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Meaning which one can you specialize in and hope to get a job with the highest income?
Avoid STEM, most of the hard sciences (unless you're ready to go for a Ph.D.), pharmacy, and many engineering fields. They're thoroughly saturated and full of foreign students ready to snap up jobs that rightfully should go to Americans.
If you want to be recession-proof and outsourcing-proof, get into a trade that requires licensing: electrician, plumber, HVAC, etc. Robots aren't coming for those jobs anytime soon, and unskilled illegal immigrants have significant barriers to entry in those fields (unless they want to lie and steal other peoples' licenses, which does happen). Alternately you could go into medicine (which is full of the children of the same immigrants who took our STEM jobs), dentistry, or any other allied health profession that requires a bachelor's or higher.
In terms of sciences the only ones I've heard good things about are Geology and Physics, I'd place biology and perhaps meteorology at the bottom followed closely by chemistry and any iteration of bio+chem.
I Agree
T>M>E>>[sciences with biology and chemistry at rock bottom]
I work in STEM. I'm not annoyed at all. I just find it odd when people tell others to avoid an entire field using anecdotal evidence. Technology is ever expanding. The OP is one person. Surely there will be at least one job available for the OP.
Technology isn't going to disappear. If Americans avoid the industry, we can't get mad when other people step in.
Analysis of the flow of students up through the Science and Engineering (S&E) pipeline, when it reaches the labor market, suggests the education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand: S&E occupations make up only about one-twentieth of all workers, and each year there are more than three times as many S&E four-year college graduates as S&E job openings.
Americans are DEFINITELY not avoiding the industry. They want to get in. They are studying STEM in droves. They heard the message loud and clear about the fake "STEM shortage" and responded BIG TIME.
They are NOT allowed in!
An American gets a STEM degree, attempts to get a job. They get rejected for not having experience, and can't get experience without a job. Catch-22.
A foreign kid comes here, studies STEM on a K1 visa. Company hires them without experience, they transition to OPT visa and get 3 years of PAID TRAINING. Afterwards they can transition into an H1B visa for up to 6 years more of work.
Oh, and let's NOT talk about the H1B visa problem, where the outsourcing firms doctor up the kid's resumes - apparently every kid graduating from university now has 8 years of experience. However, they tell Americans to never lie on their resumes.
Tell me, how are Americans supposed to get in? The only way to get around the catch-22 is apparently to get an OPT visa.
American recent grads and career changers are LOCKED OUT.
The pure sciences, at least for the time I've been in the labor market, have been notorious for low pay, temping, and needing a graduate degree to get anything. Meanwhile, some IT/tech staff can get by without a degree and earn good money.
Tell me, how are Americans supposed to get in? The only way to get around the catch-22 is apparently to get an OPT visa.
There are a half-dozen American recent recent graduates working down the hall from me, committing various types of science. And there are institutions from other countries that pay some of my salary and immigrants that have keep jobs local that would have otherwise gone elsewhere.
Analysis of the flow of students up through the Science and Engineering (S&E) pipeline, when it reaches the labor market, suggests the education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand: S&E occupations make up only about one-twentieth of all workers, and each year there are more than three times as many S&E four-year college graduates as S&E job openings.
Americans are DEFINITELY not avoiding the industry. They want to get in. They are studying STEM in droves. They heard the message loud and clear about the fake "STEM shortage" and responded BIG TIME.
They are NOT allowed in!
An American gets a STEM degree, attempts to get a job. They get rejected for not having experience, and can't get experience without a job. Catch-22.
A foreign kid comes here, studies STEM on a K1 visa. Company hires them without experience, they transition to OPT visa and get 3 years of PAID TRAINING. Afterwards they can transition into an H1B visa for up to 6 years more of work.
Oh, and let's NOT talk about the H1B visa problem, where the outsourcing firms doctor up the kid's resumes - apparently every kid graduating from university now has 8 years of experience. However, they tell Americans to never lie on their resumes.
Tell me, how are Americans supposed to get in? The only way to get around the catch-22 is apparently to get an OPT visa.
American recent grads and career changers are LOCKED OUT.
In my experience (about 30 years in I.T. and software dev), no one's locked out. The people who want to work really hard really do get ahead, and the lazy ones tend to fall behind and have trouble finding good paying jobs.
H1B workers tend to be highly motivated, work very hard, and do a decent job for moderate pay.
You can't say the same for native born people. I've met so many slackers -- some are great talkers, but can't do the work. Others are dishonest a-holes. Still others are decent earnest people who do an OK job but expect really high salaries. And a few, maybe 10-20%, are really great, and do most of the work in their group, and deserve to make lots of money.
In my experience (about 30 years in I.T. and software dev), no one's locked out. The people who want to work really hard really do get ahead, and the lazy ones tend to fall behind and have trouble finding good paying jobs.
You have not addressed the catch-22 that hits recent grads and career changers. No experience, no job; no job, no experience.
Quote:
H1B workers tend to be highly motivated, work very hard, and do a decent job for moderate pay.
They do work for lower pay. Usually sub-market after the outsourcing firm takes their cut. And some H1B's get paid even lower. You'll see 5 H1Bs sharing a 1BR apartment.
H1Bs are indentured servitude.
In addition, they are worked to death, and threatened with deportation at the slightest provocation. They live in fear.
Fear is not a good motivator.
Quote:
You can't say the same for native born people. I've met so many slackers -- some are great talkers, but can't do the work. Others are dishonest a-holes. Still others are decent earnest people who do an OK job but expect really high salaries. And a few, maybe 10-20%, are really great, and do most of the work in their group, and deserve to make lots of money.
Native people expect market salaries. I know, that's a horrible idea - that means the CEO's bonus check can't be bigger.
Seems you have a negative stereotype of locals and contribute to the discrimination against US workers in STEM.
analysis of the flow of students up through the science and engineering (s&e) pipeline, when it reaches the labor market, suggests the education system produces qualified graduates far in excess of demand: S&e occupations make up only about one-twentieth of all workers, and each year there are more than three times as many s&e four-year college graduates as s&e job openings.
americans are definitely not avoiding the industry. They want to get in. They are studying stem in droves. They heard the message loud and clear about the fake "stem shortage" and responded big time.
They are not allowed in!
An american gets a stem degree, attempts to get a job. They get rejected for not having experience, and can't get experience without a job. Catch-22.
A foreign kid comes here, studies stem on a k1 visa. Company hires them without experience, they transition to opt visa and get 3 years of paid training. Afterwards they can transition into an h1b visa for up to 6 years more of work.
Oh, and let's not talk about the h1b visa problem, where the outsourcing firms doctor up the kid's resumes - apparently every kid graduating from university now has 8 years of experience. However, they tell americans to never lie on their resumes.
Tell me, how are americans supposed to get in? The only way to get around the catch-22 is apparently to get an opt visa.
American recent grads and career changers are locked out.
Those are developers with a great github portfolio of code they wrote. Everyone else must have a degree of some kind.
I used to work in a help desk for a defense contractor. Some of those people moved up without a degree into professional IT roles, but granted it was quite rare.
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