Why Americans don't study engineering

[Anthony DeAngelis]

I agree that women in other countries are more open to STEM educations. As far as the quip at NASA, they are still putting rockets and rovers into space. Bravo to China for putting a rover on the moon, but I would hope that in 10 years China will have focused on their every growing pollution problem instead of mining the moon (which they or anyone else will not be doing in the foreseeable future).


And why should I see any issue?

http://www.asee.org/papers-and-publ...files/2011-profile-engineering-statistics.pdf

This is slightly dated, but shows a) an increase in the # of engineering graduates and b) that white (I only use this to exclude Chinese and Indian students) are still roughly 70% of graduates (with Hispanics increasing).

This also says nothing about quality.

http://www.engineeringuk.com/_resou...na_and_India_-_EngineeringUK_-_March_2012.pdf


So while India and China produce far more (as a % of the population) engineering or STEM graduates as America does, it is not apples to apples. One could easily argue that the difficulty of US engineering programs and the ease of NOT being an engineer in the US keeps the quality high. Whereas in other countries being an engineer is basically what you do. So you have people forcing themselves to gut through a program when they should pursue other careers. I think the movie 3 Idiots captures this well.

The US simply needs to make it easier for the best and brightest to come to the US to get educated and stay. Yes, it is good to look at how we teach the building blocks of these subjects because I think that we are turning kids off to these careers, but all that can be done is to offer carrots for people to pursue.

 

[pingu]

NASA cannot put a rocket into space ...

This is due to money issues, nothing related to the quality of the people although the latter get discouraged with time.

Offtopic to the thread but related to "rockets into space", I have a friend who went to MIT for aerospace engineering. There were 13 graduates from his class: 11 went to wall st and 2 to do real engineering. Out of those 2, one is moving to wall st now, the other (my friend), was part of the team winning the level 2 first priz ($1MM) Lunar Lander Challenge X Prize in 2009.

 

[Anthony DeAngelis]

NASA must have not gotten the memo on not being able to launch a rocket...

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/nov/18/nasa-launches-maven-mission-mars-water


This guy is still going strong also

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curiosity_(rover)

 

[euroazn]

For the record, as someone who has relatives that work in the aerospace industry - a large portion of aerospace hardware/software for other country's space programs are made right here, in corporations based in the U.S... lol.

 

[ygmwy]

You have a higher percentage of women obtaining 4 year degree and we have all seen the data showing how few women are in STEM fields. Maybe this is bias against them, maybe this is personal preference, who knows, but if more women are getting BS degrees then there will be fewer STEM grads overall.

Does this mean that if more women attend college, then there will be fewer STEM grads overall?

 

[Dataminer]

Does this mean that if more women attend college, then there will be fewer STEM grads overall?

based on what he said, I think he would says that the fraction of people getting stem degree will go down if more women attend college.

 

[Dataminer]

For the record, as someone who has relatives that work in the aerospace industry - a large portion of aerospace hardware/software for other country's space programs are made right here, in corporations based in the U.S... lol.

that is true, I don't think other countries currently have aerospace industries that can compete with US.

I actually talked to a professor who teaches aerospace in Korea at the best engineering school in korea, and he told me that since korea has almost no aerospace industry, most of engineers work for car manufacturers or go into finance.

 

[ygmwy]

The bar for engineers raises each year, and the pool of knowledge is expanding faster than most can keep up. We just don't have a culture in the US that likes to keep up with the rising tide. If we want more American engineers, we can hold a student's and and give them almost individualized attention in intense STEM bootcamps from childhood, but that culture would be artificial. Chinese and Indian families get this culture for free.

 

[bigbadwolf]

The Chinese are falling behind the Americans:

http://www.theonion.com/articles/report-chinese-thirdgraders-falling-behind-us-high,31464/

CHESTNUT HILL, MA—According to an alarming new report published Wednesday by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement, third-graders in China are beginning to lag behind U.S. high school students in math and science.

The study, based on exam scores from thousands of students in 63 participating countries, confirmed that in mathematical and scientific literacy, American students from the ages of 14 to 18 have now actually pulled slightly ahead of their 8-year-old Chinese counterparts.

 

[JamesAndres]

Evolution and progress are natural parts of nature. This means that even the mighty United States will ultimately have to change and grow, as well. Other countries, India and Mexico for example, are beginning to move into their information revolution. America is moving into a spiritual revolution. We have gotten to a point where the basic necessities of life are easily obtained. We have grown to a point where each person is searching for their own personal purpose and place in the whole scheme of things. I believe that we will begin to see a major shift into the realms of personal service and growth more than technology and science.