WILL.I.AM's comment on Einstein

[orangemoore]

Originally Posted by seg9585

You'll have to enlighten me I guess. Can't really find any good information on what meaningful impact he's had to promote STEM besides talking about how dope it is. If the point is to get the public interested in STEM then why is his only appearance about this at the FIRST Championship where he's preaching to people already involved? Shouldn't he promote it at every other event he hosts or speaks?

Should we invite Kanye West next year, or maybe Miley Cyrus? They have quite a few Twitter followers, are these the kind of people we want to aspire to be?

Did you listen at all to what Dean said that Will.I.Am has done for FIRST? It certainly sounds like you haven't.

This isn't just a random entertainer coming to our event.

[cadandcookies]

I cannot agree with mrnoble's posts on this enough.

One of the big things lately has been increasing diversity in STEM fields-- this means appealing to and accepting people who do not fit the stereotypical mold of an engineer. I'm pretty standard engineer stock-- guess what, I'm a young, white man. The traditional values associated with engineering are similar to the ones I was raised with and (for the most part) live by. Part of that is language choice (yup, in third grade my dad grounded me for saying d--- while playing a football video game with him). In other areas, cultures, et cetera, that's hardly worth raising an eyebrow at. If we say we want diversity, but only if you'll talk and act like a stereotypical "respectable" old white man, I think we're missing the point.

Kudos to will.i.am for saying it how he (and I) feel it. Expletives serve a valuable purpose in communication, and expressing exactly how awesome something is is one of those purposes.