:( I also had a bit of a culture shock when I started working, after being young and naive and assuming people interested in tech were progressive, and going to a public university for CS surrounded by other liberals.
See i didn’t have that experience. I come from a long line of electrical engineers, and went to a Catholic private university.
The EEs, save for my mother, are ultraconservative. So I knew what to expect. I went for computer engineering, so my first job out of college was in a contract design services company that was mostly old white men.
When I got into my current career, which became entirely software focused, I was surprised to see such an array of conservatives, but found many more progressives than previously.
What I have observed in my 12 years of career is that the conservative individuals are very rigid black and white thinkers. In fact, when my cousin was diagnosed with autism, my uncle remarked that it was pretty weird that every engineer he met seems to fall into that diagnosis. There was already a quiet joke in the family that what they now call Autism was what they called engineers in the 60s-80s.
That’s not to say autistic individuals are more likely to be conservative - but almost every conservative engineer I know falls right into this description. Interestingly, I know that ASD also has a large crossover with the LGBTQ+ community. It would make sense to me then, that this “programming socks” meme started.
It all seems to be based around who can accept change and who cannot. This, to me, explains why there are far more progressive programmers than conservative, and the opposite is true for other engineering fields.
:( I also had a bit of a culture shock when I started working, after being young and naive and assuming people interested in tech were progressive, and going to a public university for CS surrounded by other liberals.
See i didn’t have that experience. I come from a long line of electrical engineers, and went to a Catholic private university.
The EEs, save for my mother, are ultraconservative. So I knew what to expect. I went for computer engineering, so my first job out of college was in a contract design services company that was mostly old white men.
When I got into my current career, which became entirely software focused, I was surprised to see such an array of conservatives, but found many more progressives than previously.
What I have observed in my 12 years of career is that the conservative individuals are very rigid black and white thinkers. In fact, when my cousin was diagnosed with autism, my uncle remarked that it was pretty weird that every engineer he met seems to fall into that diagnosis. There was already a quiet joke in the family that what they now call Autism was what they called engineers in the 60s-80s.
That’s not to say autistic individuals are more likely to be conservative - but almost every conservative engineer I know falls right into this description. Interestingly, I know that ASD also has a large crossover with the LGBTQ+ community. It would make sense to me then, that this “programming socks” meme started.
It all seems to be based around who can accept change and who cannot. This, to me, explains why there are far more progressive programmers than conservative, and the opposite is true for other engineering fields.
that’s very interesting, thank you for sharing!