American Engineering Education Crisis

See this article:

http://www.cio.com/archive/031505/publisher.html?printversion=yes

 

So, it's too easy for a mediocre Chinese engineering student to become the top American engineering student. And the American education system has gone to gehenna and does not emphasize math, science, and engineering anywhere near enough. And not enough students go into engineering. Nor are there enough engineering profs. And we are consuming the capital built up over the last three generations.

First thing to do is ask: Why? Second thing to do is ask: What can we do about it? Well, I think the main failing of public secondary education in America is that it is geared to the needs of the parents (a free baby-sitting service) and not to the needs of the students (preparation for becoming a productive adult who can pass the survival of the fittest test). But the next thing is (and this can be asked of any discipline or profession): what have we done that would make your average kid just jump up and down and scream, "Yippee! I want to be an engineer when I grow up!"

 

Re: Re: American Engineering Education Crisis

Well, being an engineer myself, and having hired many foreign nationals, I can say that the two systems(india or china) are just different from ours. Is that good or bad? You are not comparing apples to apples if you compare.

I find that many of the foreign engineering programs in India and China are mere 3-4 year vocational programs. Not to say that there are not some top people in engineering in other countries either. There are.

Here, in our undergrad programs, we would take engineering courses and have to take general ed courses like English, History, Chemistry, Social Sciences, etc. You won't find much of that in a Chinese or Indian engineering school from what some of my team members tell me.

One of the top people on my team went to a good school in India and studied engineering. He also received an MS in engineering here. Hard to compare a graduate engineering program with an undergrad program because in grad school you are just doing engineering courses. No "soft" type classes to do.

My team member tells me that he thinks the well rounded engineer makes a better engineer and allows him to have a solid foundation to work with customers. He said that his program in India was more of the same type of work...just extended for a longer period. He said they definitely did more projects in Indian schools. However, when I started my engineering career in the Air Force, I worked on real projects right off the bat. So, maybe they equal out in the end.

The competition among people in those countries is extremely great. Generally, the ones that come here are of the highest caliber academically...generally that is. There are so many people in China and India that if they don't perform they will not make much of a living. Even to get into a halfway decent school there is quite a row to hoe. In school there if a person does not get his lesson then the teachers hit them or worse. My CM manager told me that he forgot his paper once and the teacher made him stand on one leg against the wall and hit him in the hands with a ruler. That is going to make someone strive to do pretty good work I think.

For the most part, I find that the that the foreign engineers, on h-1b, are no better than the American engineers here. Often communication skills are not as great due to the language barrier. While the Indians have English as their second language, it is not so apparent in many of the engineers. The h-1b's are often more motivated because they need to keep a job so as to not be sent back(if they cannot find another gig). However, I don't often see anyone sent back because even if one isn't working they can hook up with a foreign consulting company who will put them on their "books" for a fee and show that they are working.

 

Re: Re: Re: American Engineering Education Crisis

This is, or was, fairly common in universities worldwide that use the British tradition. One was expected to cover all the knowledge unrelated to your degree speciallity before university (in high school via A-levels). Most engineers I know from the UK and commonwealth just studied engineering and related subjects (mth, chemistry, physics, etc). Perhaps this explains why their degrees are 3 years vs 4 in the US.

As a side my daughter is currently persuing her first degree, a BA in Psychology in the UK, which is a three year honors degree. No non-pysh subjects.
http://www.yorksj.ac.uk/apps/Site/Prospectus/default.asp?Course_ID=155

 

US Engineering enrollment trends

A couple of interesting points about engineering enrollment trends in the US, based on the data at Engineering Trends:

First, the number of undergraduate engineering degrees awarded in the US is actually on the upswing right now, and has been for several years. Historically, the real "crisis" was in the late 1980s.

The number of engineering bachelor's degrees issued by US schools peaked in the mid-1980s, about 20 years ago. The number of bachelor's degrees suddenly crashed in the late 1980s, dropping by nearly 25% by 1990. The numbers were stable throughout the 1990s, and started to climb again around 2000. Right now, engineering bachelor's degrees are approaching the peak levels of the mid-1980s.

It's true, of course, that the total college population has grown significantly since the 1980s. This means that engineering degrees will be a smaller proportion of the total, even if they catch up to mid-1980s levels.

Second, the number of graduate engineering degrees awarded in the US is at an all-time high. The number of engineering master's degrees has climbed steadily, even while engineering bachelor's degrees have been dropping or stagnant.

So fewer students are pursuing engineering degrees, but more of those students are getting advanced degrees.

 

I think the article is a bit catastrophistic. It is actually not that unreasonable that China (having 5 times the US population) awards five times more engineering degrees (if the data from his "readers" is correct).

 

Re: US Engineering enrollment trends

What's the reason so many engineering grads are going to grad school? For one, the foreign population keeps hitting the grad schools strongly. Foreigners believe that a vital key to greater acceptance in the marketplace(as if cheaper wages were not enough) is to get an American MS, whether in computer science or engineering. On the other hand, what is an American engineering BS with no job prospect going to do? Go to graduate school.

 

Job market vs. "crisis"

Let's suppose that you are correct, and that both foreign and American engineers are seeking to improve their marketability by going back to school for the master's degree. What does that tell us about the job market for engineers?

It implies that the job market for engineering graduates is competitive. And this in turn implies that there is no shortage of engineering graduates, at least not at the present time. If a shortage did exist, then engineering graduates would have excellent job prospects, and would be going straight to work out of college, rather than continuing school.

 

Re: Job market vs. "crisis"

It boils down to this. How cheap can the workplace get someone and how hard can they be worked for that pay?

With so many foreign engineers fighting to get here, and stay here, in the "land of opportunity" the competition is extremely keen. Why would a company want to hire an American grad for 45-50K when they can hire in an h-1b, or do the l-1/j-1 for the low 30's or high 20's(hard to believe isn't it)? This is what is happening in engineering, computer science, nursing, and accounting(well, accounting basically gets outsourced overseas to the chartered accountants). I heard Norm Matloff say the same thing was happening at the university ranks(he's a prof at UC-Davis).

New Jersey is saying "we have a teacher shortage!" now. Huh? Now, they want to start importing teachers. Come on. There's no teacher shortage. If there were then there would not be teacher grads looking for work, having to take jobs as substitutes, and other odd jobs. What there is is a shortage of teachers that will work at that pay the districts want to pay. I guarantee there is no engineering shortage either. My next door neighbor's kid just graduated with a 3.8 in electrical engineering from a top school. He's still looking for work. Maybe New Jersey will soon have an Iranian H-1 teaching American History.

 

Re: Job market vs. "crisis"

I agree 100%. The market has enough mechanisms to regulate itself *perfectly* without having to resort to outside intervention.

 

Re: Re: American Engineering Education Crisis

Let me dispel a a few myths:

1. Chinese or Asian engineers are NOT better or better trained than the average American engineer. What you are seeing in the US Market is the cream of the crop from Asia. We are lucky, even a mediorce student has at least the opportunity to be trained as an engineer. In all of Asia (Japan included), if you are not the cream of the crop, you are going nowhere.

2. Chinese students are not better than American students. See #1. The recent immigrants to the US are driven to succeed because they know they lacked the opportunties in their home countries. Where I live, the student body is over 70% first generation Asian. Parents tend to drive these students to a high degree (and definitely not without negative consequences) As native-born American's, education is a right - something that we should never take for granted.

3. The average engineer in the Silicon Valley for the last 15 years has been of Asian decent. I get tired of the rheotic that there is racism against Asians in the high tech industry. If you can cry racism, I would say that it affects African-American and Hispanic-American engineers and technicians (our company has zero AA engineers and only one Hispanic engineer).

 

Re: Re: Re: American Engineering Education Crisis

Definitely, a large part here are not the cream of the crop. It's a function more of an immigration and visa system that is shoddy and worthless. I can attest to that with percentages. I work at a large company. I see the engineers and programmers on a daily basis. On project work, likely only 50-60 percent are worth anything.

I taught a class on using ClearCase UCM in a project. One of the things that they had to do was change some C # code. Only about 50% of them knew how to do it. Now, the project is in trouble because they programmers don't know how to code plain and simple(other projects are the same. the contracting firm just rotates the guy out and brings in the next college kid out of madras or bejing...then the guy they took out gets billed at a higher rate on his next gig).

There are some sharp ones, though. Generally, they come in late so they can stay late(after the Americans go home). Then, they get the sharp ones to train them on how to do their job. But, hey. So what. Afterall, we are only having to pay them 35K per year right.

Of course, partly we can lay much blame on Hillary Clinton. Afterall, she said in a speech about a week ago that not only was she the senator for New York, but "the Punjab, too." She has made some pretty good inroads and deals for Tata Consulting Services. http://nripulse.com/CityNews_WA_Score.htm

 

Likely this topic belongs over on another forum.