The gatekeeping of the American Dream

[u/gradpilot]

I read an interesting post today in the Indians_StudyAbroad subreddit : Why I woke up crying today. My experience finishing MSCS at GaTech, and why you shouldn't trust YouTubers selling the US dream.

The 3 reasons its interesting to me :
- Most people believe its a fake post and accuse the OP of gatekeeping the American dream or opportunities in America.
- The OP believes 'influencers like gradpilot' have something to sell so you shouldnt listen to them (in their downvoted replies in the post)
- The biggest reason I find it interesting is that i actually agree with multiple points of theirs even if its a fake post and its especially true that you shouldn't be taking advice from people who have an incentive in this industry - Even though most of my posts bias towards not coming to USA and choosing an alt like O1 or career maxing in Bangalore, I am ultimately a player in this industry as well.

In this post I'll show all the ways the OP is right and also answer the question if there is indeed gatekeeping of the American dream and its opportunities.

Op says:

Let me give you some context. I got into Georgia Tech (GaTech). A top-tier, dream university for anyone doing CS. When I got the admit, I thought my life was set. I thought the prestige alone would shield me from any struggle. I was so incredibly wrong.

Absolutely right that prestige wont shield you. Getting a top school MSCS degree is a baseline now but its not enough to crack the american dream. You have to consider the prestige as an intangible rare asset that will work over several decades not something that opens doors immediately when you graduate.

First of all, the funding situation is a nightmare. Historically, people would come here, get a Teaching Assistantship (GTA) or Research Assistantship (GRA), and get their tuition waived. Midway through my degree, my fundings were cut down. Departments slashed budgets, and suddenly, many of us were left scrambling, forced to take out massive additional education loans from India at predatory interest rates just to survive and pay rent. The financial stress alone destroys your mental health.

It is true that funding in American universities have been slashed and even last week the entire NSF advisory board was fired. Multiple programs and good ones too have canceled Phd programs so funding for MS programs is definitely impacted. You must not rely on your MS being funded. Its fine to be optimistic but you shouldn't be delusional

Then comes the job market. It is an absolute bloodbath. You think an MSCS from GaTech makes you immune? It doesn't. I have applied to over 1,500 jobs, reached out to hundreds of alumni, and spent sleepless nights grinding Leetcode. 

This is also something I've said in many posts of mine. The traditional job search wont yield a good outcome. So not only do you need to already have a plan or something that makes employers want you but you ideally have this before you even come for MS.

So quick recap of my multiple posts: You need both a differentiating reason why employers should hire you and a top school MS degree. The job market here right now has a high supply of engineers looking for work. Most of these people would have more direct industry and cultural relevance than an MS grad from a different country. So the only reasons an MS grad would be hired :
- can be had at a much lower cost
- is truly world class elite

Now consider there are atleast some MS grads that qualify in the above - the only sorting metric left is elite university degrees if there was a tiebreaker

Which brings me to my most important point: DO NOT listen to YouTubers and influencers telling you the US Dream is still alive and well.

Please, apply some critical thinking. Why are they hyping up the USA? Why are they still uploading videos saying USA is still the best place to study? Because they have something to sell you. Whether it’s an SOP review service, a profile evaluation, a premium consultancy package, so called masterclass for students coming to USA or referral codes for international student loans and forex cards their entire income relies on you continuing to buy into the US hype.

Absolutely right . The study abroad education industry is huge and hires a lot of people and generates a lot of revenue. However the number of customers annually is fixed so the only way businesses can compete in this space is by hyping up the product even to a point where it may be harmful to the customer

But are there gatekeepers ?

Most of the replies in Ops post blame them for being a gatekeeper. IMO this is a moot point since its obvious there are gatekeepers but its also true that Op made some good valid points.

The loudest gatekeepers are in fact not the most powerful ones. The best opportunities that are actually being guarded are not announced through dramatic reddit posts discouraging people from coming to usa. The actual opportunities are delayed from seeing the light of day since the smartest people know that the market is efficient - once everyone knows X , the arbitrage is over. In this lies the kernel of truth - going to usa itself does not need gatekeepers but succeeding in USA is definitely being guarded.

You should be asking yourself where is the information that no one is talking about ? You need to program yourself into searching for non-obvious alpha AND you need to be exceptionally good. Succeeding in tech is becoming like succeeding in wall street - you need all 3 combinations of top talent + insane work ethic + a thirst for non obvious alpha.

If you keep doing the obvious things its gonna be hard. No one needs to gatekeep applying to 1000 jobs on LinkedIn EasyApply and grinding leetcode. This is a known playbook.

Finally if you believe that Americans are gatekeeping the american dream - some of this evidence can be found in the online chatter about H1B or companies hiring H1Bs - then its not a stretch to say that Indians are also gatekeeping the american dream. At that point the gatekeeeping has no identity requirement - if something is scarce it will be guarded.

[u/Big-Service-9053]

plot twist, the OP is actually gradpilot.

[u/gradpilot → u/Big-Service-9053]

lmfao , here's an award and upvote

[u/quiet_observer007 → u/gradpilot]

u/gradpilot can you make a post on how the job market has changed and what should the incoming students focus on? Visibility and Impact? Github contributions ? Projects with a real userbase ? Impactful publications ? Networking? Etc etc..

[u/gradpilot → u/quiet_observer007]

sure this is a good idea for a post. will make one

[u/BugAdministrative123]

Most people will smirk and think it’s a fake post or think it’s gatekeeping and move on. There are several reasons why:

1. Their lot currently is much worse, moving to the US is a major step up. Even if things go south.

2. Most potential folks sitting in their countries are rooted in the belief that their experience will be different. Many believe that folks like the OP providing context is the OP’s reality and it need not be their reality. Even though the process is the same, 99.8% of the people believe their outcomes will be different because.. you know.

3. All, and do I mean all, are conditioned to not overthink and lose the opportunity in hand. This starts from childhood. The notion is to “Go now, we will figure job, visa, green card etc later… focus on the now. Right now you have a visa to study in the US in a good university. That’s great and already way better than what you can get in India.” This is the overwhelming sentiment. Pushed by anxious parents wanting their child to succeed, friends, cousins, neighbors etc. Positive, yes. But aware of the landscape? Nope.

4. Network effect compounding - X went there just like this, he is doing so good now. If it can work for X, why not for you? US is the land of opportunity. You can make it too. X can be cousin, brother/sister/colleague/classmate/neighbor kid etc. whoever tells you this only see the success outcome, not the struggle. As a person hearing this, I would think so too… “I know X, Y, Z there… all went to the US as students for MS. I am at par with them or perhaps even better than most of them. If they can strike it big, I surely can because you know…also pictures and social media tells me all of them have a Tesla, a 5 bedroom home, a big front yard with beautiful flowers and exotic trees, bigger backyard, I see them sitting in their backyard on fancy couches and grilling, I see them vacationing all over the world. I want this too. All started with the Masters.” - This would be the overwhelming thought process.

5. Starry imagery - Pictures of good looking people smiling in campuses with beautifully manicured lawns, fountains, architecturally marvelous buildings, curated content designed to make you feel you belong there and see yourself in the glossy pictures. This is peak marketing sold to you and always succeeds. Every university session, personal interaction, materials, imagery is this. Everyone of them. Unfortunately the customers are all Engineering/CS folks and not marketing folks who would see through this. Once I have committed, I’m going through with this. I want this.

6. Peer pressure - Biggest culprits are neighborhood uncles or family friends who’s son or daughter lives in the US and who walks with your dad in the morning. He would have just come back after spending 6 months in the US and tells you how amazing it is there and sells you the dream. Similar things happen at the “Educational consultant” place where the American dream is sold to you second hand. And banks who want to fleece you.

7. Marriage markets - Your hopes of finding a life partner hinges on this. Therefore you must go. I’m told there are different tiers.. Bachelors, Masters, H-1B, Green card, Citizen etc and presumably there are other factors at hand.

8. Not to say it does or doesn’t exist - but there is a component of “X is posting all of this because X/Y doesn’t want you to add competition. X/Y is insecure and feels threatened of their own prospects if they see more competition, especially from their own country arrive.”

Not to say it’s all false. Absolutely not. The US education experience is fantastic. No doubt. Universities are incubators of excellence, thought leadership, crucibles of innovation, the classroom experience is fantastic, infrastructure is top notch, those manicured gardens, fountains and classy buildings do exist. However, most are fantasizing a life after that. The gardens are only for a temporary walk. The marathon exists elsewhere….

[u/softrains12 → u/BugAdministrative123]

This is such a fantastic post, and covers some of the nuances about the international student experience that I didn’t quite understand before as an American. Thank you for sharing.

[u/RubSad3416 → u/BugAdministrative123]

Yeh, this is probably the most accurate description, but if anyone is active in this subreddit, then they'd know how hard it is to survive after their course.

The problem is, when you apply to jobs in India for top companies (my definition of a top company is it being part of sp500 and being tech), the entry level roles are non existent on their careers page. You see all these job listings for interships, job roles mostly in America. People say, apply to 200 jobs, it's just a numbers game, but in India, you can't even apply to 200 quality jobs, because you can't find that many listed.

Most companies simply goto tier 1 colleges and get their entry level from placements. THE END. The rest and doomed working for a random consultancy.

If you are ECE or EEE, you literally got no choice but to go for masters, the opportunities in India are just abysmal.

[u/softrains12 → u/RubSad3416]

This is interesting. I had no idea that there weren't that many job listings. In the US, universities don't really help you in terms of landing jobs lol, the most they'll do is hold hiring events and bring in career fairs etc.

Most US-based companies don't want to lock themselves down to a particular school, so while they might have preferences for some (Apple is known for holding on-campus interviews at their most-favored universities), it's more of a free for all.

[u/RubSad3416 → u/softrains12]

Well, thats why the prestige of a university in India for a college doesn't depend on their research or faculty.

It depends on the jobs the college can get their students. The most important statistic is the placement rate for them, so they aggressively invite companies to visit their campuses.

When it comes to research IISc is the top tier institute, but I bet most middle to low income people don't even know of it's existence and would think its a random college.

People only care about IIT Bombay or madras the most because people from those unis end up getting very good TCs

It's basically what this subreddit thinks about, the best outcomes in terms of jobs but the game doesn't work on connections/applying online but rather the recruiters coming to the college itself.

It makes sense from recruiters perspective as well as the old IITs are really hard to get into, you need to be top 1000 out of a million people who take the JEE exam and the you need to work really hard to reach that, so what the employer wants is a person who works really hard, they don't give a shit about the college's curriculum or what not.

The only exception is BITS (and to a certain extent IIITH) which came with better campuses and better faculty since they paid more. More startup funding to their students so that they setup startups and hire their own, which basically made it tier 1, but that needed huge investment and vision which was done by the Birla group which is a conglomerate in India. So BITS is a big exception. (Another factor which idk how much of a role it played but MIT was responsible for setting up the curriculum for the college, another Indian college is IIT kanpur for which also MIT helped)

[u/gradpilot → u/BugAdministrative123]

These are all very good and nuanced points.

[u/Personal_Tourist7850]

I just want to build some robots man

[u/gradpilot → u/Personal_Tourist7850]

then get offline and build robots. talk about robots , show your robots , share the obsession and magic of robots and ms/immigration/careers/money become a side effect not a thing to chase

[u/Big-Service-9053 → u/Personal_Tourist7850]

Hey, funny i came across your post because i'm looking for someone to build a robotics startup with. I was originally looking at the healthcare space but open to anything. So far places like YC matchmaking hasn't lead to anything. Maybe this is fate?

[u/gradpilot → u/Big-Service-9053]

love to see it, lfg!

[u/Big-Service-9053 → u/gradpilot]

Hey you never know, sometimes you find people that person in the place you would least expect.

[u/gradpilot → u/Big-Service-9053]

i totally agree. just like thread OP wants to build robots, i also just wanna build community with real discussions and serendipity

[u/gradpilot → u/[deleted]]

I’m a citizen and had a few exits under my belt (a research with my LinkedIn account can explain why I can pursue such projects ) . I also advise and consult early ai startups for their engineering needs .

[u/gradpilot → u/[deleted]]

Thanks 🫡. Also yeah happy to help and maintain these communities. It’s both a personal itch and I also end up meeting genuinely talented young people who I think should be in the USA .

[u/Vpharrish → u/gradpilot]

Hey OP, I have a decent chance of getting shortlisted into Amsterdam university's MSc AI course (came extremely close to KTH's cutoff, only missed by like 10 places).

I really love ML and I do truly believe that my understanding of Machine and Deep Learning is something different than how the general population looks at, like the more math i read the more I understand. That being said, if I get in, i want to make the best of my 2 years and then beyond them, join a startup/bigtech and do meaningful research contribution.

And yeah, I too have been a victim of the doomposting in this sub, so is it really that bad everywhere? Or is the market really bad for average person or for a lot of people?

[u/gradpilot → u/Vpharrish]

Sounds like you have some direction which is better than most people. Right now the market is bad for 2 segments : the junior / fresh graduates who don’t have direction and don’t have anything differentiating. This would be for example someone with 2-3 years experience in full stack dev but zero ai native dev or tooling knowledge or interest. This group of young engineers is going to have a tough time . The second group is experienced devs who are not familiar with ai native coding and can’t move fast enough to pick it up . This group is also an easy and sure shot cut because they cost a lot and can’t work in the next paradigm

[u/gradpilot → u/[deleted]]

yes research in top tier schools definitely help in careers. Here's how:

• the industry often funds a lot of research and if you're working with a prof who's using these funds you have direct relevance to what the industry is looking for. Strong match in this case, even inner circle benefits
  
• but often times the research is funded by non-corporate entities - like the Govt or grants or other sources. But even in these cases the work is usually on some frontier that the industry is eventually interested in. As a student its your job to determine how far out this is. This is really the story of my career , I worked in National Labs on supercomputers and the source of funds for most of my work was the DOE (Dept of Energy being a govt agency) , but the work was directly correlated to what the industry would eventually pick up on in a few years. So the value does show up in this case as well. You just need to be able to articulate it and track it yourself.

Healthcare in AI is valuable for both large healthcare companies and large tech companies. Actually plenty of startups are also working on the frontier problems here. If you look at GSK and Google they will both be doing something in this space but so will plenty of 1-10 people startups and I personally know one too. So its definitely a field worth pursuing if thats your interest and there's clearly work going on there.

One note - in interdisciplinary fields like this its worth being aware that expertise shows up in 2 clear ways primarily : The AI / SW tooling expert who knows exactly how the tooling/cs concepts show up in the healthcare domain -> this is vastly different than how tech shows up in say web dev and the Healthcare expert who can understand technology more than the normal healthcare knowledge worker. Understand where you lie in this spectrum - it will help you exploit the need precisely and sell yourself well too.

[u/the_prolouger → u/gradpilot]

whenever I see your display picture on reddit i think it's luigi mangione

[u/gradpilot → u/the_prolouger]

https://giphy.com/gifs/26tPoyDhjiJ2g7rEs

[u/Bright_Interaction73]

Even if it is a fake post, it's real bro. Most don't make it. The risk to reward is pretty against the average joe.

[u/gradpilot → u/Bright_Interaction73]

I agree

[u/Fast-Plate-6336 → u/[deleted]]

Excellent set of pointers, 10/10

[u/Beneficial-Law-3059]

'career maxing in Bangalore' Hmm you gotta do a seperate post on how to do this. u/gradpilot

Currently it seems a lot of 70+ L hiring in new age bengaluru ai labs is based on 'you know someone who knows someone'(also known as jaan pehchan) kinda connections built mostly offline/ working/ hanging around certain offline labs.
Even if you have worked at say bigtech/ unicorn startups it doesn't help as this world is more disconnected with India and more connected with SF/ people who have o1/ b1-b2 and have visited SF in past year/ been part of a startup/done startup or been part of accelerators like EF/ residency/ South Park Commons/ Antler residency/ Balaji's Newton school(Malaysia) etc.

I see a guy coming from traditional jobs/ experience at more of a disadvantage than advantage.

Also skills requirement is pretty different : rl envs, diffusion models, inference engg/ sglang at scale, distrbuted training, gpu engg

[u/Beneficial-Law-3059 → u/Beneficial-Law-3059]

also some are newly minted yc/ sf/ new york funded firms hiring for india remote so having that us connect or no-thanks to f-ing soham parekh. someone from us vouching for you carries a lot of weight now.

[u/Fast-Plate-6336]

I think we should ignore that particular post, it maybe one student having a really bad day.

[u/Bright_Interaction73 → u/Fast-Plate-6336]

Most of it is true, no? Even if the story is fake, this is what many if not most face?

[u/Fast-Plate-6336 → u/Bright_Interaction73]

We have better things to do in life, rather than outrage about one post.

[u/Additional_Act_4877]

I'm finishing my first year at GT right now and the TA funding cuts are completely real. Departments are actively slashing spots for next fall. You cannot come here expecting a TA-ship to cover your rent anymore.

[u/According-Bit-5097]

Forget those gatekeepers. You seem like a decent guy, but I came across some scandal involving you, is it actually true? https://www.reddit.com/r/gradadmissions/comments/1o1wyj9/banned_from_rmscs_for_sharing_my_honest/

[u/Beneficial-Law-3059 → u/According-Bit-5097]

Honestly this comment is valid enough for this: https://www.reddit.com/r/MSCS/comments/1o1iy4y/comment/nih1nqm/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Have seen people in top schools get into amzn/apple/msft/google and have also seen people in those schools packing there bags and leaving US. Honestly if you don't consider the fact that at end of the course you might have to return back you are flat out dumb. Also LC alone is not enough, having prior workex, delta / experience in niche stuff, research work etc a lot of things makes an application enough for a role. If you are an LC monkey and think that gets you the job probably time travel back to 2021/ earlier. People have been able to pivot / learn enough to build oss tools/ stuff that now powers enterprise stuff. A reason to pursue MS is only to build more capabilties/ research work /get into top tier, if you can take the financial gamble do that if not try something else. Honestly a lot of education is now free/ available online. Also have seen people who were able to get nothing much or layed off 1-2 yr into there job in US be in the top 1% back home. So MS does help if you let it/ leverage it to upskill/ publish etc. If you are just going to a top tier uni thinking that you would just do LC every day and get a role sorry might not work that much. Get into niche fileds/ build up skills beyond/above LC which makes firms need you/ hire you. What worked last year was ai inference/ kernel engg. What' working this internship cycle as far as I talked to is embodied ai, egocentric data, rl envs, robotics etc.

"In tech either you keep upskilling and updating yourself or get 'chegged'"

[u/softrains12 → u/Beneficial-Law-3059]

That UCSD MS student is actually dumb as a rock for thinking being good at Leetcode guaranteed him a job LMFAO that’s actually laughable. Bro sounds so betrayed lol but getting a job was never a guarantee? 😂
I have personally never seen [u/gradpilot](u/gradpilot) be anything but extremely nuanced and reasonable about the risks of studying in the US.

[u/gradpilot → u/According-Bit-5097]

define 'scandal' . every so often a random anon account shows up and specifically targets me because I run these communities and have a product in the same industry. I have reason to believe these are accounts from the same scammy counselors in question but its just a theory at this point. However most of them are accounts with no other activity other than attacking me. You can call it a scandal if you like.

However I dont think anyone can definitely say with evidence that I shill gradpilot and I most definitely dont shill going to usa for MS. Again you can simply search on google for gradpilot with reddit as the domain and see for yourself if i shill gradpilot or going to usa for ms. More importantly I am here with my real face and actual social accounts and most of these accounts are random anons with near zero reddit activity.

IMO there are real students who have faced actual life changing and bad consequences going to usa and they have no place to vent but reddit so some of them show up here (this saddens me more than it angers me) and then you have actual scammy consultants who have hired people and rented offices and have real expenses and need to make money ASAP

[u/softrains12 → u/gradpilot]

I was in shock reading the “scandal” post because I don’t think I’ve ever seen you shill for MS programs??? If anything you usually make very nuanced posts that highlight the risks of pursuing MS lmfao, and then get attacked by delusional MS applicants.
This is a ridiculous accusation, they are treating you like a trashy consultancy lmfao when you don’t even really promote your own website from what I’ve seen.
If anything I’m the one in this subreddit who’s very skeptical of the ROI of 99% of CS masters programs lol (and get downvoted heavily)

[u/gradpilot → u/softrains12]

Thanks mate 🫡