The Intersection of Racial Identity and Career Choice with Strong and Weak Ties
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1303070117300495
Telling fellow Cornell students about how I switched from being in a pre-law track to an Information Science major always makes them wonder why I took this 180 degree turn. I was undecided about what career path would be a good fit for me and realized I don’t have a network in my family or school yet to help me navigate through career options and choices. The impact of the network structure can be vital in relaying information about careers to young people and what decisions they make down the line. The article I linked, “Career choice and the strength of weak ties”, explains that there is a strong positive correlation with the amount of weak ties one has in their social network and the chance they can pick a secure career path. Strong ties and weak ties are both critical connections to have in your life, but for different reasons. In class, we learned strong ties are people you are with daily, with a sincere bond between you two. On the other hand, weak ties are people you don’t see often, or people you haven’t met before. Weak ties could help you get new information you wouldn’t have known about in your close friends circle. This seems kind of true in my personal life because acquaintances I don’t know that well would refer me to potential opportunities after we would connect. However, strong ties with people who have similar interests as me come more in clutch because they tend to advise more about the interview process, discuss further into their experiences in the field, and are more likely to make the time to do so. I learned more about the Information Science major because of one of my strong ties who talked about the major and explained more in depth about what it consists of.
Racial identity also comes into perspective when discussing social networks. In the article, it elaborates that white people have a greater number of weak ties, whereas black people have more strong ties. This means that white people are able to find the right career and settle on a career path more easily and faster than black people. This exemplifies another advantage of white privilege that gives them access to a wider range of career options with people they can simply reach out to. The same concept can be applied to women of color, from first-gen, low income backgrounds, like me. I mostly have a few strong ties to rely on, and having weak ties was a new concept to me entering college because I didn’t think they would be critical to my social network. Attending a predominantly white institution gives me perspective on what the real world is like and how certain types of privilege or lack thereof determines what you have access to.