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That having been said - hey, your dept. outputs Ph.D.'s - where the heck are the major advances? These folks are supposed to be doing the basic r&d that may result in whole new industries - think phone system, electricity, airplanes, etc. Where are the new ones?

We've been doing okay on that score. You've got to have a proper perspective. We're looking at the 100th anniversary of powered flight this year. Its quite remarkable that we had a flight of less than a hundred feet in 1903 and less than seven decades later had people at the Sea of Tranquillity. We went from the Fleming Valve, an early precursor to the transistor, about the size of a baseball, in the early 1900s, to a chip the size of your thumbnail with something approaching a billion transistors on it. The computers I first used back in the 1960s were the size of whole rooms, yet today you can get one that fits in the palm of your hand that has vastly more computing power.

Recent developments? Check out stuff having to do with carbon fibers, or silicon carbide semiconductors. How about organ replacement, or advanced prosthetics? On the diagnostic medicine side, you've got positron emission tomography and MRI. Biosciences? How about DNA sequencing and genetic manipulation (whether you agree with it or not its quite amazing).

So we as a country as still capable of developing remarkable things, with people who are amazingly talented and hardworking. I just don't want to see those people, their talents, and careers, needlessly thrown away, or sacrificed for some abstract economic theory.

Thanks for your reply - yea, there have been great advances in the 2nd half of the last century. You could add all the stuff related to computers - databases, signal & image processing, communications theory, networking, media (digital photography, video (dvd's), print, internet, audio (cd's & mp3's), laptops. The discovery/introduction/mass usage phases seem to be much quicker these days.

I just don't want to see those people, their talents, and careers, needlessly thrown away, or sacrificed for some abstract economic theory.
First, in this sped-up fast-changing world of tech, any tech or scientific field of study is a risk. Hopefully students will better appreciate this going in.

Second, I predict (you heard it here first) that new approaches to "degrees" will develop. Kind of a tiered approach. Maybe learn a "deep" degree (5 years), and also a "basic" degree (2 years), and to top it off a couple of "short" degrees (6 mos.). Mix up the theoretical with the practical.