Replies

What do you tell a young kid to study?

Its a question I face everyday. My department (a branch of engineering) has had Ph.D. graduates go begging for work, ending up working as security guards for car dealerships or driving trucks. They did everything they were told to do to be successful: be honest, work hard, study, go to school, get good grades, and then are told they aren't wanted or needed. There's a perception that the field is "hard", which discourages students from studying it, and then they see that even if they succeed in their studies they'll be thrown away and have no use for it.

There are those who will say, "Good. Tough luck for you. The free market has told you the choices you made were wrong. Get a job, any job, and quit whining. Get retrained or re-educated." But how much more training can you give a person with 30 years experience and is thrown out the door with nothing to move on to? How much more education can you give a Ph.D.? How can a person with a technical career and an advanced degree even hope to get on at WalMart or ride the garbage truck when the personnel officer sees they are highly trained and educated in another field and will jump ship as soon as they can land a job they're trained to do (I know, its happened to me)? How can you ask everyone who is thrown out of their career to start a new business on their own when they need every cent to support their families in a modest lifestyle?

This country is in real long-term danger of becoming a technological also-ran. We're not only losing the current generation of technologically literate workers, we're losing the future generations. No one will want to go into those fields. We won't have the infrastructure anymore. We won't have the human and intellectual capital. Knowledge will be lost, never to return.

My fear is that the future economy will depend on imported technology. Domestically, what we'll be producung is lawsuits, insurance policies to mitigate the effects of those lawsuits, and fried burgers and tacos.

I've suspected every bit of what you're saying, but needed to hear it from someone in your position, tracking engineering graduates. This is the crisis no one has been talking about since that Cassandra Ross Perot walked off the stage.

re: My fear is that the future economy will depend on imported technology. Domestically, what we'll be producung is lawsuits, insurance policies to mitigate the effects of those lawsuits, and fried burgers and tacos. )))

You're right that we'll never need to outsource our lawyering, but even some insurance is being outsourced. Though, with the way we abuse our insurance, it's becoming both unaffordable or completely unavailable.

Suppose we suggest to our leaders that we outsource our soldiering? Bush could hire HB1 imports to take the bullets in Iraq, since an American soldier won't have a claim on an American job when he gets back from Baghdad...

I've been trying to express my feelings on this for a while and words have failed me. You have just provided the very words that express my concerns.

I'm only 27, but I have a real engineering degree in computer engineering from Purdue [B.S.CmpE '98]. I did not get into this field for the dot-com buzz, and I'm not some uberhacker that can write code, but thinks its a waste of time to due a failure mode analysis, or to document the design properly. At every turn, all software related work is going overseas. First it was just testing, then it was customer support, then it was embedded (my main field) and more application software.

I'm not afraid to retrain, but what do you retrain in? I saw an article recently that architecture was going overseas, and even low level lawyer work is being done overseas and shipped back for a bar certified lawyer to sign off on.

Luckily, I'm still employed in my chosen profession, but my company is continually scrambling to adapt to the situation. The way things are going, one day the music is going to stop, and I won't have a seat.

I'm glad that people with more letters after then name than I have see the problem the same as I do.

good post. you should post this sentiment often on all of the offshroing threads running around, we need more help to combat the freeper "free trade at all costs even if it means the US middle class implodes" crowd.

I just read your post and,in my view, everything you said is correct.

I'm frightened for my grandchildren,what's going to be here for them?

First, congrats on being part of an engineering department - way cool. Let me comment on some things you posted.

My department (a branch of engineering) has had Ph.D. graduates go begging for work, ending up working as security guards for car dealerships or driving trucks.
We (in America) are going through a "sea change", or "paradigm shift", or "structual adjustment". Some such nonsense to describe big freakin' changes. Basically, via the power of the inet & comm, any cubicle job can be outsourced to anywhere in the world, to the lowest bidder. This is HUGH! And scary. And will have profound effects on the economy for decades to come. It has caught many people blindsidded.

The free market has told you the choices you made were wrong.
Yep. No one's to blame, few saw it coming. Much pain is bound to ensue. Serious financial and emotional pain. Seriously big time pain. I have no faith politicians have the will to do anything about this (well, unless it involved spending money - they're good at that).

This country is in real long-term danger of becoming a technological also-ran.
I disagree with this. Even with the abymsal state of public education, lots of (technically literate) hackers and programmers were produced. Smart people find a way (misquote from Jurrassic Park). So, I'm optimistic that especially young people will be able to re-tool.

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? I think the dot-comm fiasco has had an impact on this, sucking out money better spent elsewhere.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

They did everything they were told to do to be successful: be honest, work hard, study, go to school, get good grades, and then are told they aren't wanted or needed.

That's part of the problem. A lot (perhaps most) very successful people didn't do as they were told.