Pacific Rim nations pushing ahead of U.S. in engineering

I think it's a very valid worry. Toyota's recent decision to build a plant in Canada rather than Alabama, because of the lack of trained workers in the US, underlines that this is a problem right now.

However, the most common worry from my friends who are in R&D, or teach engineering or science in college, is that they can't get qualified people to teach, or work on the projects they have.

The current hurdles to get visas into the United States is keeping them from bringing "the best and the brightest" from outside of the US. US companies and universities trying to mix the best professionals from all over the world are pretty frustrated over this.

It's leading to think tanks, projects and seminars/symposiums (particularly the latter) moving to Canada, Europe, and other places outside the US.

So you end up with something of a "perfect storm" -- not generating qualified people inside the US "organically", and not being able to bring in good people from elsewhere to breed new technological business, and teach students inside the US.

 

The sense that engineering is a glamourless field is not new; back in 1968 when I was in pre-engineering, some of my college classmates considered anything having to do with <ugh> labor and machinery/math was somehow distasteful. They all wanted to became 'MBAs' and not actually work for a living...

Reminds me of the commercial lately that has the guy stating "...we want to make accounts receivable exciting again..."

So people, how do we make engineering and invention 'exciting' to a bunch of students who think that 'work' is demeaning???

 

Require all children to live and work on a farm for one year, preferably in a climate that gets snow. There's nothing like shoveling shit in January and August to focus one's aspirations.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(wstander\";p=\"115358)</div>

That's easy. Show them what they have to do if they end up in sales or marketing instead.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(richard schumacher\";p=\"115367)</div>

In retrospect, doing mandatory public work projects for a summer or two would have been a good thing for me. I think I would have met folks from all walks of life in the US -- probably would have given me better people skills.

And... I might have learned how to fix things!

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(richard schumacher\";p=\"115367)</div>

McDonalds or Burger King can do that too. Worked for my kids. In fact, the drive thru at Wendy's almost singlehandedly turned one of my kids from a B student to an A+ student.

 

I would never encourage a student to enter the engineering profession, or any technical field. I have a B.Sc. in Computer Science (Embedded systems and RTOS) and a B.Sc. in Economics (Production and Operations Management).

That, combined with hard work, allows me to do consulting in a variety of fields. Not just industrial process control, which is good as quite frankly I'm sick of it already. I swear to God if I have to deal with one more ORP sensor I'll scream.

I doubt the U.S. and certainly Canada will ever have a strong engineering background again. The jobs are practically non-existent unless you're willing to work part time, for almost minimum wage, and no benefits.

Locally - in Winnipeg - they expect to hire ChemEng with PE certification for under $60,000 Cdn. And they fill the positions too. A lot of the engineering graduates and skilled engineers here have fled to the United States.

Along with all our good doctors too.

Long term this is troubling and I believe we will experience many economic repercussions.