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126 comments on Thursday Open Thread...

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LevinK on December 8, 2005 - 5:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hmmm very interesting statistics, thanks.
But I think we are looking at different data for the engineers. I think the right table is:
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d04/tables/dt04_282.asp

The engineers data is pretty much speaking for itself. With economy growth, the number of graduated engineers steadily grew to 97,099 until 1985-86, which by some coincidence is exactly 5 years after RR entered the White House.
Later we obviously decided that our economy does not need them because the number steadily drops to 77,267 in 2003, while in the same time the population and economy were supposedly growing.

The lawyers numbers stalled around 40K during the previous 15 years, which I interpret as the labor market was already too saturated with them.

But think of it this way. If in your company you have 30 people to project, build and maintain the buildings and the equipment, to design and monitor the production process, to solve production problems and to engineer new products and processes; and 20 people to prepare your documentation and to represent you in court (whom you pay twice as much as the other 30 people), I'd definately say that your company will not survive long.

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TJ on December 8, 2005 - 5:20pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I seem to recall seeing somewhere that China expects to graduate 400,000 engineers this year.
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Leanan on December 8, 2005 - 8:59pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think China will kick our butts, scientifically.  In China, everyone learns calculus.  It's expected, just as everyone here is expected to learn how to drive.  (While here, we get "Math is hard" Barbie.)    

Plus, I suspect the next big thing will be genetic engineering, and we're at a huge disadvantage there.  We try to teach biology without talking about evolution, which is kind of like trying to teach physics without mentioning Newton's laws of motion.  And work with stem cells, cloning, etc., is blocked by the abortion issue.  The new Lysenkoism...

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LevinK on December 8, 2005 - 11:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
We try to teach biology without talking about evolution..

Sorry for my off-topic and lack of info about some ills of the day, but is this really being done now in schools?

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mikeB on December 9, 2005 - 5:48am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes.

I teach evolution vs creationism as a writing project in my university freshman comp. class.

When I inquire into my students' backgrounds, it turns out several have had no instruction in either Darwin or the Bible.

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Leanan on December 9, 2005 - 11:16am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Yes, and the reason is the "free market."  Textbook publishers must cater to the religious right, or lose a huge chunk of marketshare.  Basically, if Texas won't buy the books, it's not profitable to publish them.  So even communities where evolution is widely accepted find their choices limited.
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step back on December 9, 2005 - 12:26pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The "Invisible Hand" is once again providing the magical, optimal solution for all of us. In our society, greed-for-profits trumps over any notion of truth, justice and honor. The bottom line is therfore, that our system of free-for-all self-governance (the Adam Smith approach) forces us to swallow stupidity (Creationalism, Intelligent Drugsign) and to smile as we do it.
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adamdschneider on December 8, 2005 - 5:23pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Ah, that's a much, much better table. I used table 250, which is all bachelor's degrees by division, so I didn't count master's or doctorate degrees in engineering, nor did I include engineering technologies, which would have boosted the engineering numbers significantly. Bottom line, anyone interested in the numbers should have a glance at them themselves.


However, we both agree that no matter how you shake the numbers we have too many lawyers. I tend to think we just have too much law. Our perpetual lawmakers just churn out too much paper. Some of the Founders were fearful of havign a standing army. Maybe they should have equally feared a standing legislature?

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Leanan on December 8, 2005 - 8:49pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
The mid-'80s was brutal for engineers.  The economy was bad, and worse, they were cutting back government spending, including the military.  I don't know if my college was typical, but until then, 40% of engineers from my school got jobs in defense-related programs.  Either directly to the military via ROTC, or with defense contractors.  When they suddenly stopped hiring, it was a real shock.  Even people who got jobs found themselves laid off after six months.  

I suspect engineering was never the quite same after that.  

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step back on December 9, 2005 - 12:35pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Our "system" presents American college students with some tough tough choices:

A) Party, get drunk, and take basket weaving courses, or

B) Work your ass off day and night studying physics, chemistry, thermodynamics; miss all the parties and then when you graduate, you still won't get a job.

If you pick option A, you might become President of the USA or something like that. If you pick B, you probably will not be President of anything. Presidents need to know how to lie, smile, play golf, and manipulate other people into doing insane, unscientific things like believing "victory" is around the corner if only we pray harder and keep wishing upon that star, no matter who we are.

Doh !!!

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126 comments on Thursday Open Thread...

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