I have to laugh….
Two articles today struck me as extremely funny, because “you get what you select for!” 
One of these is entitled “Confronting the coming American worker shortage.” The other is entitled “Why would-be engineers end up as English majors.” I find the FIRST title INCREDIBLY humorous, because American businesses have CREATED the American worker shortage in the FIRST place, by offshoring American jobs and laying off skilled American workers (in the sciences, engineering, math, and technical fields) long before retirement age. (“Stupid IS as stupid DOES!“)
The morons (a derogatory term, NOT a cartoon term [“maroons”]) who run American businesses have been selecting against scientists, mathematicians, and engineers for years. For that matter, so has American government. Besides that, American corporations have been OFFSHORING jobs and laying off American workers LONG before retirement age, seemingly unaware that they will soon run out of “Baby Boomers” to employ (and there is NOBODY to take their places)!
Why is America experiencing a shortage of scientific and technical workers? Because the highest-paying jobs go to people who do NOT major in those fields…. The first article states:
“The CEO-driven initiative launched last fall as part of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top education initiative in response to forecasts that the U.S. will be short as many as 3 million high-skills workers by 2018, according to a Georgetown University report issued last year. Two thirds of those jobs will require at least some post-secondary education, says Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown’s Center on Education and the Workforce.”
So… what has the cost of education in the University of California system done in the last two years? Increased 32%! Would an intelligent student major in a 5-year engineering degree or a scientific field that will require graduate work and at least one advanced degree? Or would that intelligent student major in easier (yes, they ARE easier) BUSINESS courses where they will earn more money later and be able to pay off their college loans?
Don’t misunderstand me. I say this as a person with a B.S. in biology and an M.S. and all-but-dissertation in bacteriology from two very fine “Big Ten” schools.
(Note added May 27, 2011: A missing piece – the people with the bachelor’s in business [or an MBA] to whom the scientists, mathematicians, and engineers will likely report, might THEMSELVES wind up reporting to someone who dropped out of college, like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs, who may have used some combination of aggressiveness, “street smarts,” intuition, hard work, intelligence, or family wealth, to achieve great wealth and a great job. Congress might want to call in such individuals and ask THEM why they did not pursue the bachelor’s degree or an advanced degree in the sciences, math, engineering, or technology. )
The first article states:
STEM = science, technology, engineering and math.
DUH! If you choose to major in one of these fields, you will likely spend your life working for some AGGRESSIVE (but not very intelligent) individual with a bachelors degree in business. You will find yourself working long hours for less pay than that individual, who has been selected because of his/her personality type (almost always a Myers-Briggs “Thinking-Judging” type) and its similarity to the personality types of those already in upper management.
For that matter, who are the people in government who are WORRYING about America’s ability to compete? Certainly NOT many people from the science, technology, engineering, and math fields…. More like people from EASIER courses of studies, who have attained higher-paying jobs….
As my OWN children were growing up, I recommended that they become “self-employed” professionals. That way, if they wound up working for an idiot, it was their own fault!
The second article talks about the extreme competitiveness in the STEM fields:
and
The REASON that such courses of study foster extreme competition and are designed to winnow down the number of students is because the academic departments involved have CLONED personality types of sadistic bastards who believe that such conditions are GOOD for their fields and who, BTW, ENJOY watching helpless students suffer, anyway!
Frankly, I am GLAD that government and corporations are finally WAKING UP to the fact that THEY HAVE CREATED this problem. They are only about TWO GENERATIONS late. This is NOT a new problem! I saw this problem when I was in universities in the sciences about 40 years ago. At that time, the bullying and sadistic natures of many professors in the fields tended to decrease the numbers of graduates in the sciences. For example, in an undergraduate (sophomore) organic chemistry class designed for would-be chemists, biochemists, and chemical engineers, the chemistry department that ran the courses ALSO required new GRADUATE STUDENTS to take the same undergraduate course, and to “skew the curve.”
So… morons in government and morons in industry… WHY should America’s best and brightest minds spend more money and more time in TOUGHER COURSES to earn scientific, mathematical, and technical degrees to wind up working for people LIKE YOU?
I will be surprised if you can come up with a logical answer.
-Bill at
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