&gt; the &quot;only black person in the room&quot;<p>I can&#x27;t begin to understand how it is an issue, and I&#x27;m black (and European). I don&#x27;t care about the color or the sex of my coworkers. What difference does it make? you can&#x27;t relate to white people? No the main issue is networking and going out of one&#x27;s own &quot;sphere&quot; or microcosm.<p>&gt; So some of the students may be opting out simply because they want a more diverse workplace<p>If they really like programming then they should worry about programming first and foremost, not how diverse is their environment. But maybe it&#x27;s because of my upbringing, when I was the only black in a class of 30 students, I didn&#x27;t have the time or any interest in worrying about the &quot;blackness&quot; of the classroom. I didn&#x27;t have the time to worry about my tastes being &quot;black&quot; or white or whatever.<p>Do some people have it easier because they are white ? Sure, people trust their kin more, and you talking about being &quot;only black person in the room&quot; is in my opinion the expression of that fact. What is true for white people is also true for black people, it&#x27;s human nature.