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That and as you pointed out there are alot of BS graduates in "STEM" like myself who would need to go and gain a masters in order to be considered minimally qualified over seas.
I am going to have to attain that masters on my own time and dollar while having to deal with the steadily declining US job market. There is a very high probability I am going to run out of time before I am ever able to reach a point where I can get out of the USA OR develop enough passive income that I can do my own thing.
It wasn't always this way. Back just before I graduated in engineering the programs were much more rigorous and technically oriented.
But then something happened. The accrediting organization, ABET, decided that all engineers (and this included CS guys in engineering) had to take more credits in humanities, to develop our softer, gentler sides.
So they required upper division engineering students to take about 12 semester hours more in humanities.
The only way you do that and still graduate students in 4 years is by cutting back the technical requirements.
And look what you get when you take a class in the humanities now. Great trade off, right?
But it gets worse. Some engineering programs used to be 5 years 20 or 30 years ago. You effectively graduated with a masters just by completing the required curricula for a bachelors in civil engineering, and some other programs.
But this changed too. Universities in my state were required to adjust their programs so all undergraduate degrees could be completed in 4 years.
Net result - all students graduated with much less basic engineering education.
But you know what? NONE OF THIS SHOULD MATTER FOR A COMPETENT ENGINEERING GRADUATE.
Here's why:
The main thing you learn in engineering is how to learn engineering.
Any competent engineer has the background to pick up a book in his speciality, and really, in other specialities, and learn it on his own.
I have had to do this numerous times throughout my career. I'm trained as a civil engineer, but I to learn stuff related to electrical engineering and some fancy math that I never learned in school to do my job. I've also been teaching myself programming.
But figuring stuff out is what being an engineer is all about to begin with, so this is no big deal.
It wasn't always this way. Back just before I graduated in engineering the programs were much more rigorous and technically oriented.
But then something happened. The accrediting organization, ABET, decided that all engineers (and this included CS guys in engineering) had to take more credits in humanities, to develop our softer, gentler sides.
So they required upper division engineering students to take about 12 semester hours more in humanities.
The only way you do that and still graduate students in 4 years is by cutting back the technical requirements.
And look what you get when you take a class in the humanities now. Great trade off, right?
But it gets worse. Some engineering programs used to be 5 years 20 or 30 years ago. You effectively graduated with a masters just by completing the required curricula for a bachelors in civil engineering, and some other programs.
But this changed too. Universities in my state were required to adjust their programs so all undergraduate degrees could be completed in 4 years.
Net result - all students graduated with much less basic engineering education.
But you know what? NONE OF THIS SHOULD MATTER FOR A COMPETENT ENGINEERING GRADUATE.
Here's why:
The main thing you learn in engineering is how to learn engineering.
Any competent engineer has the background to pick up a book in his speciality, and really, in other specialities, and learn it on his own.
I have had to do this numerous times throughout my career. I'm trained as a civil engineer, but I to learn stuff related to electrical engineering and some fancy math that I never learned in school to do my job. I've also been teaching myself programming.
But figuring stuff out is what being an engineer is all about to begin with, so this is no big deal.
You do realize that when you publish research, you have to cover multiple disciplines beyond just engineering alone. Without knowledge of humanities and social sciences, you're unlikely to be successful in your academic career.
Most of the learning around areas of expertise (engineering in this case) happens in research labs and discussions. Not as part of taking classes. Classes are just a small part of the education process.
You speak of how it was 20 to 30 years ago, but fail to realize that the time period was when college education derailed from what it has been for centuries prior. College is not a job training program.
The jobs that H-1b's take were created by us, the American people. They are the result of all the positive externalities -- physical, social, political, and technological infrastructure -- that we and our ancestors created. Those jobs belong to us. We are entitled to them.
Exactly. We, as in the citizens of the USA that determine the government and society of the USA. These companies hiring H1B's are the product of the infrastructure, culture, laws, resources, and environment of this country.
Let these bright Indian software developers take high paying jobs at the giant tech corporations in their own country. Oh wait, there aren't too many of them. Well then, let them take high paying jobs at the giant tech corporations in China or Mexico. Oh wait, not too many of them there AND those countries don't let foreign workers take their jobs.
There's a reason that Facebook was not developed by a Chinese student while attending Univ. of Beijing and grown to an international giant. There's a reason that Microsoft was not founded and based in Bangladesh. There's a reason you don't have that many "self made" billionaires coming out of Afghanistan or Nigeria or Libya. The American people collectively are tired of providing the platform for success for big corporations then seeing those corporations turn their backs on the American people.
Exactly. We, as in the citizens of the USA that determine the government and society of the USA. These companies hiring H1B's are the product of the infrastructure, culture, laws, resources, and environment of this country.
Let these bright Indian software developers take high paying jobs at the giant tech corporations in their own country. Oh wait, there aren't too many of them. Well then, let them take high paying jobs at the giant tech corporations in China or Mexico. Oh wait, not too many of them there AND those countries don't let foreign workers take their jobs.
There's a reason that Facebook was not developed by a Chinese student while attending Univ. of Beijing and grown to an international giant. There's a reason that Microsoft was not founded and based in Bangladesh. There's a reason you don't have that many "self made" billionaires coming out of Afghanistan or Nigeria or Libya. The American people collectively are tired of providing the platform for success for big corporations then seeing those corporations turn their backs on the American people.
You conveniently overlook that software is based on computing sciences which is heavily based on math developed in India and many parts of Asia. Our entire infrastructure is built on top of science and math from that area. Our culture and laws are founded on principles and ideas from other nations before us. What we have is education, resources, and management skills.
Now, who really created these jobs? The business owners. With their own money.
Finally, these countries do have major tech giants in them. Adobe, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. all have huge offices over there. In fact, Facebook and Microsoft sent Americans to these countries to work. Everyone forgets that we're going over there and working as well.
You conveniently overlook that software is based on computing sciences which is heavily based on math developed in India and many parts of Asia. Our entire infrastructure is built on top of science and math from that area. Our culture and laws are founded on principles and ideas from other nations before us. What we have is education, resources, and management skills.
Now, who really created these jobs? The business owners. With their own money.
Oh so it's just a coincidence that they do this in developed First World countries and not the developing nations they wish to produce their goods and generate their cheap labor?
Quote:
Originally Posted by IDoPhysicsPhD
Finally, these countries do have major tech giants in them. Adobe, Microsoft, Facebook, etc. all have huge offices over there. In fact, Facebook and Microsoft sent Americans to these countries to work. Everyone forgets that we're going over there and working as well.
Those offices are expansion and offshoring by companies created in the USA. Of course, once they have "made it" to a certain level they no longer need us. That's the whole point here. It's like a successful professional turning his back on his poor parents while "conveniently" overlooking the fact that they raised him with good study habits and put him through college.
BTW, claiming that we owe them something because we use math developed by people thousands of years ago is hilarious.
Oh so it's just a coincidence that they do this in developed First World countries and not the developing nations they wish to produce their goods and generate their cheap labor?
You need a lot more than computer programmers to be successful. India isn't producing too many marketing and sales people. The US is the best at that. Even other first world nations come to the US to take advantage of our marketing skills.
Labor in the US is not cheap... whether the person is a citizen or on a visa. Look at Facebook's salaries.
Quote:
Originally Posted by oceangaia
Those offices are expansion and offshoring by companies created in the USA. Of course, once they have "made it" to a certain level they no longer need us. That's the whole point here. It's like a successful professional turning his back on his poor parents while "conveniently" overlooking the fact that they raised him with good study habits and put him through college.
BTW, claiming that we owe them something because we use math developed by people thousands of years ago is hilarious.
It wouldn't happen if the US had a pool of 1 billion people to pluck talent from. But we don't. We've employed all our competent talent and the only one's left are incompetent. You can't teach intelligence so you go look for more elsewhere. You tap into the great resources of these other nations and find their intelligent people and make use of them. No one's turning their back. In fact, this is helping us out more than it's hurting us. Look at our 401ks.
I never said we owe anyone anything. I was just responding to your ignorance around what they contributed to the tech industry. As a human society on this planet, we're all in this together.
I'm an Indian immigrant who came here at the age of five and strongly support this.
H1B is a SHORT TERM program to get TOP grads and skilled persons from foreign countries. Unfortunately, too few of the H1B's that I see in the Bay Area are IIT/JNU grads. Furthermore, It was never meant to be a path way to a green card or citizenship.
American corporations pull this kind of crap every so often when their employees do too well. I rarely support Trump but do on this matter.
It wasn't always this way. Back just before I graduated in engineering the programs were much more rigorous and technically oriented.
But then something happened. The accrediting organization, ABET, decided that all engineers (and this included CS guys in engineering) had to take more credits in humanities, to develop our softer, gentler sides.
So they required upper division engineering students to take about 12 semester hours more in humanities.
The only way you do that and still graduate students in 4 years is by cutting back the technical requirements.
And look what you get when you take a class in the humanities now. Great trade off, right?
But it gets worse. Some engineering programs used to be 5 years 20 or 30 years ago. You effectively graduated with a masters just by completing the required curricula for a bachelors in civil engineering, and some other programs.
But this changed too. Universities in my state were required to adjust their programs so all undergraduate degrees could be completed in 4 years.
Net result - all students graduated with much less basic engineering education.
But you know what? NONE OF THIS SHOULD MATTER FOR A COMPETENT ENGINEERING GRADUATE.
Here's why:
The main thing you learn in engineering is how to learn engineering.
Any competent engineer has the background to pick up a book in his speciality, and really, in other specialities, and learn it on his own.
I have had to do this numerous times throughout my career. I'm trained as a civil engineer, but I to learn stuff related to electrical engineering and some fancy math that I never learned in school to do my job. I've also been teaching myself programming.
But figuring stuff out is what being an engineer is all about to begin with, so this is no big deal.
I absolutly agree and I probably have a masters level understanding of many sub-topics in chemical engineering (gas dynamics (simplified navier stokes and finite element, heat transfer to include PDE's and process controls (PID control and programing)). However I am very weak in distilation nor do I have a formal masters. I have self studied advanced thermodynamics using MIT open courseware.
I have taken 30+ credits in upper division electrical engineering and mathematics and hope to start a formal masters program online. The issue is the costs, the social pressures to make BIG money etc. The costs for the undergraduate program were so staggering that I could not afford to spend one extra day there than nessecary to get my degree. If I could have worked part time at a coffee shop and been able to pay for school, maintain a car and appartment and have enough going on to get laid I probably would have gone on to get a PhD (but walking to class and racking up 5 figure debt while women look at you like a pseduo bum is not something I wanted to continue for a day longer than I had to). Even now trying to get a masters degree I have to be able to maintain a high hourly rate in a rough economy just to pay the mortgage (wife pays the rest) and put away enough for school. I cant afford to get laid off and just go work at a liquor store and study relativity because everything falls apart.
Had I had 2-3 more years before oil crashed I could have paid off a huge chunk of the house, refied and then done what ever the hell I wanted. Even if oil prices come back oil companies have learned that they can make money with a skeleton crew so they wont hire back unless there is some massive development.
I looking into the defense industry and they low ball like crazy, unless you have a working prototype that you can theaten to sell to the russians they will try to give you peanuts, no 10 million dollar cash outs. And you would have to develop from scratch because if you use a security clearance to gain any info then your in hot water.
I need to find a mentor to figure out how to build passive income. Every where I turn the buy in costs to anything with any value (real estate, building kits, etc) is sky high, you have to have a half million dollars to buy in and start making money (real f-you money not peanuts). I do stocks and index funds and I can make about 15% ror but its 15% ror on 5 figures not 6 figures and its not dividend payments its stock rise so I cant really spend it.
And yes I hated those 12 credits of humanities (I took law classes since I figured that was the most useful that satisfied the requirements) was brutal, I waited to take all of them my last semester, that was hell lol. I mean the classes were easy but I was thinking why the hell do I need to be here right now I just want to get the hell out of this money pit crap hole and go home ... oh because I cant gradaute until I check these boxes.
One option is to spend the winters there and the summers here. I'm a big fan of the tropics so India would fit. I currently spend a couple months every winter in warmer climates such as FL, Hong Kong, and the Caribbean.
I didnt know that most companies would allow this, I figured this was rare and that you needed to have alot of f-you money in case the company made a random decision to just keep you in india so you can tell them sorry I quit. I had friends who tried to find these sorts of arrangements and it was ellusive. Companies want what they want and they dont really care about the employees desires, if it just so happens to work out for the employer they might do it ... but that can change at any time.
American corporations pull this kind of crap every so often when their employees do too well. I rarely support Trump but do on this matter.
Trump was soley put in to get rid of visa workers in their entirety and put up massive trade tarrifs with offending nations like china (espeically china). Those are his 2 main jobs and it is unfortunate that he is getting involved with periferal issues.
Those other issues will fix themselves once people are back to work in REAL jobs that pay REAL money that are not always teetering on the brink of lay offs. I am glad trump is making this happen, we will see how prolific it turns out to be, 10's of millions of people need to get the hell out of the USA, not a few thousand so we will see. Still no word on significant tarrifs on china yet .....
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