African-American male Pre-Meds

[ImhotepIII]

Hey all,

I recently have been doing some outreach mentoring at local high schools in the San Francisco area, its a joint program with UCSF to get more "minorities" interested in science at a younger age. In our efforts, we usually go around to specific high schools and put on lab demonstrations. For instance, we brought in actual human organs and anatomical models for the students to mess around with, spark interest and to ask questions. With out the slightest doubt, the first students who walked into the demonstration were asian, white, a few latinos and no black students of course. At that point, I was really concerned because I'm a young black premed student, and I naturally wanted to see more young intelligent black students come in. So I took it upon myself to go recruit students I seen wandering the halls or hanging out. The few black students I did ask, looked at me like what the "hell am I talking about", but I found it interesting that black female students were sincerely more inclined then the male students. I just want to find out what is the reason why black girls are more inclined to do science then black men? The evidence is very overwhelming.

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[The Beyonder]

Hey all,

I recently have been doing some outreach mentoring at local high schools in the San Francisco area, its a joint program with UCSF to get more "minorities" interested in science at a younger age. In our efforts, we usually go around to specific high schools and put on lab demonstrations. For instance, we brought in actual human organs and anatomical models for the students to mess around with, spark interest and to ask questions. With out the slightest doubt, the first students who walked into the demonstration were asian, white, a few latinos and no black students of course. At that point, I was really concerned because I'm a young black premed student, and I naturally wanted to see more young intelligent black students come in. So I took it upon myself to go recruit students I seen wandering the halls or hanging out. The few black students I did ask, looked at me like what the "hell am I talking about", but I found it interesting that black female students were sincerely more inclined then the male students. I just want to find out what is the reason why black girls are more inclined to do science then black men? The evidence is very overwhelming.

AA women grow up having many models to pattern themselves after and many of these women have college degrees. There are few black men demonstrating success that comes from mastering STEM. Nationally 25% more women graduate from college then man (1). We see an exacerbation of this behavior in our community.

(1) http://cnsnews.com/sites/default/files/documents/DEGREES EARNED BY LEVEL AND SEX.pdf

 

[WhittyPsyche]

Those numbers are very unfortunate (ethnicity chart), but at least there is an upward trend. Gender chart seems to even out at the first professional and doctoral level. But given the ethnic disparities who knows the number of AA males at those levels is probably minuscule.