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.""

Comments

This is the correction of a surplus.

[kmellis]

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.

Lack of technical track

[gizmo_mathboy]

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.

Re:Lack of technical track

[g4dget]

It doesn't matter how much each different job contributes to the bottom line. The reasons why managers get prestige and pay is because they have power over people, and that can be leveraged to get prestige and money. That won't change.

The route to power and better pay for the engineering profession can be (and already is, in many cases) is to work independently and hire out your services. But with that comes a level of risk and entrepreneurship that many technically inclined people don't feel comfortable with--otherwise they wouldn't be engineers in the first place.

Perhaps this is missing something

[twilight30]

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.

Follow the rewards...

[dpilot]

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.

very dangerous, actually

[g4dget]

The really gifted kids will be drawn to science no matter the financial rewards.

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?

Nation's ***brightest*** increasingly shun science

[Spock the Baptist]

"Study finds drop in science and engineering careers among ***top*** college seniors."
"...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... ;D