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No Future in American Science
An anonymous reader writes "Science Blog reports America is facing a dangerous shortage of eggheads: "America's top college graduates increasingly reject careers in science and engineering, researchers have found, raising concerns about America's technological future. Faced with the prospect of low-paid apprenticeships and training lasting a decade or more - and constricted job opportunities even after that - more of the brightest young Americans are instead pursuing the quicker and surer payoffs offered by business and certain professions.... 'With the notable exception of biological sciences, many of the top U.S. students with potential to become scientists are turning toward other career paths,' said one of the study's co-authors.""
We have an artificially high rate of production of scientists for whom there are few jobs. This is why they're going elsewhere. Maybe we should figure out a way to make more jobs for them, or maybe we should dismantle the current system which is built upon training people for jobs they'll never find so that they'll be available while they're training as cheap, highly-skilled labor while providing a rationale for bloated academic bureaucracies.
I think a big reason for the lack of scientists and engineers is the lack of advancement and prestige at companies.
Usually you have: Junior Engineer, Senior Engineer, Princple Engineer, and Distinguished Engineer (roughly speaking). Whereas there is a multitude of levels for those in the management track.
How many people want to be "stuck" in a technical track? The money isn't as good, your don't seem to get much respect, and you don't even get a decent title.
I think we are seeing lots of good technical people being pushed into the ranks of management.
Namely, the fact that the US acts as a gigantic research sink (read 'brain drain') for the rest of the world. No idea what proportion of those foreign researchers return to countries of origin, but I imagine America holds on to quite a lot of them. The US dwarfs every other country on Earth in terms of money spent on research and is a player, if not the dominant 'hegemon' in just about every field. If native-born Americans are unwilling to take up science (which I don't think is really true, but anyway), believe me, there's plenty of people from abroad who will.
And that's not a bad thing at all, at least for Americans. Other countries might have a problem with brain drains, but America certainly does not.
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Death will come, and will have your eyes
-- Pavese
Look where America grants its greatest rewards, at least in terms of financial remuneration or fame, and it certainly isn't science. Obviously money isn't everything, but it sure helps to have enough to put a roof over the head, food on the table, and a computer in the study. Some people are born to be scientists, and probably will be despite the economics. Others are lured to the Dark Side.
Not to call here a Dark Sider, but Cindy Crawford used to be a chem major who did modelling on the side. Her professor told her she was nuts for sticking to chemistry with her looks and success so far at modelling. Apparently she listened. One would hope she sacked away enough money during her prime, because a supermodel probably has fewer productive years than a pro football player.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Could it be that biology is a notable exception because biotech pays well? Frankly, people who are smart enough and interested in science and engineering are also smart enough to figure out where the money is. Since we have turned away from independent research at universities, and instead have chosen to commercialize virtually all research, it comes as no surprise that students are looking at science as just another career field. The market will take care of this, though. When people are willing to pay more to get the scientific talent, there will be more incentive for new students to pursue the sciences which are in demand.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Being a research scientist doesn't provide a lot of money, and people need to do things like eat and live a comfortable life. Start paying scientists the big bucks, and all of a sudden you'll have a very large influx into the field.
Really gifted kids aren't stupid. They will also figure out that they likely won't get to do science for decades if they follow standard career paths. And they'll figure out that there is a good chance that they end up poorly paid and without a reasonable job in their 40s. In physics and biophysics (two scientific careers that I was considering), in many subfields, you end up being someone's underpaid lab assistant for a decade or more.
The best of the best still get good jobs, and there's still a lot of jobs at 2nd & 3rd tier universities.
Jobs in academia and science are often not awarded based on the ability to do science; they are awarded based on the ability to attract funding, students, and attention, and to get good peer reviews. That's not the same. It may be the best measure of "good science" that we have, but that doesn't make it so. The past shows us that much of the best science was not the stuff that peers thought valuable at the time. And the only way to make sure enough of that happens is to make sure there is a lot of excess science funding for stuff beyond "the best of the best", according to current wisdom.
And academic positions are not primarily about science. Even in the ideal case, they should be about teaching. And in the real world, they often are about neither.
Finally, doing science at 2nd and 3rd tier universities is hard because funding is disproportionately difficult.
Let supply and demand sort it out.
It is sorting it out: the demand for scientists is actually quite low in the US (and even lower elsewhere). That's why people choose different careers. The question is: is that a good thing?
Very true, but I think the author is also worried about the demand dwindling. The issue is that more people in the U.S. are concerned with getting a bigger SUV than increasing the technical capabilities of our country/world. It almost seems that many people are happy with what is out there today, and that it is just "good enough". The more technical problems, like deep space travel, will never see the light of day.
Yes, I am an agent of Satan, but my duties are largely ceremonial.
When I decided to go for the Ph.D., it was not with the perspective of having later on a well-paid job. I did my Ph.D. in astrophysics because I was passionnate. My motivation was to learn, to discover and to better know myself.
:-)
I never regretted my choice.
Don't choose a career because it is well paid. Choose it because you like it, because it triggers something in you. Don't sacrifice yourself for money - as a person, you are more important than all the money you will ever have.
Well, just my two cents.
Granted, you are correct to an extent, but the fact of the matter is, these people that are going out and buying everything in sight, and paying ungodly amounts for these things are driving the prices up for everyone else. Now we are to the point (or at least getting there) that many of the positions that are being offered to scientists aren't paying enough to live comfortably. No, I'm not talking about living single in a 5br home while having to choose between your Caddy or your Beamer every morning to drive to work. I just talking about being able to pay off your debts, and being able to drive a somewhat reliable vehicle.
Also, I have to state that while I think it sucks that the scientists are getting the short end of the stick, I feel sorry for the people that didn't get the chance at the education. Many of those people really don't have a hope in hell. Concerning the more technical problems, I think they will see the light of day, but these more technical problems don't provide an immediate solution to the currently more pressing issues of class separation in most of today's societies. Unless these more technical problems start providing income to these people. This way, we could kill two birds with one rocket.
Concerning your sig, 'Give any one species too much rope...'
'And all the monkeys aren't in the zoo Every day you meet quite a few...'
This is all just talk. Talk is cheap. As the saying goes, put your money where your mouth is.
In a perfect competitive free market, the wage of a worker is the equilibrium market price at which a worker gets paid and an employer pays them. It is the point at which the supply curve of the class of workers meets the demand curve of the employers for that worker class.
If demand for workers goes up, in the short term the number of workers won't change much, so the salaries will rise. In the long term supply will increase as more people transition to the field and salaries will moderate somewhat. Oversupply can happen as well and salaries will go down. The price of the worker, their salary, deterimines their economic worth (although their are altruistic worths as well, economic worth is all that counts in the market).
For an exercise, go to the US Labor Department and look at their Wage Statistics. Look through everything and look at what pays the best. It's not science, no matter how smart you are. The top three professions in terms of average wage are this: Executives, Doctors, and Lawyers.
In economics, price transmits information. The information transmitted by the market is that being an executive (CEO), doctor, or lawyer is economically the most valuable job you can have. Technical workers are well paid but much less than these top three.
It should be no surprise that students would strive for the top paying jobs. They're acting rationally based on the economic information transmitted by the price of labor.
If at some point the wage of technical workers and scientists is at the top of the wage pyramid, then you can expect everyone trying to do that. This almost happened in the late 90s with the Dot-Com boom, but it was too short of a cycle to affect long-term supply much.
Economics is key.
"Study finds drop in science and engineering careers among ***top*** college seniors."
;)
;D
"...best young minds..."
On reading the article provided by the link on Science Blog I came to the conclusion that the problem is not with the number of American students that are going into the sciences, but rather that "top-students" i.e. Ivy Leaguers, etc. were not going into science.
I would argue that the author of the article has an unfortunate bias toward "elites." Now what I'd like to know is just what are the criteria for determining who the "top-students" are. My masters was done at a decidedly non-Ivy League university, Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas. While there, in the early 90s, the department chairman lamented that all the "top-students" that is to say the students with the highest GPA on graduation were all coming from the Schools of Education, and Business. He felt that the students that were majoring in math, physics, chemistry, etc. were getting short changed as their grades from curriculum filled with rigorous courses were having to compete with students that had curricula filled with much 'puffer' courses.
The point here is that if you're looking at a students GPA to determine who's the top students you're approaching the issue using a poor metric.
Tell some one you majored in elementary education, and they're likely not to me impressed.
Tell them that you majored in physics and they'll likely respond something like: 'oh, so you're a brain.'
Tell them you're an astronomer and they'll go: Whooa! Cool! If you're a reasonable good looking young feller, and the person you're talking to is a single young woman you're likely to be able to get a date. After all us astronomy dudes are soooo romantic --studying the Moon, the stars, and all.
An example for your further consideration:
Bill Mahr: Cornell Alumnus
Spock the Baptist: An Aggie
Who's the more impressive?
Now:
Bill Mahr: B.A. English
Spock the Baptist: B.Sc. Physics, minor Mathematics
Who's the more impressive?
You'll note that I've not include my M.Sc. in Physics, Thesis in Observational Astronomy in the just previous comparison. That just wouldn't be fair...
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
...or, at least, that's the message we're sending by actions like this.
So, if we aren't going to encourage our own students to become scientists and engineers, AND we aren't going to encourage foreign students to become scientists and engineers... yes, I'd say that in a few years we'll be facing a shortage of scientists and engineers.
But it won't matter as long as we have plenty of skillful marketers.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
to doing something because you loved it. All you could think about was solving the next problem or thinking of something new and exciting. God damnit, there are some more important things in life then buying a new Lexus. I might be poor but at least I'm not poor of mind.
The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education. - Paul Feyerabend
This is the same reason we have professional athletes that make way more than teachers, and why the peter principle raises the BA in Business Administration into a 6 figure position with an office, while the BS in computer science sits in a cubicle pulling down half of that. The elites keep the elites in positions of power, and use the rest of us for what they can get out of us for a minimal cost and maximum profits.
Huh? Professional athletes make what they make not because of some bizarre "elitism", they make it because they are incredibly talented individuals in extremely short supply that bring in enormous amounts of money for a professional sports franchise.
In other words, they're worth what they make, as do the teachers and the engineers. The reason teachers and engineers make so little money is because there are so many of them that can do equivalent jobs.
Note that this has nothing to do with someones "value to society" (however that's measured), it's all about supply and demand.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
What's left? Microsoft Research, and maybe Sun.
The big national labs are duds. Lawrence Livermore Labs is a senior activity center for old physicists. Oak Ridge has downsized. Los Alamos can't find a new mission. JPL doesn't launch much any more. NASA has a big headcount, but doesn't produce much; it's been described as "the world's largest sheltered workshop". All of these places have an average age near retirement.
Even the Lockheed Skunk Works is gone.