Barbies and Kens

Back in college days, my first physics lab partner was a smart guy and has an interesting character. I'll call him Mr. H. At the time I met him, he already had an Associate Degree in Electrical Engineering from Hong Kong and worked in HK for a few years, which, to a simple college girl who was still trying to wrap her head around science and her own future, was a big deal. He went to university after migrating to San Francisco so that he could earn a BS degree in EE to get a better job.

Mr. H was honest and he spoke bluntly. I find it easy to be around people like this as it is easy to understand what's in their minds, and I can trust them. At that time I was still a pre-med student, but it was getting difficult for me to enroll in pre-med classes, because of the high demand, so I was contemplating to switch to EE or Computer Science (CS) major. Yeah, I had to pick one of the most difficult majors to study just for the sake of it. It turned out to be both good and bad depending on different perspectives.

One time Mr. H and I had lunch together, and we were talking about my major. He said something like this: "Well, people like us, not beautiful to be movie stars, we can't make money with our looks, so we have to work hard in school to get an engineering degree and have a chance to get a technical job to make a living." I thought to myself, "Well, thank you for your honesty Mr. H,"and quietly accepted his advice.

These days when I watch CNN, I look at the anchors and news reporters, Barbies and Kens, I call them. You can't get a job at a major news network and be on TV if you are not good looking. I think about fairness, but then I know that the universe eventually will balance things out one way or another.