Reversing the Loss of Science and Engineering Careers

walterbyrd writes "In response to the alleged shortages of qualified American engineers and technology professionals, numerous initiatives have been launched to boost interest in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) careers and to strengthen STEM education in the United States. Unfortunately, these programs have not proven successful, and many blame the laziness of modern students, the ineptitude of their teachers, poor parenting or, when there are no other excuses remaining, they may even jump to moral decay as a causative agent. However, the failure of STEM is because the very policies that created the shortages continue unabated. This is not a uniquely American problem. The best way to increase interest in STEM degrees is by making certain that STEM careers are actually viable."

Comments

uhmm most STEM jobs are govt jobs

[decora]

either they are direct govt employees, or they are employed by companies that exist maily because of government contracts.

Re:Engineering shortage?

[Jeff1946]

As a Phd chemist, I believe the hardest major is chemical engineering. Not only do you need to study chemistry but also master subjects like heat and mass transfer.

Re:Supply and demand

[BlueStrat]

It's simple supply and demand.

Anyone who is smart enough to do STEM is also smart enough to get an MBA for a lot less work, and have 10x the earnings potential.

The reason that is true is that manufacturing, energy production, and heavy industry in the US is nearly dead, and has been intentionally socially-engineered by the government over the last 60 years to reach this point. Progressive forces have been working to consistently move wealth-generation, in the form of manufacturing, energy production, and heavy industry, out of the US since the late-'60s.

They see wealth as a limited, zero-sum game. In order for someone to get rich, they feel that someone else must get poorer. This is complete bunk, as wealth can be created through Capitalism, which they perceive as a dirty word. Instead, they seek "financial justice" by moving the US's ability to generate wealth and jobs overseas to poorer countries that they see as having been "robbed" by the US's wealth. They see the world as one world-state, and with that concept, different areas of the world treated like different regions of a single nation...manufacturing in the China/Indonesia region, petroleum resources from the Middle East and Russia, "intellectual property" business in the US, and so on.

They know that such narrowing of Western nation's economic and industrial bases, and with such narrowing and limiting, the abilities to support themselves, will lead to economic turmoil and eventual collapses of Western nations' economies and their governments. This is when they step in to offer "rescue", if only that nation will give up it's sovereignty.

This is how they plan to bring about the "NWO".

STEM jobs aren't coming back to Western nations unless there is a large systemic political upheaval and a total discrediting of the Progressive ideology, as happened once in the early 1900s, and spurred the switch from calling their ideology "Progressive" to "Liberal" in order to escape righteous public ridicule of their already-tried-and-failed ideas. Now, they're trying to distance themselves from the term "Liberal" and attempting to re-brand themselves once again as "Progressives". You'd think they'd have enough imagination to think up a new term, but oh well.

Why would anyone spend resources and time to learn a dead & dying (in the Western world) trade/skill? It's not like steel plants or other heavy industry will ever be coming back.

Strat