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If there are so many young scientists laboring away in low-paying dead-end jobs, it hardly suggests there is a shortage. There are just not many private sector

If there are so many young scientists laboring away in low-paying dead-end jobs, it hardly suggests there is a shortage. There are just not many private sector openings for astronomers, meteorologists, and high-energy physicists. They may have proven their ability to master a technical subject, but the subject they have spent years mastering has little or no commercial application, which is where wealth is created. The popular mind, and popular journalism, often confuse science and engineering. The training for each path is quite different, and the mindset of the practitioners is also different. When industry leaders bemoan a lack of science education are they really complaining about how much they have to compensate technical talent?

jerf 16y ago
"They may have proven their ability to master a technical subject, but the subject they have spent years mastering has little or no commercial application, which is where wealth is created." We're going to have to dispense with telling children that it doesn't matter what they want to be, and start telling them they ought to spend at least a little time thinking about whether it actually bring capturable value to society. (Or, more for their speed, "whether anybody will pay them to do it".) Of course this involves walking back decades of self-esteem BS, which isn't going to be easy. However, I say that the right way to look at it isn't that you're telling Johnny he shouldn't be a particle physicist; I think the right way is that of all the hundreds or thousands of official college majors and the thousands again subspecialities, Johnny would probably like to do quite a few of them and perhaps Johnny should spend at least five minutes considering whether some of them might deserve more consideration than others based on whether they are actually useful to society. It's not that we're denying Johnny his one true calling, it's that Johnny is an adaptable human who could probably do many things and perhaps he should ponder a bit before making life-crashing decisions. How many of us truly have only one thing they could possibly imagine doing, ever, and of that set, how many of them found it before college? (If you're inclined to say "me", I'm serious. There's no other job you could ever imagine wanting? I'm spotting you the training, an alternate universe where you have just as much experience there as you have here now, not suddenly switching tomorrow. No other science, math, engineering, humanities, or arts appeals to you that much at all? I'm sure there's a non-zero number here, but I also think that's the exception, and that's enough to carry my point.) My dream job is composing video game music. There were several other things I could have gotten a degree in. I got a degree in computer science, because I did put some thought into it and it was obvious what the winner was. I have no regrets. I have put my money where my mouth is. I'm tired of looking at my peers who followed their bliss right into staggering debt and worthless degrees. Don't be one of them. (I'm not saying I chose computer science out of the blue because I thought I could make money. I'm saying of the many things I loved or at least liked, computer science among them, the choice was pretty obvious. The next most interesting thing to me was psychology, but since I would not have wanted to be a therapist I would have been in the academic world and I doubt I'm that spectacular of a psychologist. Probably would have wandered into computational neuroscience anyhow....)
fghjkoi8uygt 16y ago
Yes it's a waste studying high energy physics or astronomy instead of inventing MRI or lasers. And Wall st would be much better if it just hired accountants instead of all those people who had spent 10years learning all that useless math.

jerf 16y ago

"They may have proven their ability to master a technical subject, but the subject they have spent years mastering has little or no commercial application, which is where wealth is created." We're going to have to dispense with telling children that it doesn't matter what they want to be, and start telling them they ought to spend at least a little time thinking about whether it actually bring capturable value to society. (Or, more for their speed, "whether anybody will pay them to do it".) Of course this involves walking back decades of self-esteem BS, which isn't going to be easy. However, I say that the right way to look at it isn't that you're telling Johnny he shouldn't be a particle physicist; I think the right way is that of all the hundreds or thousands of official college majors and the thousands again subspecialities, Johnny would probably like to do quite a few of them and perhaps Johnny should spend at least five minutes considering whether some of them might deserve more consideration than others based on whether they are actually useful to society. It's not that we're denying Johnny his one true calling, it's that Johnny is an adaptable human who could probably do many things and perhaps he should ponder a bit before making life-crashing decisions. How many of us truly have only one thing they could possibly imagine doing, ever, and of that set, how many of them found it before college? (If you're inclined to say "me", I'm serious. There's no other job you could ever imagine wanting? I'm spotting you the training, an alternate universe where you have just as much experience there as you have here now, not suddenly switching tomorrow. No other science, math, engineering, humanities, or arts appeals to you that much at all? I'm sure there's a non-zero number here, but I also think that's the exception, and that's enough to carry my point.) My dream job is composing video game music. There were several other things I could have gotten a degree in. I got a degree in computer science, because I did put some thought into it and it was obvious what the winner was. I have no regrets. I have put my money where my mouth is. I'm tired of looking at my peers who followed their bliss right into staggering debt and worthless degrees. Don't be one of them. (I'm not saying I chose computer science out of the blue because I thought I could make money. I'm saying of the many things I loved or at least liked, computer science among them, the choice was pretty obvious. The next most interesting thing to me was psychology, but since I would not have wanted to be a therapist I would have been in the academic world and I doubt I'm that spectacular of a psychologist. Probably would have wandered into computational neuroscience anyhow....)

fghjkoi8uygt 16y ago

Yes it's a waste studying high energy physics or astronomy instead of inventing MRI or lasers. And Wall st would be much better if it just hired accountants instead of all those people who had spent 10years learning all that useless math.