Slashdot Mirror
NSF Reports No Geek Shortage
Baldrson writes "The NSF's report titled 'Graduate Enrollment in Science and Engineering Programs Up in 2003, But Declines for First-Time Foreign Students' (a pdf of the report released for the first time last month) is now available online. In an analysis of the report, Edwin S. Rubenstein of ESR Research states of these latest figures: '4.2 percent of science and engineering PhDs work outside their field of training, chiefly for financial reasons. This further weakens corporate America's claim of a shortage of high-tech workers.'" Interesting to see how things have changed since then.
I don't think corporations really complained about a shortage of high-tech workers.
It was *cheap* high-tech workers that they said were in short supply...
Perhaps the shortage of high tech workers is due to the increasing demands for longer periods of schooling - the mandatory masters and doctorates that have replaced the undergraduate degrees of the past.
My other sig is funny.
they say there's no shortage but the price is still $70 per barrel of geeks!
Go home and shave your giant head of smell with your bad self
I'm a student at Carnegie Mellon, and I can assure you that there is no shortage of geeks in the near future.
In Canada atleast, it doesn't feel like there's any shortage in tech workers. The salaries for new graduates keeps going down each year - eventhough the cost of living and the cost of education keeps going up every year.
_Vishal www.squad9.com
MS almost exclusively hires only graduates
I meant fresh graduates, just out of college. (And I think the grammer is messed up in that sentence, but I am too lazy to fix it.)
Table-ized A.I.
Personally, I know many people in my field of science who are doing other things because of the lack of academic jobs. Big pharmaceuticals and other corporations can use people with graduate degrees in almost any kind of science, because they have the statistical and/or logical toolkits that can be applied to other work. So these folks would be counted as doing work "outside their field of training", and are doing so because of "greater financial opportunities".
If anything, though, this doesn't mean there is a shortage of jobs for science and engineering degrees. It means that there are a shortage of people qualified to do trained statistics and problem-solving, and corporations are willing to pay a premium to raid surplus academics to get them.
--JohnPhysics produces in the neighborhood of 1200-1500/year. It's on the decline lately.
m l
you can see some statistics (including production vs time) here: http://www.aip.org/statistics/trends/emptrends.ht
Chemistry probably produces more, and Biology/Biochem even more than that.
The bottom line is that science and technology cannot be our comparative advantage anymore. That is why the dismal PhD pay. The laws of physics and science are the same the world over, but salaries are not.
Allegedly "innovation" is our comparative advantage, but are 5 Indians for the same price really going to have less total good ideas than one US citizen? This is an insult to other cultures and nations.
I am not sure what the US's comparative advantage is anymore. Cheesy advertizing and manipulative deal-making? It might be, but it is not something to be proud of.
Table-ized A.I.
You only have to read the articles. Every one of them has something to do with race and how white Americans are getting screwed by black/brown/yellow people.
I'm surprised they manage to get a front page story on Slashdot.
If US industry really needs more people with advanced degrees, then perhaps they should help fund our efforts to get advanced degrees.
I'm almost finished with my Masters in ECE, but it's been a rather large financial sacrifice. Of course, I started on my Master's degree when the economy was in the tank and there really weren't any engineering jobs to be had anyway. In the last year that situation has started to change and more jobs are out there. I've thought about going on for a PhD, but after 3 years of paying for my Master's I really need to go out and work for a few years.
We hear a lot from the likes of Gates and Groves about how their respective companies (Microsoft and Intel) need more people with advanced degrees and then bemoaning the fact that Americans aren't going to school to get those advanced degrees. Well, the big problem is money. When you finish your Bachelor's degree these days you've got a pretty good amount of school loan debt to pay off so you go to work in industry (and going to work in Industry right after getting your Bachelor's is a good thing IMHO: it gives you much needed real world experience you wouldn't get if you just continue straight away to grad school). After a few years you've got a house, cars, a spouse and maybe a kid or two. At this point going back to grad school is very difficult, you take a huge financial hit by doing so.
So, if industry really wants more PhD's then they should put their money where their mouth is and fund more of us. A lot of us would be more than willing to work on a doctorate if we knew that we would be able to make it financially if we did go back to school. Companies should offer funding in exchange for a commitment to work for the company for X number of years after finishing the degree. The funded student would also agree to work perhaps part time or during the summers at said company. Funding should include health insurance - this is a must; how is someone who has a house, spouse and kids going to be able to get by without health insurance.
I really don't buy the whole idea that the reason we don't get enough applicants for advanced degrees is because of poor highschool education levels in the US. You don't go directly from highschool to an advanced degree. Usually you get a bachelor's first and then (as I've suggested above) you work in industry for 5 or 10 years and then consider getting a Master's or PhD - this is often the way it works. Besides, having that 5 or 10 (or more) years of real-world experience and then going on to grad school makes you much more valuable than someone who goes directly to grad school after the bachelor's degree.
I find this "analysis" superficial and self-serving. A vocal segment of the high-tech community, including, evidently, the author of this piece, is protectionist and consistently opposes higher visa limits for foreign workers. I, personally, think this is short-sighted; I think continued immigration of the best and brightest from the rest of the world is a positive for the US. But that's not what I'm criticizing in the report.
The author attempts to argue that American students are becoming more interested in engineering, and that foreign students are less so, based on the enrollment numbers into US graduate programs, and thus we don't need more foreign workers. From my experience as a professor, I offer an alternate explanation:
I feel this "analysis" is far from objective; the Hudson Institute, a far-right think tank, evidently has quite the axe to grind with immigration (just as they do with Social Security and organic foods).
Do the Slashdot editors even check the nature of the sites that are linked to? Apparently, VDare.com is an extremely biased site that shouldn't be linked to. What happened to objectivity? What if we started linking to KKK sites?
For one thing, this tells alot about the poster of article.
There is a glut of Ph.D's in the US creating an over-competitive environment that's drastically deflating the pay level. What really should be done, is restricting the Ph.D's that schools push out to help overcompensate for the over inflation. But this won't happen. Why? Grad students are cheap labor for PI's. Schools accept grad students not because they are interesting in training and bringing more qualified people into the field, but rather because they need them to work for PI's. A PI is only as good as his/her grad students. If you add in a post-doc period, you are looking at, in some cases, 10+ years (a figure nowadays that has been increasing as many people are having to do multiple post-docs) of getting paid 1/2 of what you would have gotten if you had just gone straight into industry. Mind you, this isn't a bread and butter time either. This is a period where (in most cases), people are spending ridiculous hours working weekends/nights trying desperately to get data. And for what? An even more competitive academic environment where the positions to applicants ratio is (in some fields) 1:10. We haven't even gotten to the whole tenure track part. Add in all these factors and it is not surprising that 1 in 3 of these students never even complete their graduate "training"--most fighting for a masters.
I hate to seem pessimistic, but this article is long overdue, and at the same time, disturbing. We are flooding the market with ambitious bright individuals with promises of great prestige and fortune.
I really think they need to make a "Sims:The rise to professor" game depicting the rather long and gruesome journey to professorship. It would have to be realistic, so on average, you should only be winning, say, 5% of the time. Most people don't realize how different the actual and perceived opinion of prospective graduate students is from the actual reality of academia. I'm actually quite surprised that only 4-5% of Ph.D's are working outside their field (mind you, this figure doesn't include people that wanted to be in academia but couldn't get a position and ended up in industry). Sadly, I know a few that are working in simple jobs as security guards.
(And before someone jumps down my throat saying that I am bitter because I had a bad experience--I actually haven't. However, I know many more that have, and while I can't empathize (as much) with them, I certainly sympathize).
4.2 percent of science and engineering PhDs work outside their field of training, chiefly for financial reasons
Sounds like someone is off by an order of magnitude?
Well, there would obviously be a large shortage of racist sites. Ah the power of the slashdot effect.
If there is no shortage of IT/Tech workers then why is it that I can't find a half-way decent IT person at my organization? Why is it that at a recent multi-agency training session the one IT person attending was completely clueless about the most basic network stuff? Why is it that I am better off being my own IT person (for which I have no formal training) than I am to rely on anyone remotely associated with any IT department for any company I've ever worked for? I know there are still smart IT geeks out there, I just want to know where they are because this seems to be the only place I can find any and no one here is going to do a darn thing about any of my IT issues.
I sure hope everyone elses experience with their IT departments is better than mine. It just seems that the longer I hang around the worse the IT personnel have become. I don't believe the shortage of IT workers can be determined by university registrations as many are no longer working in the industry because they became disgruntled and found they could do other things for similar or more money and be much happier at it while getting their geeky IT fill on their friends and relatives PC's and home networks. The only shortage in the IT industry is in the salary, benefits, and respect afforded those willing to work in IT who have the knowledge to actually handle what's going on and manage a business' IT infrastructure.
Science & Engineering != "high tech". This summary lumps in things such as astronomy, oceanography, psychology, economics, etc as high tech, which is absurd.
... enrollment in computer science declined 3% two years ago according to the linked pdf.
Furthermore, the only calls for "high tech workers" I've seen is for computer programmers. And hey, what do you know
The poster also neglected to consider that a "shortage" merely means that there are fewer people available than positions are open -- ie: they failed to compare enrollement to changes in the number of available conditions. If enrollment had increased by 10%, but open positions increased by 30%, then there would still be a shortage.
Additionally, the pool of available workers IN the United States INCLUDES "foreign students." They've already got green cards, and don't count against the H1B quota cap.
Finally, the fact that we've got fewer foreign students reflects somewhat on the quality of education available here relative to wherever it is they're coming from -- meaning that workers here are losing some of their competative advantage relative to people educated in foreign countries.
The only thing this document does is counter the point the original poster is trying to make.
For contrary views see the survey of higher education in the current Economist and this story in the Guardian.
I have often heard the complaint that 'kids these days' aren't getting the same quality of education that was offered of yore. I tutor high school students in math and chemistry and I work as a programmer in a laboratory full of grad students. My experience is that the good students are getting at least as good an education as I received 25-30 years ago. However, this may be obscured by the huge numbers of students who are going on to college (see Sturgeon's Law). Personally, I am pleased to see so many people getting a shot at higher education, even if many of them don't get all the benefit they could from it.
As I have noted on slashdot before, as of right now, there is no reason for an American to pursue a PhD in science or engineering. The same person will make much more money as a doctor or lawyer, for example.
Why the difference?
Simple - your doctor or lawyer, almost by the definition of their job, must be local. They are relatively immune to competition from foreigners. This is not true for scientists, who right now are most definitely competing with very able Chinese, Indians, etc.
That being said, the usual panic cry of "keep out the foreigners" is also wrong. Each and every American scientist is competing with each and every foreign scientist in his or her field. This is true regardless of who hires them or where they work. Which do you think is best for America?
1: An American company hires the Chinese scientist, sponsers his visa and brings him to the US.
2: An American company hires the Chinese scientist, but the scientist works in the company's Chinese division.
3: A foreign company hires the Chinese scientist, and employs him overseas.
I hope you realize the first option is the best. There is nothing the government can do to stop the competition created by these new scientists, and nothing it can do to prevent wage deflation because of it. It should give up trying.
If, for national security reasons or some other random excuse, the government feels it important to have lots of native-born scientists, it will have to tackle the problem at the graduate level. Asking talented 22-30 year olds to slog through 6+ years of 70h weeks for a wage topped by the guy cleaning the toilets, while a lawyer is making $75k at age 25, is pure silliness. Making graduate school less financially miserable would be a start. Of course, it is too late for me.
Background: I'm an engineering grad student, and have TA'd/taught classes at 3 schools. I've found that the schools without grade inflation (courses graded on a curve, almost allways a C+ average) had a much higher percentage of students excited to be engineers. This (geekily enough) lead to alot of late night brainstorming sessions over beer, and as a result ideas were shared across majors, and still are. But students who werent excited about engineering were weeded out of the programs quickly (we gradauted 11 out of 35). Fast forward to the grad school I'm at. engineering classes are curved so that almost everyone gets a B+ or higher. The students dont work, dont learn, and an insanely small percentage of undergrads here actually go on to be engineers. I found the same thing at another school I visited for 1 summer. For the record, both schools are considered top 10 schools for undergrads in various news reports, and are ranked similarly for both graduate and undergraduate engineering.
Newbie, stay in a conversation about tech.
... better - That PHB is one with an education degree, you know, and more experience than the teachers below. Hardly a PHB.
Yes, but a conversation allows for lateral moves, yes? In any case having criticized him for being off topic, you then engage him point by point. What's up with that?
Errors with your points (my wife works in admin for school district):
And so you get the party line from management, yes? So I thought I'd add a few remarks from a real teacher.
1 - at least one PHB (or PhD) - First, not different every year. Only when change dictated by state. One PHB? You do realize that the principals almost always PhD's in education, not MBA's?
No, every two or three years as they get their vitas together. Still a source of disorder.
2 - endless mandatory meetings - No. Mandatory meetings are usually one per quarter, and they get the day and are paid travel. Every day is a blatent lie, plus it's not held in the county seat.
Not a blatant lie; that would be an example of hyperbole. The professional development overhead in my state (Texas) is not trivial.
3 - PHBs telling
Some are assuredly PHB's. Parent's wife I'm sure is one of the good ones I'm sure, but some are entirely as clueless and mean as Dilbert's boss.
4 - Time at the job is valued more - That's called tenure. It's the largest problem with ridding the system of bad teachers. When was the last time you knew a tech with tenure?
Score one there, kinda. We do have a much better quality of life than many tech workers (except perhaps our own). In particular, anyone who cares about raising their family (read: women) can be forgiven for finding tech a barren and unlovley place, and preferring the public schools. And I haven't noticed managers having much difficulty dislodging bad teachers, but that may be just my environment.
5 - can't move up to another position - A great display of your ignorance about the school systems. The organization is thus: Principal and staff followed immediately by a flat level of all the teachers (not University system). No team leaders, no senior programmers, no analysts; none of the hierarchy you see in many businesse
Score one there, sorta. No, you don't move up by getting other teacher's jobs. But Grandparent is basically correct that you can't go up the ladder as a teacher very readily. It takes a vast committment of time and money and bending your head around the principalship (which ain't for everyone). Though the barriers to entry seem (to me) quite high, the compensations must be nice; the competition for principalships is fierce.
--
Len of Len Corp.
I don't know what universe you crawled out of, but it bears no resemblence to mine....
1 - The principals are usually either lowly teachers (at most Masters-level graduates) or other random people that the school board happens to like. These people generally have no management skills or experience. Some of them don't know how to deal with the politics that can be avoided by lowly teachers. Some of them let the promotion go to their head and micromanage everything (after all they are the principal so they must know how things work better than those that didn't). For the type of job principals do, MBA's would probably be better able to deal with the administrative and political aspects and would be less likely to micromanage.
2 - The mandatory meetings (around here) are usually weekly to biweekly affairs that can last 3 or 4 hours. The non-hierarchal structure of school organization means that everything that needs to be discussed will be discussed during these meetings, whether its relevant to all members or not. This means that most of this meeting is completely irrelevant to the individuals present.
3 - The principal as more experience at what? Teaching 3rd graders math? 7th Grader's Spanish? Blind children colors? The fact is the principal is not all-knowing and probably only knows a bit about the specific subjects and grades that they taught. That they generally wave this around as generic years that are applicable from Algebra to Special Education only makes it worse.
4 - Tenure is meant to save good teachers from the whims of the current principal and school board. It accomplishes this job pretty well, but those untenured few who happen to come up for tenure at the wrong time are more likely to get fired than tenured (more likely than not for political reasons). And of course it also may keep bad teachers around too, but that was just a side effect...
5 - Sometimes there are team leaders. In primary schools, where every subject is generally taught by a single teacher, teachers are divided into grades and a leader is chosen. In schools where teachers only teach one subject, they are divided into departments and a leader is chosen. Of course being a team leader doesn't mean you get paid more, it only means you carry more responsibilities. Of course even though they're divided into teams, they all have to go to mandatory meetings to discuss everything...