4 ms·

>In fact, international students are responsible for basically all growth in AI-related grad programs at US universities in the past decades. >Or, in other wor

• commandlinefan 7y ago
  Isn't that the exact opposite of what people say when somebody points out underrepresentation by women in tech? That it doesn't have anything to do with ability or interest, but a hostile environment that's keeping them out?
• geoalchimista 7y ago
  Cultural problem seems to be playing no small part in this. In average high schools, being interested in STEM is just not considered something cool.
  • cgy1 7y ago
    If my experience from high school is still relevant, showing interest in much of anything besides the opposite sex, drugs, and music was considered uncool and being a tryhard.
• opportune 7y ago
  STEM graduate programs are for the most part immigration programs for India and China. Going to STEM graduate school for Americans who don’t need to jump through immigration hoops quite often has negative expected value, not to mention the stress and lack of career options in academia. And not only that, but the push for STEM imo has more to do with lowering wages and getting more software engineers (especially for S and M, I don’t think there is any real critical lack of PhDs. In fact a very large amount of physics and math phds just go into data science or software engineering). It’s entirely an economic problem, if it’s even a problem at all.
  • stevenwoo 7y ago
    One of my American classmates who loved science got a masters in physics said all the jobs they could get were either joining PhD programs or building instruments so they switched to programming in 1990!
• geebee 7y ago
  Partly. But I also think that targeted immigration programs have allowed these fields to staff up without raising wages to levels that educated people who don’t need visa sponsorship can find in law, business, and medicine.
• jjoonathan 7y ago
  A cultural problem? No, it's an economic/policy problem. PhDs are effectively being compensated with green cards instead of money. This compensation package is much more attractive to foreign students for obvious reasons. I'll never forget the day in lab meeting when it came out that I was a US citizen. I thought my accent and appearance would have made it obvious, but evidently my coworkers had assumed otherwise, and the response was an astonished "Then what the hell are you still doing in academia?" followed by looks of pity when I admitted to loving research. This was a biomedical lab at Carnegie Mellon about a decade ago and I was the only one doing ML work, so their astonishment was in part due to an underestimation of the market value of my degree, but on the other hand their intuition was likely accurate with regard to the STEM PhD market outside of AI. Those PhDs are worth $pittance + green card, but not worth $pittance.
  • codingslave 7y ago
    This is what no one wants to talk about
  • datlife 7y ago
    As recent grad student, I can relate this comment. Unless the school provides competitive compensation to attract US citizens to pursue PhD, it does not make sense economically for a US citizen to not enter industry instead. I trippled my compensation by deciding to work in industry.
• scottlocklin 7y ago
  >Our population is just. not. entering. the STEM graduate courses. Probably because they import so much cheap labor it's a lot easier and more sane/lucrative to do something else.
• Spooky23 7y ago
  Why would you pursue a masters or PhD? I was an undergrad in the late 90s, and even then there was no point. It made sense if you wanted to pursue an academic career (barely) and it made sense for immigration purposes. Personally, I’m an advocate for very open immigration, instead of creating weird niche paths to citizenship.