Barbie the Computer Engineer [WTF]

max — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 02:09:45 +0000

As a computer engineer, I find it kinda hilarious that designers would think of making Barbie the computer engineer too stereotypically nerdy.

According to Wired:

Barbie designers say they worked with the Society of Women Engineers and the National Academy of Engineering to ensure that accessories, clothing and packaging were “realistic and representative of a real computer engineer.”

I can hardly agree because even though I am a computer engineer, I don’t try to make myself like a typical nerd.

Probably because I wasn’t one of those typical computer engineers, I used to skateboard to all my college classes and did everything that “cool” people would do. In fact, I thought I was one of the coolest people on campus because I did things “differently”. (or at least I thought so) Even me blogging right now happened because I just hated being a typical engineer in your typical corporate slavery-dom.

Well, just saying, you don’t need to make dolls look like that to make stupid stereotypes.

My thoughts to Barbie designers, lose the glasses and the geeky laptop bag. I know for a fact that geeky girls can actually be very stylish, perhaps more stylish than your average woman because they are more “intelligent”.

I wish they made “cool” Barbie computer engineers.

What d’ya think, am I going overboard?

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Barbie the Computer Engineer [WTF]

Job Hack – How to Get a Job Overseas!

max — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 18:48:55 +0000

(Image Credit)

Although this blog isn’t about how to get a job, I will try to enlighten those people who just got out of college looking for jobs.

If you read my free E-book, you will know how I got this “job”, but let me summarize what I did to get a job in a bad economy few years ago.

I graduated from UC Davis with a degree in Computer Engineering. With high hopes that I will be able to get a job right away, (and the fact that Computer Engineers had one of the highest average salaries at the time) I started submitting my resume to many companies. At one point, I had submitted to about 5,000 tech companies in Silicon Valley.

Well, in short, I couldn’t get an engineering job ANYWHERE as most of the jobs either required 2-3 years of experience OR those start-up jobs were too competitive. Besides that, my legal name is pretty non-english, helping those HR people to prejudice against my name. (Yes, that still exists today.)

Although I could speak perfect English, if you looked at my legal name, you think twice. (Jung Lee)

I did eventually end up with a weird job in the bedding industry through a referral of a friend. And to make matters worse, I hated the job and quit only after couple months.

So, what did I do?

I started looking elsewhere. Since I can speak/write fluent Korean, I figured I’d try to get a job in Korea as an engineer. Well, after submitting just about 100 resumes to Korean companies who were looking for an English/Korean speaking engineer, I had about 20-30 job offers from various companies.

Then it hit me, “Ah ha, you need to GO somewhere there’s a job. You need to go FIND that job, job doesn’t find you.”

That company I worked for was called, “Comfile Technology Inc.“ I was hired to train in Korea for 1 year on their products, then come back to America to make USA headquarters for Comfile.

Well, the byproduct of my Comfile guerilla marketing work is this blog you see today. I don’t know how I got here, I just know it took all those weird steps of flying half-way around the world and bringing the job back with me.

The funny thing is, I get job offers nowdays all the time, the phone doesn’t stop ringing almost like credit collection agencies. Here’s my typical line, “Oh, I am sorry but I cannot work for you as I have promised myself to never ever get a job again.”

Did I feel angry against the U.S. government when I couldn’t find a job right out of college? You betcha, hell yes. But at least I can stick it to the man now.

Even if you don’t speak another language, there’s thousands of big U.S. companies who have overseas offices and they actually need English-speaking people working there too with great pay and benefits. They will even pay for your flight, rent, and any funds required for relocation. (You just gotta “look” for the jobs.)

That’s right, if you just lost your job or can’t find a job around where you live, just go find another “place” in the world that needs you.

In short, you need to find a job that’s high in demand, low in supply. In America, this is a BIG problem for everyone who graduates from college, as there’s NO JOBS! It’s been like that couple years ago and will get worse and worse as most of start-up jobs are gone overseas. (Now, I took advantage by going overseas, you can too.)

Think out of the box. The box is America. You need to get out of America to think correctly. Once you can think out of the box, you will still be able to when you get back in the box.

Think of it this way, you and your friend both graduated with degree in Computer Engineering. Now, what makes one of you better than the other apart from grades?

NOTHING, to the employers today, you are the same whether you finished Top 5 in your class or 5th from last. Basically, no one has advantage over the other because both studied the same bs.

Even if you did some internship work, that’s not gonna help you that much than if you could show the employer, you got some extra skills such as “I can speak French/German fluently” and the job requires a lot of dealing with French and German people.

Of course, if you don’t want a job at all, you can always start an internet blogging business.

I will add one more note that I am lucky to be where I am. If I didn’t go to Korea that year, I will probably be working at the Mall, McDonalds, or somewhere miserably like a lot of college graduates who DON’T get a job for years and end up nothing better than non-college graduates. Think about how many people you know who went to college and still works at a restaurant. (Darn, I know way too many people like that, so let’s vote for change, no more Bush and Republican followers in the House.)

Linsay Pollack has some good advice on finding good jobs in this bad economy, so check that out too.

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Job Hack – How to Get a Job Overseas!

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Barbie the Computer Engineer [WTF]

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