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Sure, I can pick up a CAD program and design my own home. However, without knowledge of physics, math, and materials, that built house might not stand for an entire week.
Personally, I do not think there is a widening of skills; I believe that skills are increasingly becoming more available. The problem that I see is that too many are selling themselves short, perhaps unintentionally, by not realizing the skills they do have, how to really apply the ones they do know they have, or understanding that many skills are transferrable or could easily be made so.
Not true. Everyone (Repubs, Dems, oil, coal, and natural gas industries, "alternative" energy, DoD, NIH, NSF (obviously ), the Fed Gov, State Govs, and on and on are dumping their money into STEM right now. Even at universities that face budget cuts, they either cut the Humanities, or increase STEM. Or both. Heck, some will even increase their athletics program over "saving" their Humanities departments.
This is just not so. At my own university (which is well known for research), the amount of funding received annually by the physical science departments collectively fell by 20% from 2012 to 2014 due to budget cuts. Many researchers are having trouble finding work.
My own advisor has not been able to find a grant for my research and I have to TA. In the past 20-30 years it has not been this bad before, particularly in my field. Don't try to tell me it isn't bad when me and all my colleagues are in a severe pinch due to this crisis.
The 4th floor of the Physics building has consisted of vacant offices for more than 1 year - because there is simply not enough funding to hire what the university anticipated a few years ago when they decided to build the Physical Sciences Complex to accommodate new faculty.
They built it, then the new faculty never materialized...
This is just not so. At my own university (which is well known for research), the amount of funding received annually by the physical science departments collectively fell by 20% from 2012 to 2014 due to budget cuts. Many researchers are having trouble finding work.
Too much debt not enough income. The costs of servicing that debt is reducing demand. You are getting a look at it. The old people aren't retiring, the young don't have room in the workforce. Everything is tight everywhere. Increasing bottom end wages. Enough to reduce the costs of the debts. That should get more demand everywhere.
This is just not so. At my own university (which is well known for research), the amount of funding received annually by the physical science departments collectively fell by 20% from 2012 to 2014 due to budget cuts. Many researchers are having trouble finding work.
My own advisor has not been able to find a grant for my research and I have to TA. In the past 20-30 years it has not been this bad before, particularly in my field. Don't try to tell me it isn't bad when me and all my colleagues are in a severe pinch due to this crisis.
The 4th floor of the Physics building has consisted of vacant offices for more than 1 year - because there is simply not enough funding to hire what the university anticipated a few years ago when they decided to build the Physical Sciences Complex to accommodate new faculty.
They built it, then the new faculty never materialized...
I take it you are a grad student in STEM. As such, you should be aware that the article you linked to editorializes (editorial = opinion) the situation and was published shortly after the Sequestration in 2013. I would bet money that those two biologists (out of four total, what a sample) were receiving NIH fundings.
From the article:
"...have forced nearly one in five U.S. scientists to consider moving overseas to continue their research.."
One in five to consider moving overseas, not one in five are moving overseas.
I have been through grad school (and no, not during the Stone Ages, I am still fairly young), I know the routine. TAing is often a part of the deal. Some students are not required to do it depending on funding, but it is not like you are doing something that is totally off the wall, it is more common than not.
I think I know what school you go to. I won't call you out on it but if it is where I am thinking then entire school, let alone system, saw a reduced funding yet this school in particular saw the least. Still, you are making my point for me: amidst budget cuts your school built a brand new $128M science complex. It does not matter if the fourth floor is vacant or not, the school still invested the money into it which came complete with financial backers.
Still, how much funding did the social sciences at you school lose?
I take it you are a grad student in STEM. As such, you should be aware that the article you linked to editorializes (editorial = opinion) the situation and was published shortly after the Sequestration in 2013. I would bet money that those two biologists (out of four total, what a sample) were receiving NIH fundings.
From the article:
"...have forced nearly one in five U.S. scientists to consider moving overseas to continue their research.."
One in five to consider moving overseas, not one in five are moving overseas.
I have been through grad school (and no, not during the Stone Ages, I am still fairly young), I know the routine. TAing is often a part of the deal. Some students are not required to do it depending on funding, but it is not like you are doing something that is totally off the wall, it is more common than not.
I think I know what school you go to. I won't call you out on it but if it is where I am thinking then entire school, let alone system, saw a reduced funding yet this school in particular saw the least. Still, you are making my point for me: amidst budget cuts your school built a brand new $128M science complex. It does not matter if the fourth floor is vacant or not, the school still invested the money into it which came complete with financial backers.
Still, how much funding did the social sciences at you school lose?
If you need funding, apply for an NSF GRFP grant.
It had not been common for doctoral students in physics here to TA their entire way, except in particle theory and astrophysics. Those in other branches of physics usually had funding.
Until sequestration, that is.
Even in the other building I have an office in, AV Williams Building, there are several vacancies that were not there before, simply because funding cuts means fewer new students.
And the PSC building was planned in 2010, so how can you argue that the university funded it despite budget cuts, if the cuts happened when the project was already under way?
Liberal arts education is exactly what develops and refines critical thinking skills. It is unique in this regard. When I speak about higher education, I am not talking about career training or vocational training. I am speaking about a liberal arts education, which is constantly denigrated by anti-intellectual forces on the internet. It can be seen here on City Data.
It is easier to control people who lack critical thinking skills and a broad based knowledge of history, social policies, government, philosophy, psychology sociology and even literature.
...
However a nation full of people who do not know when they are being deceived because they have never learned to think and to discern, is a potential nation of easily manipulated idiots.
I've rarely heard a better argument for the value of a liberal arts education.
I can personally attest that you are right in your assertion. I've gotten degrees of all stripes - liberal arts to engineering. My liberal arts undergrad taught me how to think, and that was necessary foundation for all of the others. Pretty gobsmacking if you ask me!
A liberal arts education is more about self enrichment. I had a good liberal arts education and I have many creative hobbies. But that isn't what helps me pay bills. In this economy, skills are necessary. Liberal arts education is helpful. But if all you have is liberal arts, you better hope you have a trust fund.
It gets a little complex here.
First of all, I vehemently disagree with you that liberal arts is about "self enrichment". I'd refer you to the undergraduate credentials of most of the CEOs in this country.
You don't learn how to think unless you are around people who are equipped to think. If you're going to a state school for liberal arts, then what you are saying is absolutely correct - liberal arts is a useless undergrad degree.
Go to an Ivy and it's a different matter. You WILL learn how to think for yourself.
To head off the old saw that deserving people can't go to Ivies unless they're rich: let me disagree. If you can get admitted into an Ivy, they will make sure that you can stay in. Your parents' ability to pay does not factor into it, to a great degree. Nobody graduates with an undergrad degree from a top school having epic debt loads.
If you don't get into a top school and you don't like the idea of debt, then attending a state school is a wise move for cost savings. If state school it is, THAT's when you want the skills based training, since a liberal arts undergrad from a state school is not worth much. As evidence, look at the cover letters written by lib arts graduates from state schools and compare them to cover letters written by lib arts grads from the top schools.
Many of the posters on this board appear to conflate "well educated" with "elitist", and become defensive, if not belligerent, in touting "skills-based training". For these posters: do you understand that you are playing right into the hands of the propaganda shills? If you can't exercise critical thinking, you will be swayed by slogans and use sound bites as substitutes for conversation. The debasement passes down to the next generation - you are your children's first teachers in how to think things through.
You want kids who are slaves to peer pressure and celebrity fads? Make sure you dumb 'em down by never learning to reason yourself. Leaves a parent with a pretty limited repertory for conversation: threats, soap opera, or monosyllabic quips.
Engineering is about designing things for humans. It is creative and analytical.
Th liberal arts have been practiced as political thinking, ideological thinking, to the point of diatribe and bitterness.
Perhaps in the quality of schools with which you are familiar. Where I went, not so. There is little ideology in Hegel or Heidegger. Or in John Stuart Mills. Or in World History. Or in Chemistry. Or in Calc. See what I mean?
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), the Fed Gov, State Govs, and on and on are dumping their money into STEM right now. Even at universities that face budget cuts, they either cut the Humanities, or increase STEM. Or both. Heck, some will even increase their athletics program over "saving" their Humanities departments.
