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U.S. Science Gap Fictional?
James Cho writes "There are more science and engineering students than ever, says one Newsweek journalist. Inflated counts of Chinese and Indian students have created the myth of the U.S. science gap. While no gap exists yet, an exodus of retiring U.S. scientists could create one." From the article: "...a country's capacity for scientific and commercial innovation does not correlate directly with its number of scientists and engineers. Hard work, imagination and business practices also matter."
Why bust your hump getting MS or PhD in one of the hard sciences/engineering, only to land a job making less than 80k?? OR ... you can go to law school, or get an MBA, or sell cell phones, or flip real estate, and have a much greater earning potential for much less work. Until wage scale for engineering and the sciences returns its proper level there will be a deficit of people entering those careers.
I find it ironic that the only people likely to care about this apparent decline in US Scientists is us, the Science types.
I am an engineer with a Master's Degree and even one of those silly Professional Engineer licenses. I work for a Mortgage company as an analyst / project manager. I gave-up on engineering years ago due to low salaries, poor opportunities and companies going down the tubes. People who fix cars make way more than engineers. Not a slam on them as I am thinking about going to tech school to do such a career change. There is simply a glut of people out there with technical degrees. Try hiring a programmer; you get flooded with thousands of resumes.
Hard work is meaningless in a bureaucracy. Imagination and innovation are simply incompatible with bureaucracy and office politics. Only business practices matter. That is why the modern workplace is an adversarial, backwards, anti-innovation toilet.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
Business men claim that there is a lack of engineering talent grown here in the U.S. What they really mean is that there is a lack of U.S. engineers who are willing to work 60 hours a week for coolie wages - which is why they hire foreign engineers, programmers etc.
Technical people get very little respect in the U.S. Last week's Battlestar Galactica - where an engineering officer was promoted to command showed the way that the "people people" view technical people: "they only know how to deal with machines", "its all about the people - don't forget that" Of course "people people" are not technical people for the very simple reason that they can't be. The technical people who go into management tend to be technical incompetents who couldn't cut it where they were.
"People people" tend simply to be emotional bullies - stand up to them and they wilt. "People people" tend to make bad decisions that screw things up - hurting a lot of people in the process. Mostly their emotional strength is used for such ridiculous things as breaking off relationships - instead of making things work, they insure things are broken. While technical people get little respect from managers most managers don't know that the technical people are laughing at them behind their backs.
And yes, there is such a thing as a good manager - just like there is such a thing as an incompetent engineer.
Well, cut out the massive U.S. subsidies to Israel and see how well they do. Singapore might be a better example.
I couldn't find any discussion of this statement in the cited article, so the submitter appears to have pulled it out of an unspecified nether region. Is there any actual evidence to support it?
When I started college 17 years ago the conventional wisdom was that the job market for academic scientists was tight, but that it was bound to improve as the big cohort of professors who got tenure in the 1950s and 1960s -- when colleges and universities were expanding like mad -- retired and opened up positions for new folks.
Now, 17 years later, the job market for academic scientists seems to be as tight as ever. So I'm pretty skeptical of the old "imminent retirement" argument. As the article does point out, the rate at which science and engineering degrees are awarded has grown by 38% over the last two decades. Doesn't this growth more than assure that we can replace our existing scientists as they retire? Has the rate at which scientists retire really grown by more than 38% since 1990?
I'm currently an undergraduate at a small science/tech school majoring in physics. Since there are only a handful of people in my field of major the professors know each of us on a first name basis. What I'm getting at is I often speak with the professors about their research and interests.
If there is a deficit of science and engineering majors I doubt that is the true issue. I don't exactly believe the argument the quality and motivation of the graduates has decreased either - but rather ambitious research isn't what it used to be.
Just recently we had a story on the discovery of CCDs. The scientists had an idea, deviated from whatever project they were working on, an tested their idea which led to a new technology and market. This is where the problem lies - in the present industry there is little incentive for ambitious or abnormal projects. Funds are allocated for very specific projects, and if some side discovery is made with that funding it may very well be frowned upon (did I ask for a CCD chip!?). In the academia there is a similar attitude of "publish or perish". Why research cutting edge technologies involving complex quantum mechanics, nanotechnologies, and so on if there's a chance of failure? You don't, because if you failed you'd be done. So, many scientists are studying basic things that can be guaranteed results. The professor I know well here has toyed with the idea of testing the EPR hypothesis with entangled atoms or particles. Unfortunately that's difficult, and after much funding he could very well fail. So most likely he'll never try, which is a shame because if he succeeded it would be one for the textbooks. Instead he's studying something practical, such as wetting of surfaces, that can assure a solid review and published papers.
It's really unfortunate people aren't taking chances due to this attitude.
I just don't see how sci/tech/math can be our nation's comparative advantage. The laws of math and physics are the same in low-labor-rate countries. Apples fall down there too. Thus, it makes economic sense to do R&D there.
Some cite "innovation", but it is a myth that only western countries/peoples have innovation. Most of the "innovations" that come out of the US of late are marketing or legal innovations, not really technical ones.
For good or bad, consumer marketing is our comparative advantage because we consume more than any other country. Face the new music and prepare for the new dance. Sci/tech/math is dying or stagnant here because our cost of living is too high.
Table-ized A.I.
I spent the time and money to get a MSCS. After going through 2 other majors I found I simply love computer science. I love learning. I love solving problems. And, I really get a charge out of seeing products I worked on selling in stores or being used in offices.
:-)
Troule is, the older I got, the more grey there was in my beard, the harder it got to find jobs. No matter what kind of training you have, in the US there is a serious bias against old people. Many people, (most people?) assume that if you are over 40 you can't possibly know anything about technology.
So, after getting the graduate degree, spending thousands of dollars every years for books and training, and shipping I don't know how many commercial products, not to mention writing and publishing many articles; I can't *buy* a job in technology. I was laid off on my 49 birthday in 2001 and I have not been able to find anything since then.
Once in a while I get an interview... It ends as soon as they see that I am "old"...
So, I am training to be a high school teacher. I teach part time at the local CC, but I can't get on there full time. There are so many people like me out there that I am actually under qualified to teach at a community college. In my neighborhood there are a half a dozen of us. We live on savings, part time jobs, and our wives incomes. It seems you can't get away with treating old women the way you can get away with treating old men.
So, if you want to go into science and technology, please do. The world needs you. But, plan on "retiring" by age 50 because no company needs you after that age.
Stonewolf
P.S.
Forced retirement isn't all bad. At age 50 I took up a martial art and meditation. The result is that I can now kick ass on most (not all!) of my young students, but I don't want to.
Heh, I'm assuming you're an engineering major...for the sciences (mostly biology and physics, less so for chemistry) take away 20k for each of those.