Too Few American Scientists? Maybe Not 607
An anonymous reader writes "We've been hearing about bad K-12 science education, too few American science and engineering students, and the real-soon-now employment nirvana in technical fields for, like, the last 20 years. The reality: rising undergrad enrollments and unemployment rates, long years as an underpaid postdoc for those who finish a Ph.D. The Chronicle of Higher Education article quotes Harvard economist Richard Freeman: 'They're not studying science,' he says, 'because they look and say, "Do I want to be a postdoc paid $35,000 or $40,000 at age 35, with extreme uncertainty working in somebody else's lab, and maybe getting credit for my work and maybe not getting full credit? Or would I rather be an M.B.A. and making $150,000 and hiring Ph.D.'s?"'"
http://scijobs.freeshell.org/ (Score:1, Informative)
Re:$150K MBAs? (Score:3, Informative)
Only if they graduate from Harvard, Yale, Wharton, Stanford, or some other top 5 school.
2. If (as seems to be the implicit assumption) the science PhD could do the MBA's jobs as well, any company hiring PhD's can gain competitive advantage (lowers wage costs) by hiring science PhD's instead of MBA's. Don't companies realize this? Or is there more to MBA's than we all assume?
A lot of business is fuzzy thinking. In my MBA program, half my class is engineers. They're great at the math, but unfortunately, they trust the numbers too much. IMHO. Some have a hard time realizing that the numbers are an approximation and not based on physical laws like theey're used to in engineering.
Just my opinion because I do the same thing.
Speaking of jobs... (Score:3, Informative)
situation in Europe (Score:1, Informative)
According to Gazeta Wyborcza (newspaper from Poland) by the 2010 year Europe will be lack of 700 000 young scientist. Every year in EU 2,8 mln people get master's degree (USA - 2,1 mln, Japan - 1,1 mln), but many of these scientists go to America or Canada. America provides better earnings, research equipment and less bureaucratic problems. To prevent this European Commision run ERA-MORE [eu.int] and The Researcher's Mobility Portal [eu.int] which helps European scientist.
Re:What does K-12 science education matter here an (Score:3, Informative)
I wholeheartedly agree. I remember as a child *hating* science classes. Up until 14 I wanted to be a musician, after that a writer.
I went to college to be a science teacher, and was appalled. They concentrate more on the teaching than the science (now, i am not saying that being able to effectively communicate an idea is wrong to learn) but these idiots were getting D's in their science classes. Maybe the problem that no one goes into science is because of this phenomena.
Happily to say, I am pursuing a Ph.D in the sciences. It has nothing to do with my experience as a child. It has everything to do with the women who taught me calculus. She was a real encouragement to me going on to grad school.
And for all those people who say that women don't go into sciences: you should check out the men:women ration at schools of public health. All of the ones in the US have more women.
It's an extinction event! (Score:2, Informative)
Well, according to NSF statistics [nsf.gov], US science and engineering is pretty clearly heading for an extinction-level event!
Here are total doctoral degrees by US citizens (or permanent residents) for the years 1995 and 2002.
The physics and math communities, in particular, need to recognize that companies hiring few American engineers will be hiring no physicists or mathematicians. Conversely, the engineering communities need to recognize that in the long run, US companies need several PhD-level engineers to justify employing even one physicist or mathematician.
The present system is like an ecosystem with plenty of sea otters (the physicists and mathematicians), but far too few abalone (the engineers). All very beautiful, no doubt, except the young sea otters starve to death. Meanwhile, the senior sea otters -- who are in secure possession of resources protected by tenure -- are slow to recognize that an extinction-level event is underway.
Thus, unless dramatic breakthroughs occur, the numbers seem to indicate that a US techno-Ellie is irreversible and inevitable.
Re:MBA is not the end all be all (Score:3, Informative)
If an undergrad degree is a given (all the jobs we're talking about require one) it's not really germane to the tally.
Re:I have to agree with this assessment (Score:2, Informative)
I researched this very statistic while I was deciding between an MSEE or MBA several years ago. Of about 34 top US semiconductor companies(highest revenues) about 70% of the CEOs had an MS or PhD AND an MBA. Most these MBAs were earned as the CEO worked his/her up the company after starting as a non-manager.
CEOs with only non-engineering or scientific backgrounds are in the minority for major companies in the semiconductor industry.
Why the Education System is So Bad (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It's about time... (Score:3, Informative)
The minimum qualification for most jobs is a degree.
The people at those call centres that posters here keep whining about usually have graduates answering the phones.
If you want to do anything more than be a clerk (and out here, book keeping is very low on the totem pole in terms of respect and salary), you need either a postgrad or an engineering/medical degree. And more companies prefer engineers than postgrads (except engineering postgrads).
Oh really? (Score:3, Informative)
It's just morally wrong to claim exclusive ownership over something nonrivalrous.
So Wiles shouldn't claim ownership over semi-stable Taniyama-Shimura?
And Hilbert shouldn't claim ownership over the Nullstellensatz?
And Gauss shouldn't claim ownership over Theorema Egregium or Theorema Aureum?
And neither Newton nor Leibniz should claim ownership over the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus?
And Galileo shouldn't claim ownership over Conservation of Momentum?
And Scotus shouldn't claim ownership over the concept of infinity?
And Archimedes shouldn't claim ownership over the volume of solids?
And Hippasus shouldn't claim ownership over the irrationals?
Re:I'm not surprised (Score:3, Informative)
This is not correct (having worked as a researcher in academia).
Both private industry and academia protect the IP generated by their research scientists. If you have a patentable idea, both will generally file the patent etc for you, for free (assuming in both cases that the IP might have enough future economic value to be worth patenting in the first place). In private industry, that's all you get (maybe a bonus if they feel generous, but it's usually not required). Academics usually get 50% of any and all future royalties.
In sort, both academics and private industry protect the researchers IP, and arguably you (as researcher) get a much better deal [exclusive of salary] in academia than in industry.
-JS