On the Nature of Things | Forum

IEEE Spectrum | The STEM Crisis Is a Myth

Forget the dire predictions of a looming shortfall of scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians.

Ah, yes . . . but there aren't enough STEM degree holders to drive down wages to levels that folks like Zuckerberg would feel comfortable paying.

Until you can pick up engineers by the truckload for $40 per day cash at the parking lot of Home Depot, it will be a crisis.

Typhoon wrote:IEEE Spectrum | The STEM Crisis Is a Myth

Forget the dire predictions of a looming shortfall of scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians.

Thank You VERY Much for your post, Typhoon.

In my experience and that of other clan members, unfortunately quite right.

Unless one is willing to work Down in the Black Gang...........

And especially if you want to go into a field like Astronomy which like Music has a Star System

Best to get a second major like Chemistry or Geology where you can prospect for yourself........

Also it might be a good idea to get a Business minor or Major especially if you can find a professor like Rodney Dangerfield.........

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Wondering if the empresarios would be so keen to have more STEMs if each STEM grad had a good practical Business Education.........

Wondering if the competition might STEM the empresarios........

Yup. I've been saying this.

Science | After the LHC, the Deluge

This has been an ongoing issue that has been swept under the rug since the 1970's.

HEP grad students and postdocs would do well to remember the following:

Physicists are like lemons, you squeeze them for all they're worth, and then you throw them away.

~ Carlo Rubbia

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Some historical perspective, from discussions with former senior colleagues:

In the US, the period of great expansion was during the post-Sputnik panic . . . until about 1972.

The standard career route then was that one graduated with a Ph.D. and was hired on as a [often tenured] professor.

Of course, this exponential expansion could not continue, and in ~ 1972 the door slammed shut.

It was a this time that the holding-tank known a.k.a. the post-doctoral position was created.

Having this low-cost highly-motivated highly-skilled highly-productive easily-disposable workforce has been very beneficial to academia and so the practice has continued over several decades.

Typhoon wrote:

Physicists are like lemons, you squeeze them for all they're worth, and then you throw them away.

~ Carlo Rubbia

Thank You VERY Much for your post, Typhoon.

Maybe not always......

Not sure if it is just an urban legend, but remembering an article that claimed that a number of the Math & Physics Boyz & Grrls let go when the Super Conducting Super Collider was cancelled went to Wall Street and put their Idle Hands to the Devilish work of devising toxic financial derivatives that played a part in the recent financial crash....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-cond ... r-collider


Sort of makes me think of a Mad Scientist Horror Movie but instead of making a Giant Robot or a Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Villains ruin the Nation Financially.........

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like the Congress & the other FIRE/Governmental elites who go back and forth between Washington & Wall Street.......

Mad/Evil Social Scientists/Lawyers...........