper in love with it. Instead of doing my ten years of deliberate practice from ages 8 to 18, I did mine from ages 18 to 28. And nobody ever got in the way of my learning - not even inadvertently - because I looked like the sort of person who would be good at such things.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at January 14, 2014 12:10 AM
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