Posted on 10/19/2011 5:32:36 PM PDT by Kaslin
Education is the key to the future: You've heard it a million times, and it's not wrong. Educated people have higher wages and lower unemployment rates, and better educated countries grow faster and innovate more than other countries.
But going to college is not enough. You also have to study the right subjects. And American students are not studying the fields with the greatest economic potential.
Over the past 25 years the total number of students in college has increased by about 50%. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (the so-called STEM fields) has been flat.
Moreover, many of today's STEM graduates are foreign-born and taking their knowledge and skills back to their native countries. Consider computer technology. In 2009 the U.S. graduated 37,994 students with bachelor's degrees in computer and information science. This is not bad, but we graduated more students with computer science degrees 25 years ago.
The story is the same in other technology fields. The United States graduated 5,036 chemical engineers in 2009, no more than we did 25 years ago. In mathematics and statistics there were 15,496 graduates in 2009, slightly more than the 15,009 graduates of 1985.
Few fields have changed as much in recent years as microbiology, but in 2009 we graduated just 2,480 students with bachelor's degrees in microbiology — about the same number as 25 years ago. Who will solve the problem of antibiotic resistance?
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
It’s bad form to crush a kid’s dreams when at the age of 5 they say they want to be an astronaut. Better to coax them out of it, rather than drop a house on it.
Sorry, but you made your point poorly.
Do you agree with the poster that homeschooled children should avoid studying science and engineering?
You should already know the answer to that, so I am left to conclude that this is moving toward another dull point. And, to be accurate, I don't think that is exactly what was being suggested by the genesis post of this discussion (as bad as it was). But I will check again.
You have a boring profile ((((Hugs))))Let the poster speak for themselves.(((((Hugs)))))
Wasn’t that great? He elucidated what I have been trying to say for a few years now...and he did it in just a few minutes.
An article that I agree with. While I’ll say I would like to go to college at some point, now isn’t a good time for me, especially with such a terrible economy.
After all, all they can do is teach me a skill. They can’t make me any smarter than I already am.
In 1982-83 I shelled out about $4.5/k for a medical technologist education. Later on I took courses and received a BS degree and all totals above cost about $9/k.
All those years this career served me well and always employed. Now these kids graduate and have a huge debt albatross hanging over their heads and for what? So that Universities can $uck them dry to obtain a degree that often amounts to nothing? Lots of these kids default on their student loans too. Another Govt. induced disaster.
“I believe that unless you are seeking a specific profession (i.e. Law, Medicine, Engineering), college is a total waste of money. “
Quite right; you can get certificates in business and other skills, so why bother with college?
Ok, I double checked. Post 5 was not suggesting home schoolers should not study math and science. I think you have misinterpreted the intent.
I took some micro-econ courses as the “business” requirement of my EE.
You could tell every engineer in the class from how we’d look at economics graphs and our faces would screw up... “WTF?! Your independent variable is on the vertical axis? Are you guys drunk, or what?”
You’d see no end of engineers taking a piece of paper with a graph on it, flipping it over, rotate to the right 90 degrees and hold it up to the light to “put it right.”
We had one economics professor who lit his tie on fire because he used his tie to clean out his pipe. So he’s smoking along during lecture, then raps out his pipe in the wastecan (yes, kids, professors used to smoke in class!) and then he uses his SILK tie to wipe out the inside of his bowl. He then packs it with fresh leaf, tamps it down, lights it, resumes lecturing... and about 10 minutes later, we smell an odd smoke in the room. A student in the front row walks up smartly and douses the professor’s tie with a soft drink. “You were on fire, professor!” “Oh, I was... another tie ruined, I suppose...”
This was the point when we engineers decided “Let’s finish this course and get the fark out of here, man...”
Agree, it was do not study math and science.
All of these liberals in academia who favor “capping” costs on private industries - we should see about doing that tuition at the colleges and universities as a case study when they topple over into bankruptcy that doesn’t work. Time to take on “Big College”! Their “price gouging” of students with ever increasing tuition costs must be confronted!
In economics it depends on the particular sub-field you are studying. I'm a mathematician/engineer by education ... I worked with a brilliant economist who was solving some pretty complicated optimization problems. Very mathematical. ...
But I agree with you ... Krugman would not be one of those working in that sub-field.
One of my daughters has just entered into business and economics courses. She works hard at the challenges and does fairly well. Are these fields (from the education/cirriculum perspective) characterized by change and advance, or do they tend toward principles that will remain in place indefinitely? Put another way, does teaching in either field typically see paradigm shifts like those seen in technology and culture-related fields?
Soliciting your remarks purely out of curioisty, being left handed and more interested in the arts. Thanks.
Again... why so insulting to fellow freepers? Thanks for the hugs, but the vitriol makes the hugs likened to that of a python.
I guess there’s a difference between attending classes,writing papers and attending studio style classes where you actually are trained in certain skills. Design classes for me gave me skills that enable making a living in many ways. Business marketing courses gave me some basic training in how to market those skills. It also afforded me the opportunity to start a business.
Hey I took Art of the 20th Century... miserable class, did not do very well, hated it. Now the history of Medieval Art... aced it. May have had a lot to do with my knowledge and interest in Christian history.
We are created in His image, so the vocations we take up to love and serve our neighbor; to fill the earth and subdue it, are all reflective of Him. Engineers included.
Obviously a deep infiltration temporarily corrupts our understanding and execution of every vocation at every level. The most absolute attribute of God, however, is love. Love of such magnitude that it gives itself up for even the worst of enemies.
This attribute ought have its effect on every type and level of education/vocation. Available at no charge to all people from the tiniest infant to the oldest, smartest person who ever lived. It cannot be oversold because it's been paid for already.
I know this sounds preachy, but these facts really do govern a well-rounded education and all the beneficial pursuits we've been given to view in our short lifetimes. It is good to pray for wisdom so one knows how to use skills for the benefit of others, and curbs the desire to serve only oneself. Guaranteed I need it more than anyone.
It is true. Many companies are shifting to visual programming. I am jumping in myself.
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