 And I got a degree in masturbating Yeah, and this made me laugh because this guy's screen name This graph about college degree attainment amongst different Asian groups in America is going viral right now And we got to talk about it Yeah, jackfruit posted this as well as some other instagrams and there was a healthy debate in the comments section about whether or not college degree Attainment is as necessary as the Asian culture stereotypically makes it out to be joining us for this debate today We've got one of the original hop-hop boys from LA Nelson Chen What's going on man with me not coming from a well educated background and family? I think it's interesting for me to give my perspective for sure for sure. Absolutely. I mean I think there's a really really big variance despite the larger stereotype in America that all Asians come from educated families And our math leads and super brainiacs obviously there's a lot of different shades to it Despite what's put out in the media make sure you like subscribe and turn your notifications and or let's just get into it What does this graph say and hasn't been verified by like scientific studies? All right, so this graph when it was posted it didn't have any sources linked to it So I had to double-check where they got the graph from but yes It is pretty much the same numbers as these other surveys from 2016. I think 2020 So basically this graph goes as follows guys 78% of Taiwanese Americans have bachelor or higher degrees. All right, then it goes to Indian Pakistani Korean Chinese Japanese Indonesian Filipino Bengladeshi Nepalese Thai Vietnamese Hmong Burmese Cambodian Laotian So obviously a lot of their reactions, especially on the Asian pages are coming from Southeast Asians who are like Oh, whoa, like they have a range of reactions Some of them are very proud that they were able to go to college some people are like oh We got to do better and some people are like I'm not we don't need college for us. So of course, let's go through it Yeah, I mean I think the very first comment was explaining it Somebody said you know the ones at the bottom come here on immigration based routes and intentions While the top ones are usually those who got to work stuff got some work studies visas So a majority of them are here for a degree. Obviously, they have a higher percentage I think what this person is pointing to are that immigration waves and patterns and pathways are Absolutely a hundred percent different for every Asian group basically Andrew long story short every Asian group And there's even more that weren't listed on the study have a different journey to the West, right? I mean a lot of these Asians. I don't want to say a lot, but I mean a good portion of Taiwanese and a lot of the Indian People who have high degrees they already came over with some degree It's possible that they were able to emigrate due to a student or a work visa as a brain worker, right? But I know of course that doesn't account for everybody a lot of People from all these countries come over with no money and have made it and gone to college right and done There's so many like variants in different situations because you know how like you can come over with no money But you're educated and then some people come over with no money and they're not educated So people come over with a lot of money and they're not educated There's so much variability Somebody also said that family wealth makes a big amount of difference to a lot of Asian people need a hustle and pay Bills and do not have time and money for college. Yeah I mean if you look at a lot of the groups towards the bottom Some of those are refugee groups, you know, so of course it's tough to yeah I mean you're just you're coming here trying to survive opening up small businesses However, I will say a lot of Vietnamese they are known for their entrepreneurship. They open a lot of small business To be honest, I think a lot of people were surprised that Vietnamese only was at 30% right I was actually very surprised being that low And I think the reason is is because a lot of people just anecdotally in their life probably know a Financially successful Vietnamese person because like we said the almost like the ultimate hustlers man and just like And this was the first comment Jackfruit which I actually believe posted this and is run by Vietnamese people said Vietnamese don't need degrees they open up businesses full of restaurants coffee shops and nail salons and someone said hey man Had two shops and then somebody came in and said Johnny dang man And then somebody else street smarts over book smarts and then obviously somebody else said Vietnamese are huge entrepreneurs Yeah, no, and I think if you look the statistics will pop them up that Vietnamese do own a lot of businesses in America They're very enterprising people. I think they have the highest rate of entrepreneurs now Obviously, there's a lot of good jobs if you work for you know in medicine and text like that where you do require degrees But I think America happens to be a great country for entrepreneurship in running small business, and I would say anecdotally We have a lot of Vietnamese friends and a lot of our Vietnamese friends They are about the cash flow. They're just about like hey man. It makes money. I like it. I have fun with it I enjoy the work. Let's do it like they're like cash flow man. It doesn't have a degree attached to it, man No, what we used to have a camera guy who used to work with us And he was from Vietnam and he would just be like yeah, man. Nah, man. I'd Make money man. It's all good. Um someone said yet somehow all pharmacists at CVS are Vietnamese Yeah, so here's the interesting part guys to be a pharmacist to go to farm school You do not need a bachelor's degree right because farm school is going to essentially be your degree once you make it Through that so yes a lot of pharmacists and a lot of farm techs are you don't need a bachelor's degree to do that All right, the next comment I believe comes from somebody who is Cambodian Somebody said Southeast Asians are low due to being refugees from the Vietnam War and putting got put straight into the hoods and the projects When they arrived in America, but let me tell you one thing They will never get bullied and punked out on the streets like those at the top of the list Someone said hot take commendable and someone said for real man because we fight back to the heart um, I mean Going to there like some of those Southeast Asian people are going to be more into the streets Whereas you know people on the top are more in the books, you know, it's like it makes sense. Yeah, I mean If you guys know Southeast Asian people I think on average and this is a generalization that they are like they're tougher Yeah, so I actually so I actually had to send this uh quote to a bunch of my Southeast Asian friends And there's a variance right some are very very like proper and some are like more uh doing the living life their own way And basically, you know what they said Andrew? They said uh, man, it's not fully true because we still do get attacked But the just the difference is when we get attacked we'll fight back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Um, Andrew, there was uh more comments from like loud people for example, Andrew heartbreaker the loud rapper friend of ours He said damn law us loud people need to do better And then somebody said to be honest, man, we don't even need it I got my degree and never even used it didn't even realize we was all the way at the bottom though What the f And there was other comments like echoing this, you know from people who are like, ah, dang I kind of made it but dang. I didn't even know we was that low. Yeah, I would say that the That percentage is surprisingly low. I guess I guess I I think that's something I think Most people I guess based off their stereotypes They would see like maybe the ranking of this to make sense But I guess maybe some of the numbers to be a little differently Yeah, I would say this um, and this is a comment I think on larger like the economics of america now and I get your perspective on this America is a really interesting country because it's simultaneously the best country to have a degree in because there's all the best tech and medicine here Which you definitely need a degree for but it's also the best country to not have a degree in Like like it's almost like for both pathways It's probably just not a good country if you want to get rich off like government Maybe like, you know, that's like the only difference. You know what I mean? Like there's both I guess there's money in a lot of different lanes in america is what i'm trying to say for sure I think with my experience. My perspective is that uh, the degree is like It's like 50-50 you Depending on what type of career you want to, you know, dive into whether it's, you know, being a lawyer or, you know Medicine or whatever those you would like need really hard, you know studies and get even your GPA matters, right? Like, I know I graduated from a four-year college. It took me a while But you know, I never really used my degree for anything after that too So it's like and then for what I do is like more entrepreneurship But like I think in today's time and especially in la You don't really necessarily need to go to four year or need a degree to be successful or make a lot of money Right. I think today's time getting a degree is kind of overrated. Okay. Yeah I mean, I think there's an interesting perspective and definitely like you have pretty valid points too. Obviously No, my parents are you know, uh, you know coming from immigrants family coming to america They the highest edgy level of education. They both had was middle school Right, my parents neither my parents went to high school and then I was never, you know great in school As well, but like I'm not saying like I became super successful But I kind of still did something, you know without having to be like super smart, you know Absolutely, I believe that you're correct in the 2023 economy Certain lanes that don't require a degree the degree would almost like Just be for networking versus obviously tech and medicine You need that knowledge and it also depends in school. What school you go to or what school you got your degree from Nelson, do you feel like a lot of people who come from families who are not maybe super pushy on education? They'll still go to a college just because they know that's kind of like the right thing to do That's the safer thing. Yeah, they want to make the parents proud while you know graduating, you know from college, right? And it does theoretically Put you around other people who are also trying to get jobs in the corporate world Maybe it inspires you to go do the same But for those people who go through college and are not inspired by the job opportunities and they're like You know what I went through that and that actually really wasn't for me So like i'm just going to go do my own thing This girl said andrew cambodian with a degree and she looks like this. So someone said yo, that's cap FaceTime me to prove it And then somebody said actually you're probably kamai chinese and uh, yeah This is just a lot of opinions like we said jackfruit is so crazy because there's just like Opinions from everywhere. This is definitely different than the comments of like a new york times You know what I like about this comment section. It's very real. It's very real people and it's very like southeast asian It's almost like you're peering into how like a lot of southeast asians would talk to each other at like Maybe a kickback or a barbecue and you're in the conversation now So I think it's funny and I think it's like more funny than like maybe if it was like Instagram only about like I don't know chinese people. Maybe I don't know Yeah, I mean I do think that You know because there is a lot of people who are part chinese in southeast asia Like it is true that I guess if you had to stereotypically guess if you have one parent that's chinese and one parent that's not The chinese one is going to be the one stressing school Because chinese people love school But interestingly enough andrew that leads us to our next comment where this girl was like, yeah I'm malay and cantonese and uh, my parents keep telling me to get my grad degree even though I don't even need it at all So this is almost the argument against over education, right? Because it's time. It's money It's effort and theoretically you're deviating from like a path that you're already sure of andrew What what do you think about that argument that like, you know There can be parents that are over reliant on the degrees in education Well, maybe I think this person A lot of people who oftentimes do get grad degrees their parents like maybe went to some type of schooling So their parents went to school to become successful. So that's how they know that you're going to become successful So of course they stress that to you, but if your parents became successful without school, I think Possibly and usually maybe they won't stress school as much So it kind of depends on the parents and how they made it Yeah, the family background matters a lot. Like we said, I know some people who got rich or like not rich but like Upper middle class doing landscaping Some people who became rich doing more like contract merchant middleman sort of like factory import export And then obviously people have a variety of levels of success working corporate You know, you know, I mean like it depends on how high the road uh, wrote up the ladder I guess the lucrativeness of that's that's specialization Do you think that telling kids to get an undergrad degree and then a postgraduate degree and maybe even after Go up phd is a little bit like old school basketball coaching. You know, old school basketball sets You had to move the rock five times To to pass the rock 10 times before you get a shot up 10 to five times to get a shot But nowadays it's different. So it's like Andrew the logic behind between passing the rock five times on our offensive scheme It's not wrong, right, but it's just outdated. Yeah, it is it's like in today's time It's like once you have a first or second really good option. You should take it Moving on Andrew. This person was complaining about obviously Certain groups not even getting listed on here. Somebody said men people didn't even make the list Man, we're a minority of minorities. Nobody ever pays attention to us Someone said chom people are not in these lists. Somebody said where are mongolians? Bhutanese, Tibetans Sri Lankans obviously, uh, thai dom. There was a yeah, there was a ton of groups that got left off Yeah, I mean, uh, I think if you look at different other surveys, uh, Bhutanese and these type of populations will Will show up like especially if you just surveyed, uh, new york, you would actually see even more types of asians possibly But yeah, I mean, you know a lot of asian groups to be honest. They're not they don't even have a Number yeah, they don't have the sample size for for people to survey not Not that it's not important one thing I want to point out because uh, pakistani was actually super high on this list Right and a lot of people may be like, oh like I didn't expect that right But it's like there has a lot to do with like who's coming over from that country Right like not every immigrant population from a country is representative of that country It could just be representative of who from that country was allowed to immigrate So it's almost like a very selective or self-selective population. Um, moving on somebody said, uh, hey, man You guys if you guys don't have college degrees, don't worry because I have two masters And uh, I'm just a teacher and I'm still poor as poor af and someone said yeah, man My cambodian homie is a truck driver that only has a g ed and he has like three cars and his own place That he owns and he got like luxury whips And somebody else said yeah, man, I just did the college thing for a year. It wasn't for me I got into the trades and real estate and I make most more money than most of my college grab buddies Whatever works for you. So this was sort of like, uh, yeah Based on what I that pretty much proves what I said earlier about like you don't necessarily need a degree to make a lot of Money or be successful There's a lot of you know different types of you know fields that you could dive into to you know be successful Yeah, and you know what even now, I mean, I met some people who are uh doing software engineering and they didn't even go to college for it Like they just took a they took coding boot camps, right? Which used to be frowned upon but um, yeah, they take these boot camps that are Do take three or four months, right? But then they come out and they can make a lot of money Yeah, I think it's sort of like filmmaking people used to hire filmmakers from filmmaking school But now it's just like yo, how many projects did you get done? I think uh People are maybe kind of coming to terms with like to your point to this is supporting you now Like some of the educational systems are a little bit like too generalized You know what I mean? Like you learn a lot of general education at school But that's not like necessarily specifically execution IRL in that given specialty Exactly a lot of prerequisites that you take during college is like not necessarily for your Life at all right somebody said real talk college is even worth it unless you're going to the specialty field That's why east asians and south asians excel in tech and medical But you just got to focus on what you want to do Yeah, and then there's a comment from uh, some filipinos that were like a The filipinos would even be higher on this list if they took in nursing degrees Yeah I think nursing degrees I don't know if they count this because I think they do because it's bachelor of science of nursing So does that count as a bachelor? It would right coming to defense of degrees though, andre Because I do not want to just be a contrarian channel for the for the sake of it someone said I have my bs and mechanical engineering. I'm about to get my ms and industrial and systems engineering I don't think you need a degree to be successful But it is pretty hard these days to make it without one if you have work ethic and hustle though go for it It's about leveraging your opportunities. I do think that getting a degree and something difficult like stem related It does up your probabilities because like if you can get a degree and something difficult and execute a difficult job Like engineering or uh tech like or medicine like you can get a almost always guaranteed at least a middle level job Yeah, no, I mean, let's be honest. Um, I mean getting put into a school system and trying hard You're linking with professors. They have networking opportunities You get to be trained kind of like in the way that probably the job works So but again, if you are a super big hustler and you're smart yourself I mean oftentimes you'll figure out a different way because because the the knowledge is out there on how to do it Like there's literally websites and youtube videos and reddit forums that will tell you how someone did it without the degree Yeah, I think a lot of it is like how you spend your time in college too, right? Like some people they just like party they like do this they do that and they're just not really like focusing on using the college time To build up their career life. They're just using it on the social side You should use it for both But obviously if you're going to prioritize one realistically to make the most out of college you should focus on a career building Someone said yeah, Andrew the nursing certifications would see the Filipino numbers rise up But also, uh, I'd like to get a bs in the belute studies So just just a classic silly response Somebody also said as a Filipino nurse myself I can guarantee that at least half our listed percentage of bachelors are our bachelors in science in nursing a bsn Andrew, uh, moving on somebody said, uh, I'm beat and I got a degree in masturbating What Yeah, and uh, this made me laugh because this guy's screen name, uh, the picture had a picture of korean rick yoon Playing the hustler johnny tran in fast and furious Of course, and there was a bunch of other comments basically saying, you know I'm lausian or leotian and i'm representing the 16 percent of leotians with my masters Yo, my dad is a cambodian refugee. My mom is chinese and indonesian, but I was able to make it I got two masters. I'm doing well for myself. I'm able to help out my parents So basically other people were coming in there with success stories to show people it's like, yeah Like don't be discouraged by these macro statistics I went and did well for myself and got educated or I still did well for myself and I didn't get educated Exactly, it all depends on what success means to you too. If it's just monetary We already know in america. This is a great place to be a hustler, you know, and you don't need a degree for that So, uh, david what are some of the funnier comments because obviously, you know The conversation got very deep but also very light hearted at the same time Yeah, I mean somebody said, uh, this is like a hennessey scale upside down So, okay It's funny. It's funny somebody said, uh, man cambodian is only so low because half of us graduated in the hood Someone said you got a gangster bachelor degree. Obviously. This is a stereotype guys These are jokes made by cambodians for cambodians. Um, for me, I think there's two things that are noteworthy I saw a comment andra about college debt What do you think about that because there's a lot of talk nowadays that college is overpriced Not specialized enough to guarantee you a career out of it and you could end up in debt paying off Loans even though technically educational loans are lower interest. Uh, how much does that play an impact into this? I think that college is very expensive nowadays, but there's also a lot of supplementary Or alternative education That you can get you're talking about vocational careers. Yeah vocational careers you could take classes on the side You can take uh boot camps. Um, if you're in college, you can there's oh college to me One of the best things about college, especially going into something like a specialized field is the networking that you could potentially use from it However, if you go to a big college and you just make it in there and you just want to do your work Walk in a class and walk out and you think that you're going to get a great job out of it That is actually not true. You still get out what you put in So therefore if you join all the clubs, if you join the networking opportunities, if you join the mentorship programs Do all this and this and kind of uh utilize college for what it is. I think it is extremely extremely helpful However, a lot of people don't and I think also a lot of people they got to look at how much debt they're taking on You know, you have your community college options Nowadays you have cheaper four-year options. Obviously you have your university option that gives you the tailgating at the football game Type experience, but then you're incurring a lot more housing and like living costs for food and board So I just think that people got to calculate and be like, okay Maybe it is good to like if I'm not into school I could just pick the lower price option because I'm going to have a lot less debt Yeah, exactly. I mean I was talking to a girl who wants to go into physical therapy And uh, you know, she's working two jobs right now, but physical therapy school itself is going to set her back a lot And I mean there's just it's there's a lot of different options and getting Into that industry without having to go to that amount of school for it It's like everybody only wanted to become a doctor and you got to go to medical school for it Obviously you can be a nurse practitioner, you know that takes some time But you know, you don't have to have the medical degree for that exactly for sure There's just a lot of different ways out there. Yeah, definitely. I think that this was a good, um post and it sparked a lot of Good discussion. I'm sure the discussion could go on for like hours and hours Please let us know what you think in the comment section below is college overrated. Is it necessary or is it underrated? I mean, obviously, I guess the larger macro trend in the asian-american community is obviously a very very high Value on education, which I think ultimately is a good thing But it just varies on everybody's own personal situation and stats. Um, yeah, make sure you follow Nelson chan And uh, until next time with the hop-hop boys. We out. Peace