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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
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
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.
--JohnIf 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).
To paraphrase someone in an earlier thread:
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"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
They may, actually. The reason isn't because Americans have some magical innovation gene but because I think more Indian students go in to engineering for the wrong reasons. Ok perhaps wrong reasons is too strong, but they go in to engineering without a real love for it. They aren't true engineering geeks.
Being a geek isn't just about your field, it's about having a true passion for what you do. It's when you've found the work in life that you love. An example of a famous geek is Richard Feynman. He was a physics geek. If you read his biography and lectures, it becomes readily apparant that he LOVES physics. He worked in the field for that reason alone, that he made money at it and became famous was secondary.
Well I find that by and large, the Indian students (I work for an electrical engineering department) are in it because it is percieved as a good job. They believe that engineering is really the only acceptable degree to get, and that with it they'll get a good job. I find the grad students are very similar. They should be in it for the love of learning, to do orignal research, but for most of them it's just more hoops to jump through so they can get a better job. The result is that they tend to be uncreative, and have difficulty applying their knowledge. They have lots of facts and forumlas memorized and are fine on the theory, but when it comes to real world problem solving, they are sunk on even simple tasks.
Now, as with all generalizations, this one is not a universal truth, there are some very, very smart Indian grad students. However I find that the majority Indian and Chinese students are not good critical thinkers, not good problem solvers, and not engineering geeks. They are in it to try and get a better job only. I find that the majority of American (north and south) and European grad students are in it for the love of learning. They have something they want to study and that's why they are here. Their critical thinking and problem solving tends to be much better.
I think it is cultural to a fairly large degree. A friend of mine is an CE grad, but now works in network support. He said that basically, engineering was the only option his family considered acceptable for him. He was going to unviersity, and he was going to be an engineer. Didn't matter what kind, but he was going to be an engineer. He's really not all that interested in it, hence he's working in something else right now (CE has almost nothing to do with network support).
To me it seems the US is much more open to doing what you want to do. You go to university and then you decide what you want to do. Many people even get degrees in unrelated fields, just general liberal arts degress, what an undergraduate degree used to be anyhow.
Personally, I think this is better. Not everyone is cut out to be an engineer any more than everyone is cut out to be an artist or musician. Many people can be engineers, if they struggle through the program, but that doesn't mean they should be, or that they'll be good at it.
The same is true of IT. Whenever I interview someone, I'm not actually trying to find out their computer knowledge. I really don't care all that much and I've already checked their resume. What I'm tyring to find out is if they are a computer geek. Do they like playing with computers? Do they like fixing them? Are computers something they really understand, or do they just have a lot of theoritical knowledge they can't apply? Those are the things I want to know. If the person's a geek and they can solve tech problems, the rest isn't that important. You can be trained in new things, but having an affinity for something just seems to be something you are born with.
So the US may indeed still have an innovative advantage. If we encourage people to follow their dreams, and encourage creative thinking, that helps produce people who are better at what they do. Sheer numbers don't matter. Ask any competent software producer what's better: One really good programmer that loves to program and can problem solve or 10 code monkeys. They'll all tell you they'd take the good programmer.
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).
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.
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.