Posted on 11/30/2005 4:17:44 PM PST by indthkr
For laughs we used to go watch one Prof's Linear Algebra tests, which had a large contingent of Iranians who all sat in the back and discussed the test in Farsi, copied off each other's tests with what appeared to be long discussions about who had the right answer, and generally acted like the whacked-out aliens in Men in Black. If it wasn't so comical, it would have been appalling.
The professor sat on his butt up front smoking a pipe and ignoring the whole scene. The Americans in the class just studied and took the tests; sophomore level Linear Algebra courses aren't all that difficult.
My impression of foreign students in the early 1980's was that they were much over-hyped in terms of capabilities, and 22 years in industry hasn't changed that impression.
We are paying for these universities and the educations that we pay for are going to benefit foreign countries?
Then what's the point of continuing to fund them? Let's cut them off and save the taxpayers money.
Let me second that opinion. I'm living in Shanghai - and teach English at large multinationals as a side to guitfiddling in expat pubs. I teach at ABB (a huge European Fortune 150 Engineering Company, a small software outsourcing company, and Alcatel - a leading telecommunications company (albeit French). P.S. - nobody likes the French here.
Anyway, this place reminds me of Silicon Valley in the '80's - where I lived for 7 years in its heyday. Engineers are fairly competent - especially at Alcatel - where they are engineering some very cutting edge wireless technologies. Teaching a presentations course - I heard some technical presentations on new comm schemes that made my head spin - and I'm not unfamiliar with communications technologies - having spent 8 years in satellite communications after graduating from MIT in Astronautical Engineering. These guys know what they're doing - although some of their English - (sigh), what can you do?
But, my impression is that although they want to learn English, they really don't look at this as critical to their careers - as one might expect if we were the ones leading the way in the R&D and engineering of it.
That said, the salaries are kinda low here - a good mid-level engineer gets about $1200-$1500 a month max - but they don't seem to be hankering to leave the country when I tell them what average salaries for ditch diggers are in the West. They seem to be very content in working and living in Shanghai - and are very optimistic about the future - although they are somewhat worried about the macro problems China faces with regards to the vast underdeveloped REST of China.
There are a lot of debates here, though, about the competence of local workers. Most of it has to do with initiative and self-motivation. Some expat engineers tell me they have to spell everything out explicity as to what staff has to do - and if the slightest unforeseen bump in the road occurs - game over. They have to explain the obvious commonsense response to it - and redirect them.
Not being personally involved in the day-to-day work at these engineering companies - I can't verify this - but I do run into the blithering lack of clear, forward thinking when dealing with many office workers here. I tend to get infuriated (which don't work too well) when trying to explain what may be something that we in the West have developed - and which may seem to be commonsense to us - and that is the tightly interwoven action-response that it takes to pull off an organized activity. The ball seems to get dropped at every out-of-sight corner - until panic occurs and suddenly everybody is demanding everything from everyone else RIGHT NOW! It'll drive you nuts.
sure in absolute US$ term the salary of $1500 a month is low. But in Shanghai that'll still pay for a pretty decent and comfortable middle class to upper middle class lifestyle.
Yor're there, so this is probably not news - but think about it, they likely live with their parents until marriage, so no housing cost (and typically the parents and other older relatives wikll pitch in a big chunk of the money to buy a house once they do get married). Minimal transportation cost if they get around mostly on bus and subway and the occassional taxi in Shanghai (again, most middle class white collar types won't buy a car until they're married AND expecting a child). Food stuff is cheap (and probably mooching off parents for food too). So lots of disposable income on life style stuff - electronic gadgets, clubbing, Karaoke outings, and even spluring on a foreign vacation now and than (and cheap package tours to nearby SE Asia is pretty low cost).
And for the guys, they are considered good "marrying up" material by girls from the countryside, or even city grisl with less education or don't have foregin company connections ...
Not a bad life.
Heck, I usually have a pretty good time when I'm in Shanghai :)
"The second, related problem is that so few U.S.-born students are gaining entry to U.S. engineering graduate schools." Again, this is tripe! There are fewer American Grad students in Engineering because fewer are applying--period. Talk to any acceptance committee and they'll tell you that the number of foreign students applying to Grad School is probably 10 or 20 to 1 with respect to American students. Why? Most engineering students are BURNED OUT by the time they've survived 4-5 years of BRUTAL work."
Not to mention being able to afford graduate school. With these foreign students, their governments not only pay the tuition, but the living expenses.
Why is this a mystery? This is the effect of the outsourcing by our major corporations. It is also creative destruction as engineered by our government’s own policies of high corporate taxes, lots of regulation.
After spending 25 years a Cmfg, I would not wish to mentor anyone into the field who needed an income to raise a family on. With the same intellectual skills I would advise them to go into accounting, finance, insurance or the medical field. I have a close friend who is a nurse anesthetist. She is knocking down 90K a year and can work anywhere in the country, including some very nice southern locations.
Why in God’s green earth would you spend 50K on an education, only to work 60 plus hours a week for a paltry 50K, only to be constantly looking over your shoulder for the outsourcing ax to fall.
Besides, the geek in the HR department is knocking down 80K and could not wire a doorbell.
>>better flexibility and survival skills <<
They survive by sending american jobs to other countries.
"After spending 25 years a Cmfg, I would not wish to mentor anyone into the field who needed an income to raise a family on. With the same intellectual skills I would advise them to go into accounting, finance, insurance or the medical field"
But if this advice is followed whats the future of Science and innovation in the country?
" but I do run into the blithering lack of clear, forward thinking when dealing with many office workers here. I tend to get infuriated (which don't work too well) when trying to explain what may be something that we in the West have developed - and which may seem to be commonsense to us"
I understand what you're saying. My company has outsourced many of our technical areas to Brazil, China and India. I and my American team have been on conference calls for hours at a time trying to get these guys to solve simple problems. They just can't seem to get the initiative to do anything and when pressed their favorite tactic is to clam up and not respond at all. It's really not working but the management is still praising these duds to high heaven.
Exactly! Engineers often make on average, make less than blue collar machinists.
Won't work. The top students -- the ones who excel at whatever they try, however few they are -- are not interested in pursuing such a demanding discipline of engineering, however it is subsidized, for the privilige of watching their careers being offshored and left with the predicament of not being able to make a living at what they've labored so hard to become skilled in.
The top students are thundering into law school because it is the last growth industry America has to offer -- suing the wealth right out of the country.
It also used to be that many engineers were med-school drop-outs. Now even med-school drop-outs don't want to go into engineering because of all the Asian competition and low salaries.
That's not true of a lot of west coast university engineering professors I've talked to. They prefer foreign students on a number of counts.
1. Most faculties are now starting to be dominated by foreign professors, as a result of offshoring and the resultant exodus of experienced American engineers out of the profession.
2. Foreign students usually come in with high grades and high test scores from both foreign and domestic universities.
3. These students are almost always fully subsidized by their own goverment or the U.S. Hence, private tuition in schools like USC or Cal Tech is paid up front without the need for grants or loans.
4. The resultant graduates who matriculate from these institutions work for pennies on the dollar as compared to their American counterparts.
American engineering is dead, and the attendant innovation that disginguished it, because the major employers of such people want it cheap and are getting it. And that's fine until it comes time to develop the next generation of smart weapons. Somehow I don't expect the Chinese or the Indians to supply us with that expertise.
Universities such as Rice have worked hard for years to increase their foreign student enrollment, favoring foreign students over local ones. I wonder how true it is that they are aiming in the other direction now. Sometimes I think reporters hear what they want to hear in order to put an article together.
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