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I would suggest looking into transitioning from graphic design into "Front End Web Development", which in a nutshell is what they call translating visual designs into the actual website that people see and interact with. It is empowering to be able to build what you design. I'd start with learning HTML5, sass & css, javascript, php and ruby/rails. Smashing Magazine has some decent tutorials, also begin reading/subscribing to some newsletters like the responsive design newsletter. HTML and sass/css is pretty easy and isn't really coding, but they are "gateway drugs" into javascript/php and learning web frameworks. I would look into learning how to "theme" websites for CMS (content management systems) like Wordpress (beginner) and Drupal (tricky), and perhaps magento for ecommerce. Javascript, php and rails will be the hard part as it will require a completely different mental mindset from what you're used to working as a designer. There are tons of free tutorials online, but paid online classes are hit and miss, if Udemy is every having a $10 sale that's not bad for grabbing some cheap classes (be warned not all the classes are good but for $10 you can't go wrong when it comes to getting a general introduction to a topic). Lynda.com can be a bit general.

It will be challenging but don't give up. The hardest thing to deal with in being self-taught in programming is documentation, it's usually written in "developer-ese" rather than plain english making it difficult to learn from. It may seem like you will be copying/pasting code you don't fully understand at first, but it gets better over time as you understanding develops.

If you happen to be female, I'd recommend joining up with Women Who Code and look for WWC meetups in your area, they have members who mentor newer members.

The standard of living/quality of live for the poor in the USA is better than being poor in other countries. People on the dole often have nicer shoes and accessories than I do (talk about financial priorities out of whack, but I digress)! Depending on the situation you're better off on the dole than working a low-wage job. However, In other countries being poor means no welfare, no shoes, no plumbing, no food, and no Louis Vuitton purses.

Oh yes, it's a popular anthem and It's fine if you have no expectation of climbing the socioeconomic ladder. Before picking a major it's common sense to discover salary and job market information before committing to one, it's a no-brainer. This info is free, available from a variety of sources and easy to get: no excuses! Life isn't a feel-good circle jerk where people throw money your way simply out of one's desire to be happy, I'm sure the parents of college kids featured in the article are acutely aware of that, so is it stupidity or delusion that causes them to perpetuate the myth?

>Are you unable to recognize that your experiences may not be in line with everyone else's?

Oh I agree, most of the poor had MUCH more money through financial aid and easier circumstances than I.

>Again, you're an edge case. "I had it rough so clearly there isn't an issue with racial minorities getting through college." This is a really close-minded thought process.

No, I had it rougher than most. Though, I'm not an edge case- I'm fairly typical for those of my ethnic and financial demographic: poor single mom, ghetto neighborhood, and crappy adult guidance. Perfectly typical. Furthermore I'm not the only kid from my neighborhood to make it, before I moved I ran into lots of other kids from my junior high. 30% are now in STEM jobs, with 50% in much better socioeconomic condition form which they were born in to. The other 50% I've not run into since. There were some who slipped through the cracks, like one jerkface who's dream in life was to be a gang member, then dropped out and lived his dream until he got shot, and another who decided it was more financially viable to take over his brother's drug dealing post than take a full scholarship to Fordham. There's more but in short you can't save them all from themselves, especially the ones who make it a choice to be a loser. Everyone has options and financial aid does put poor minorities on equal footing with the middle class for higher education. If it were a middle class kid who screwed up their life despite being given these same chances to attend college but squandered it (by dropping our or picking a crummy major) we'd call him/her a "loser" or a "screw-up".

>My first thought would be "Why this guy complaining about how hard he has it and then going to an expensive, over priced school?"

That's a ridiculous notion on your part. Your first thought should have been: "If this poor person from the ghetto made it though the most difficult of all financial scenarios in higher education, what's excuse do poor ethnic minorities (who get more financial aid) have?"

>Nobody is saying you didn't work hard or make good choices. Nobody is saying ethnic minorities can avoid working hard or making good choices. The point is that simply working hard and making good choices is not enough (hence the whole point of this article).

Some are saying that working hard and making good choice don't matter, that is utterly false and wholly insulting to anyone who is self-made from humble roots. If you look at the article do you feel the parent who encouraged their kid to major in Theater was making a good choice? SERIOUSLY? Other than rehearsing the line "do you want fries with that" in preparation for a lifetime of failure, what good would that major do? That is a perfect example of stupid choices with dire consequences. I've seen lots of middle class college students make this kind of mistake as well. "Oh! I'm going to major in Medieval Instrumental Arts!"

I've known minorities who got more in free financial assistance in terms of loans and grants than the middle class white kids, and they had a much easier time affording college when it came down to funding due to the abundance of loans and grants for those who met the low-income and minority criteria. I got much less than the minorities because while being crap-poor from a single mother environment in the ghetto, I am not from what's considered an ethic minority. I do not buy the crap or the "poor me, poor me!" sob stories about how minorities are so disadvantaged when they had a HUGE advantage over me, and were better off than middle class kids when it came to college funding. Seen it, lived it, been there, done that. Oh and we're not talking community college or state university, we're talking the most difficult of all scenarios: a private university where your yearly tuition (just tuition) was just under 30k per year at the time, it is now over 36k.

While my family stressed the importance of education while growing up and the ghetto provided a great example of what I didn't want for my life, I didn't have familial support in steering me towards intelligent decisions- in fact I had numerous family members actively trying to sabotage my endeavors to go to college because they wanted me to start a family. I was 100% on my own in all respects, it sucked but hard work and smart decisions paid off for me.

I agree with you but the NYC tri-state area is a strange place and not a great example for the stratification effect. You're worse off in the NYC burbs in in many cases, one would think it would be the opposite but it's not. The amount of money it takes to break out of the middle class quality of life is more around 400k per year for the NYC tri-state area. In the burbs the houses are not nice or good for the price, they're overpriced and property taxes are outrageous- property taxes can actually be worse in the suburbs than they are for a Manhattan condo or coop. The commute is also a killer, while Metro North is somewhat reliable and on-time relative to other rail systems, the length of the commute is just brutal. At least while you're paying more per square foot in NYC you do get some convenience out of it, although this gets more complicated if you have kids. If you've got to worry about education for children, you MUST buy a coop/condo in a NYC district with good zoned schools, this isn't common and those district command the highest prices per square foot. If you can't afford those districts your looking at private school for the kids, and that runs 30-40k, somewhat less if you choose a Catholic school but still a huge chunk of your budget. Trust me, there are places you don't want your kids going to public school- and I'm not talking safety, this is in regards to the piss-poor quality of the education. You'd be better off home schooling in some places. The burbs do have better schools overall, but you're still stuck living a middle class lifestyle with a soul-sucking commute in the NYC burbs on 250k.

$250k in NYC and San Francisco does NOT offer an "upper-class" quality of life.

Tell me about it. $250k in Manhattan doesn't stretch very far.

Why do you think picking a major is a "next day" decision? High school students have years to think about it, furthermore high school guidance counselors have career and salary guidebooks available to anyone who walks through the door.

It pays off it you pick a major that trains you in a valuable skill, this is where the problem lies- far too many people are picking dumb majors, that's more the crux of the problem you illustrate: making bad decisions during a critical time of life (ex: majoring in Drama).

Yes, one also needs to be capable of making intelligent decisions for the future, majoring in Theater is not one of them (just an example).

I've also seen a lot of rich kids from college turn into poverty-stricken losers; character and work ethic have a lot to do with how well a student does regardless of their family's resources.

I went through far worse getting myself through college and yet I made it. Life isn't supposed to be easy.

I wonder who taught that person that it's sane or financially responsible to pick a major like that and harbor any expectation of getting out of poverty.

I like how the documentary investigated studies on nature vs. nurture. One thing I do admit is that it's very difficult to measure how much of it is genetics alone, since we can't raise kids in a lab isolated from the outside world to ensure 100% that there is no outside cultural or parental influence that may skew the results. That steps on some ethical toes as well. While it's gotten much better, there is still a great deal of culture, advertising, parenting, etc that can subconsciously influence gender roles. Although it looks as though you can only influence people so much, at innate genetic/biologic nature seems to want to resist.

I don't think there's an answer to it either, but to me it looks like while biology and genetics do have some sway, so does environment and culture- enough where the current gender percentages probably shouldn't be quite so divergent. We're still a society in transition, and it wasn't very long ago where women weren't allowed to have career opportunities at all, it will be interesting to see how the numbers change in another generation or two.