48th Is Not a Good Place

[groovedaddy]

The National Academies, the country’s leading advisory group on science and technology, warned in 2005 that unless the United States improved the quality of math and science education, at all levels, it would continue to lose economic ground to foreign competitors.

The situation remains grim. According to a follow-up report published last month, the academies found that the United States ranks 27th out of 29 wealthy countries in the proportion of college students with degrees in science or engineering, while the World Economic Forum ranked this country 48th out of 133 developed and developing nations in quality of math and science instruction.

More than half the patents awarded here last year were given to companies from outside the United States. In American graduate schools, nearly half of students studying the sciences are foreigners; while these students might once have spent their careers here, many are now opting to return home.

In a 2009 survey, nearly a third of this country’s manufacturing companies reported having trouble finding enough skilled workers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/26/opinion/26tue2.html?th&emc=th

[Hannah Bell]

1. garbage. e.g. on patents, this is what they're talking about:

http://www.ificlaims.com/IFI%202009%20patents%20011210%20final.htm

It's basically US & Japanese companies.

Samsung = S. Korean, Hon Hai = Foxxcon, Taiwanese corp whose revenues come from manufacturing electronics -- for foreign companies in cheap labor countries.

The whole narrative about "We're not competitive because our students are so stupid" is a BIG LIE.

Global capital plays workforces against each other, period. It is invested in all these corps, it provided start-up capital to all these corps. The international ruling class has no country.

And when you look into the backgrounds of these new billionaires in china, india, etc. you often find they are the descendants of the compradors who collaborated with the foreign occupiers back to e.g. the british rule in india & the foreign opium trade in china.

[n2doc]

2. +1

Companies are having a hard time finding skilled worked willing to work for peanuts. This is the same reason why there are so many foreign grad students in the sciences- the smart ones see that it is much more lucrative to get a med, law or biz degree. And we are always comparing our pool of students to those in countries, like China and India, who pre-select the best to go to school and toss the rest into poverty.

[Orlandodem]

3. I wonder where American students rank in number of hours studying each evening

relative to other industrial nations.

[soleiri]

5. For my family

It's usually from 3:30 pm to anywhere between 8-11 pm. Depending on the workload.
And at least 2 hours on sat and sun.
Is that enough?

[Catshrink]

6. It's pathetic.

I had a student tell me "I studied 10 minutes for this test" as if that was a great sacrifice on his part. 10 minutes? Maybe they don't know how. More likely school is less important than friends, texting, TV, videos, comptuer games, music, etc. Where are the parents????

[femmocrat]

7. +1 Many kids have way too many distractions, and way too little supervision.

Guess it's easier to hand your kids the latest gizmo than to insist that they apply themselves.

[exboyfil]

4. I see additional obstructions

put in place to reduce the number of U.S. born engineering and science majors. Our state universities charge $2K more per year in tuition. The student loan forgiveness favors public sector workers (10 year paybacks versus 20 year paybacks)and is based on compensation without noting that engineering and science professionals put in far more hours per year for their salary than public sector workers (yes even teachers when you compare 10 months working versus 12 months). The benefits packages of public sector workers are better than engineers working for corporations as well.

It is far easier to outsource engineering jobs than a lot of other professional positions (like teaching). Engineers can reach obsolesence in their 50s as 30 somethings have the experiences necessary to make informed decisions but instruction in more recent technologies. They are also cheaper in salary and health benefits (sometimes retirement benefits if you have a multitier pension program like my employer).

The competition especially in regards to quantitative ability is brutal in engineering. You have a large pool of very bright Asians competing for graduate admissions and assistantships.

If you love math and working with things, then I would still recommend engineering. You do have to have the quantitative ability to survive. If you love science but don't have the quantitative ability (like my daughter) then look at medicine. My daughter still tests in the low 90s in math, but I know how brutal the competition will be. It is worse than when I was in school.

[Recursion]

8. Biomedical engineering is growing by leaps and bounds

I'm not sure how fair this is, but it has a reputation of being less quant-ish.