I'm not sure that's really the point, but I'd say that there is a heavy force in education against science, math, and all other forms of critical inquiry.
One of the biggest reasons people would leave the Mathematics department at my university was because they couldn't deal with being told that their proofs were crap, and that they needed to get the quality of their work up if they wanted to succeed.
It's not that the work was "too hard". It's that students couldn't get coast on extra credit points and pure-opinion essays, like they had gotten used to in high school and junior college. Finishing a complete trip through Math, Engineering, or any of the sciences required actual effort, as well as the ability to handle criticism, a skill that many students lacked after over twelve years of education.
I also had a chance to see the other side of the coin, because my second degree was in a foreign language. My Japanese degree consisted of nearly four years of classes which required almost no effort whatsoever. Loads of extra credit and students handing in work months after the deadline were the rule, not the exception.
Many of my fellow students in the Japanese program were majoring in Asian Studies or Asian History, and complained incessantly about the difficulty of their classes. Even though their major fields were focused heavily on Japan, many of them couldn't even read at the equivalent of a fourth-grade level, after studying the language for four years.
I asked many of them why they chose their majors, versus engineering or mathematics, and the most common responses cited how harsh their previous Math and Science professors had been, by not allowing extra credit, late homework, and so on.
While this does not constitute any sort of proof or rigorous study, it illustrates the point that our schools are far too lenient on students, and lenient schools do not produce graduates who can survive the crucible-like atmosphere of even an undergraduate science program.
I think it's worth noting that I don't think the people in my Japanese classes were inherently stupid, lazy, or anything else of the sort. Merely that they've been spent years being indoctrinated to avoid criticism, and that the end result of this has been them shifting to the easiest possible path through college, rather than trying something because it was hard.
One irony I find in this is that I studied Japanese (along with my Logic and Computation major) because I thought it was hard.
Although, I wish I had some of the lenient teachers you describe :). I didn't have much trouble with memorizing words, grammar rules, etc. But speaking and listening real time I found to be quite a challenge.
And I can empathize with people who had trouble reading Japanese at a 4th grade level :). Wasn't there an article on here a while back about the difficulties of studying Chinese compared to other European languages? I related to much of that.
Dual-majoring in two separate fields is a challenge, no matter what you decide to do, so as a fellow person who seems to kick his own ass too much, I salute you. grin
Japanese is certainly harder for an English speaker than German, French, or Spanish, but even so, it should only take a dedicated student about two years to attain fluency in the language.
I was not a dedicated student, so I've got another year before I think I'll pass the JLPT 1, bringing the total to about six years, which is (somewhat) respectable, given that this is just a hobby.
But the majority of my classmates were majoring in the subject, with many planning on going on to graduate school. Even so, most were utterly incompetent, thanks to an education system that has taught them to avoid effort. I think that, if some of these kids had had their asses kicked, and gotten some real challenges, that they would have done some incredible work.
I actually feel sorry for my teachers; I could see that they wanted to push the students harder, but that they knew that it just wouldn't work, and that they had no power, because it was such a small department at the University. So, if they ticked off too many people, they'd be out of a job. The head teacher, who is a really sweet woman, has had a couple of nervous breakdowns over the past year, partially due to the stress of dealing with her classes.
She's actually one of the motivations for my study tools project, because it should help her out quite a bit.
I think there are many factors involved, but the author seems to want to use 'US doing bad in science' as a hammer to beat on one particular point, which may well be a valid one, but is doubtless only one of many problems.
Given the current state of insourcing/outsourcing, why study science or engineering when both of these fields are vulnerable to job transfer to different parts of the globe? Better to concentrate on those things which will survive such shifts: Law, Medicine, and seemingly mundane things like repair-of-stuff. Business is popular right now, but after training our competitors, I think many of today's business people will see their jobs, if not their entire companies, attacked by foreign competition. Medicine's not even safe, as anything that can be done w/o patient contact can be done in different time zones.
Besides, science/engineering is hard - requiring 6+ years for engineering and 8-10+ years for science to be able to work as a "full member" of the field. Why take all that time when you can do 2-3 startups and retire rich?
I could take issue with some of these arguments. But I'm upmodding you anyway because your comment is an order of magnitude more sensible than the original article.
I used to work in the fabs of the former Hewlett-Packard, all but one of which have now been outsourced to Malaysia and Singapore. It happened to the fab I worked in -- just after 9/11 we were told that our factory would be closed in a year and that most of the local workers would be laid off. It was a profoundly depressing experience -- like the opposite of working at a startup. I was working at a shutdown.
Every time a factory closes and lays off, say, five hundred people, that's five hundred families -- and their friends, and their relations -- who learn the lesson: Technically skilled people live in fear of being laid off.
It's pretty hard to get someone excited about mechanical engineering when every automotive engineer and machinist she knows is living the life of a frightened rabbit.
> Technically skilled people live in fear of being laid off.
I don't know. The folks I know without a solid education of some sort live in much more fear of losing their jobs than I do. And with good reason it would seem. Most of them go through 2-3 jobs a year.
The problem with losing a job in high-end American manufacturing [1] is that you often cannot get another such job without, at the very least, moving your family across the country. There used to be half a dozen HP fabs in California. I believe there may still be one of them left, but I'm not even sure of that.
And, mind you, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'd certainly rather be an unemployed engineer than a fully employed minimum-wage day laborer. And, if that were the choice, engineering schools would all be full of people. But what we're trying to explain is why young people choose to pursue legal or medical [2] or business education instead of engineering. That's not necessarily a rational choice. Young people make that choice based on cultural cues. And the culture of U.S. manufacturing has been gloomy for years, not without reason -- the overvalued dollar was a disaster for domestic manufacturing.
[1] As opposed to sweatshop manufacturing, which I know nothing about. For all I know there's plenty of work as sweated labor. But that doesn't exactly encourage folks to go out and get those advanced degrees.
[2] Here it's worth noting that, thanks to their effective political organization, doctors and lawyers have licensing requirements that protect them from foreign competition. That's why everyone's free to talk about outsourcing medical tasks to India over the network, but nobody ever talks about the obvious possibility of importing Indian doctors to serve in roles -- like primary care -- that are suffering from shortages in the USA. For some reason that H1B-visa solution is only ever applied to engineers... do you think that people choosing college majors (and their parents) don't notice that and draw conclusions from it?
Now, I don't think this is as big a problem, in reality, as I just made it sound. Engineering is a much safer career than people think, and medicine and law are much more tedious and problematic than people realize. But that's not reflected in the relative reputations of the fields.
> I'd certainly rather be an unemployed engineer than a fully employed minimum-wage day laborer. And, if that were the choice, engineering schools would all be full of people. But what we're trying to explain is why young people choose to pursue legal or medical [2] or business education instead of engineering.
You've hit on a truly glaring omission from almost every hand wringing article about the dearth of US citizens in graduate science and engineering programs. It happens over and over (an interview with the Dean of the engineering school at Princeton comes to mind, but these articles appear once every month or two in a major publication).
As you've pointed out, they compare the salaries and working conditions for engineers with graduate degrees against a national average for all workers, and then wonder why the best and brightest Americans aren't lining up for graduate degrees in the Engineering school. But I have never, not even once, seen the author of one of these articles ask they question you just posed: why would a young person choose to pursue a PhD in computer science or mechanical engineering instead of getting an MBA and shooting for investment banking, getting a JD with an eye toward patent law, or getting an MD and applying to cardiology residencies? These programs certainly have demanding admissions requirements and turn a lot of people away, but nobody seems to lament a lack of interest among young Americans in these fields.
So why these and not engineering? There may indeed be some wonderful reasons to choose engineering or science, but this is the question that would lead to real, honest discussion instead of this "engineering is so wonderful, we just need to make it cool crap".
Why don't engineering deans talk honestly about the problem? Well, partly because no (e.g.) aerospace engineering professor is crazy enough to stand up and say "The reason nobody wants to major in my field is that aerospace engineering has been in near-stasis for decades. Very few new civilian aircraft are being designed or built, especially in the USA, and military and NASA designs are judged less by their airworthiness and more by their ability to generously disburse taxpayer dollars to contractors in all fifty states." [1]
Nobody gets tenure by saying things like that.
Obviously engineering professors could help to improve working conditions for their graduates, if they know how. Many of them don't, though. You don't necessarily learn how to run a successful engineering business by teaching engineering in school.
But a big reason is that deans have little real incentive to change the system. The number of undergraduate majors in a major-university engineering department is poorly correlated with its reputation or its wealth. The real money in academic engineering departments is in research grants, and undergrads are a net hindrance to research. You need a lot of talented grad students, but it doesn't really matter if they're all from overseas.
The folks who are in pain from lack of domestically-trained undergraduate engineers are the companies trying to hire them in the USA, not the universities. A college would rather have you pay full tuition to major in English than in EE. Teaching English is one hell of a lot cheaper, because adjunct English professors are desperate to eat.
[1] Note: Argument exaggerated for effect. Author actually has no idea what aerospace engineering is like these days.
Yeah, those are definitely reasons why they don't. But part of me would hope that a scientist's zeal for objectivity would compel them to address this question honestly.
By the way, a professor name William Zumeta wrote a very good paper on this subject.
I don't think that's what he is saying. I think he is merely saying that science ranks below things like diversity and self esteem on the academic list of priorities. And that's almost certainly true. As an example, when applying for a certain NSF grant, you must address "broader impacts" (aka, "why should we care about your research?"):
"(1) effectively integrate research and education...(2) encourage diversity, broaden opportunities, and enable the participation of all citizens-women and men, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities-in science and research; (3) enhance scientific and technical understanding; and (4) benefit society."
The attitudes he is describing are quite pervasive in academic culture; as an academic, I know exactly what he is talking about. Keep in mind, he is writing for the Chronicle of Higher Education, so he expects the typical reader to be familiar with what he is describing.
International tests indicate that American fourth graders rank among the top students in the world in science and above average in math. By eighth grade, they have moved closer to the middle of the pack. By 12th grade, our students score near the bottom of all industrialized nations. As a result, too many of them enter college without even the basic skills needed to pursue a degree in science or engineering. </quote>
I think it's fairly coherent. He says that Students are more affected by cultural than market forces as they are being educated. And that cultural forces are science/hard work hostile.
What I disagree with is the implication that some how the market forces are science friendly (i.e. the need for scientists and engineers translates into good working conditions, opportunity, etc.). Unfortunately this is not so much the case.
He says it, as if it were true, without any evidence or even argument other than "I said so" to support whether these cultural forces have any effect on outcomes. As someone elsewhere points out, he does reference poor outcomes, but that doesn't mean he's made any argument other than hand-waving.
"Back in 2003, the National Science Board issued a report that noted steep declines in "graduate enrollments of U.S. citizens and permanent residents" in the sciences. The explanation? "Declining federal support for research sends negative signals to interested students." That seems unlikely, in that the alleged decline hasn't dampened the enthusiasm of students from all around the world for our country's graduate programs."
Almost stopped reading there. I can think of 10 reasons why that's stupid reasoning.
The guys is expressing his opinion. No doubt in somewhat vague terms, but I feel like I have a good sense of what he means.
Also it's easy to say to anyone who expresses an opinion to back it up with a rigorous scientific study. But that can simply be a rhetorical technique to limit discussion.
The virtue of sustainability...what does sustainable mean? Stable, static. Progress means dynamic and changing, it means being forced to adapt when things have changed in a direction you didn't plan.
Okay, what about the society? Chromosomes can't be changed. You can't change your race or gender or who your parents were, so how can you judge someone based on those things? Scientific progress is made by human minds. Arguing about getting more women/blacks/jews/gays/who-ever into a field isn't helpful. It doesn't advance science, it turns it into a meta-discussion about people who do science.
I see a lot of meaning in both, and I haven't even started reading the article yet (I'll do it after I grab a coffee.)
He's talking like a mathematics professor who states some of the steps of his proof and expects the students to be smart enough to fill in the blanks and see his logic :-P
Right. I would argue that the descent of much of America into religious fundamentalism, with its associated medieval beliefs (evolution isn't true, the planet is only a few thousand years old), is much more detrimental to producing quality scientists than any diversity program.
While there has probably been an upswing in "funtamentalist Christianity" in the U.S., I think you have an uphill climb trying to prove that there is really even a correlation between the trends of a decrease in graduate science enrollment by Americans and the religious issue. What's the data your post is based on?
