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If "not enough Americans want to do STEM work", then why are STEM programs at universities filled to the brim every year? Why does the Computer Science program at my university have a 3% admission rate? Why do I know dozens of STEM grads, some of them with excellent grades and internship experience, who've given up trying to get STEM-related jobs?
Exactly what I thought when this whole not enough STEM graduates thing began. I think part of it is the universities trying to funnel students into the more revenue generating programs. A lot of it is just pure BS and getting the hopes of many up in unwarranted fashion. I've worked in biotech/biotech related research, and I would be very hesitant to recommend this field to any up-and-coming student, for a number of reasons.
Exactly what I thought when this whole not enough STEM graduates thing began. I think part of it is the universities trying to funnel students into the more revenue generating programs. A lot of it is just pure BS and getting the hopes of many up in unwarranted fashion. I've worked in biotech/biotech related research, and I would be very hesitant to recommend this field to any up-and-coming student, for a number of reasons.
Go on...
Assuming low wages, little benefits are part of the reason for not recommending this field?
Because too many Americans with STEM degrees and experience have been forced out of these jobs by foreign workers and outsourcing. Many now work in unrelated fields or for contract houses where they do the same work for half the money and no benefits.
Technology marches on. Once you have been out of your field for a while you are no longer really qualified to do the work. Things change very quickly. It doesn't take long for you to become obsolete.
STEM education isn't fast, easy, and effortless. People with these degrees usually worked very hard to get them. All the while being assured it would be worth the effort, time, and cost. Today you will be laid off over and over. You become useless overhead when your current project is finished. After starting over, and over, and over...you become disenchanted and skeptical. If you can't get a steady, secure position, why bother?
We can't compete with the H1B folks. For one thing, there's a good chance they got their education for free at one of the schools the US built for them and subsidized. They don't have debt. The whole reason they went for the degree was to get to the US. The H1B folks I worked with were well taken care of. The company paid them and provided food and a place to live. They usually shared apartments close to work. A whole different ballgame than the US STEM graduates. Of course now, the jobs come to them. They don't need to leave their home country unless they want to.
I will always be proud of my H's engineering degree. He graduated High School from a 2 room schoolhouse in the rural South. There were 6 people in his class and school was reading, writing, and arithmetic. He worked as hard to get his degree as anyone in India ever did. And he did and paid for all of it himself. He dug ditches, worked as a surveyor's helper, and put together sections of the local paper at night. And he served 6 years in the National Guard. He graduated in 1981 and then the oil market collapsed gifting him with his first layoff from his first real job. Bad timing. If he had graduated just a couple years sooner it would have been a different story. But he had to work and go to school. He had to take a lot of remedial classes because his primary education had been totally lacking in advanced coursework.
H and I both had STEM degrees. After the first few layoffs it became obvious one of us needed a steady job that was relatively secure. I got the first offer and left my field to work in a loosely related industry that offered secure employment. H was bounced around from place to place and finally ended up at the dreaded contract house. When he was working the money was good but you never knew from week to week how long the job would last. Or how long it would take to find your next job. It was hard to plan any kind of a future. Or make plans at all of any kind. You are always stressed out and living on the edge. Finances are a nightmare. We finally resolved this issue by making sure we could live on just one income, mine. That at least worked well.
I sort of retired in 2008. Retired from the JOB I took to give us some security. It was finally my turn to get a job I wanted. But the economy tanked and the only jobs available pay, relatively speaking, nothing. So I work part time for pennies and no PTO or benefits. I would love to have even an entry level job in my field but there are none. Especially for someone my age with little relevant experience. I've just been gone too long.
H dropped dead from a heart attack in 2012. It was totally un-necessary. He delayed treatment because he had no medical benefits. He was afraid to rack up huge debts he wasn't sure he could repay. He never collected a nickel of his Social Security Benefits. He died too soon. He spent most of his career never knowing where his next paycheck would come from.
Is it any great wonder today's bright young students aspire to MLM careers based on cheap goods made in China? Why bother with STEM. Just look at how they are treated in the workplace!
Yes it is a myth. American employers either will not hire nor treat STEM workers with respect and not abuse. As a result many STEM workers take their inteligence and avoid or leave the field. I would never let any of my relatives study science especially.
These business leaders keep whining and asserting the typical millenials are too lazy and stupid for STEM and the education system sucks when in fact it is the way they treat and pay STEM workers that sucks. Americans are not too stupid for STEM, they are too smart for it.
the brightest American students aren’t going into science and engineering careers nearly as often as they used to.
But the reason is not, as some people say, that young Americans lack the smarts or the skills to succeed in those fields. Instead, it appears that longstanding U.S. policies have destroyed the incentives that used to attract many of the nation’s best young minds into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (the so-called STEM fields)....
many of our most able college graduates are now opting out of the pipeline that the nation used to count on to carry gifted students into STEM careers...
“It’s a labor market story,” ...
The new findings contradict the argument that some high-tech employers have been putting forward for a decade now: that American education doesn’t produce enough high-quality science and math graduates...
They show no such deficit...
These results “strongly suggest that students are not leaving STEM pathways because of lack of preparation or ability,” ...
Higher salaries and more stable career tracks have lured these grads away from scientific jobs...
But the new study reveals an ominous trend among the scientifically gifted. Although the numbers of young Americans studying STEM in high school and college are as strong as ever, the very best of those students, as indicated by their SAT scores and college grade point averages, are less likely than in decades past to stay in STEM when they leave college...
Very cyclical. Presently there are jobs in Houston for those with a petroleum background. But that was also true in 1981. Within two years the oil bust destroyed that. It will happen again.
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