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The Real Science Gap
walterbyrd writes "This article attempts to explain why the US is struggling in its competition with other countries in the realm of scientific advancement. 'It's not insufficient schooling or a shortage of scientists. It's a lack of job opportunities. Americans need the reasonable hope that spending their youth preparing to do science will provide a satisfactory career.' I can hardly believe that somebody actually understands the present situation. It continues, 'The current approach — trying to improve the students or schools — will not produce the desired result, the experts predict, because the forces driving bright young Americans away from technical careers arise elsewhere, in the very structure of the US research establishment. For generations, that establishment served as the world’s nimblest and most productive source of great science and outstanding young scientists. Because of long-ignored internal contradictions, however, the American research enterprise has become so severely dysfunctional that it actively prevents the great majority of the young Americans aspiring to do research from realizing their dreams.'"
I am a scientist and manned exploration is basically a useless waste of money for us (and yes my research is deeply rooted into space exploration). Robots bring more data for a fraction of the cost. I have yet to hear any of my colleague complain about the government new plans for space. On the contrary.
It's not specifically structured finance, but the whole system of money-making.
In my company, there are a number of world class engineers who do consulting work.
There are also sales drones... err people... who sell said work.
We bill about $300/hr for consulting and our better engineers make $200k. Not bad. Even the average guy makes $125k or so.
But our top sales guy made almost $1m last year and there are a dozen of them making over $500k. That's more than the CEO.
The sales guys can sell so much because we have world class engineers and a world class management team.
Why did he make 8x what some of these world class engineers make? Is it because sales is more important?
I don't think he's a world class person in any regard. He's a lush. He gets kicked out of strip clubs on friday nights for getting sloshed and being a dick.
At the same time, his engineer is at home working to finish up the project he was working on to pay for that strip club outing.
Ahh the justice.
Word.
How did the grand-parent post get modded up? If you leave PhD program in the sciences with any debt, it's either left over from your undergrad years or it's lifestyle debt (car, eating out, clothes, etc.)
Between teaching, research grants, and cleaning test tubes, grad school in the sciences will cost you $0 out of pocket for tuition, fees, rent, and food.