Responding to recent concerns about America's ability to recruit and educate math and science types in order remain competitive with countries like India and China, Ted Rall attempts to
explain the engineering shortage:
What's lamentable about this latest why-do-our-kids-suck-at-math hand-wringing is that too many Americans are coming away from the conversation with the message that we're losing an intellectual arms race because our young men and women are lazy, stupid or both. . . . But as I can personally attest, there's a good reason that fewer young Americans are pursuing careers in the sciences: the jobs suck. . . .
High school and college students considering their futures know that work as a scientist is morally nasty, brutally alienating and financially insecure. That's why nearly a million engineering-related job openings remain vacant in the United States. If the young men and women of Pakistan and Bangladesh want the work, let them have it.
Wow, even just from this brief excerpt, the bitterness is evident.
Much of Rall's bitterness appears to come from a failed attempt at obtaining an applied physics degree before getting thrown out of Columbia, which he blames on his engineering classes being "too boring to keep [his] interest and too hard besides." Rall did return to Columbia as a history major, a more moral and financially secure option in his view I guess, and apparently even
more rigorous than an MIT engineering degree.
Most of Rall's contempt is focused on weapons scientists, whom he assures us are all going to hell. While Rall does not get everything wrong, such as the fact that engineers on the whole do not necessarily represent the social butterflies of our society (and most engineers are fine with that fact), the article does represent an unfortunately narrow-minded perspective. First, had America left that geeky engineering stuff to others over the last two centuries, for a number of possible reasons, Rall would likely not have the pleasure of calling himself "
America's hardest-hitting editorial cartoonist".
Second, and more to the point, science and engineering represents a tremendously diverse field. The technologies are diverse (electronics, nanotechnology, transporation, biotechnology, aerospace), as are the types of jobs (medical professionals, researchers, soldiers, product designers, marketing and sales persons). And while we all appreciate the work of our editorial cartoonists in this country, scientists and engineers are doing important work too, like developing life-saving techonologies in the health industry, communication technologies like the Internet that improve the flow of information, more eco-friendly technologies in the energy industry, and yes to Rall's disdain, even military technologies that protect the freedoms we enjoy.
My electrical engineering (EE) degree has given me the opportunity to live and travel all across the country and help develop technologies that touch our everyday lives, from computers to cell phones to digital cameras to automobiles. And now, as a law student, my EE degree gives me the opportunity to investigate the interesting dynamic between law, technology, and innovation, including the ability to practice patent law, an area of law open primarily to science and engineering graduates.
So, while some may "personally attest" that science and engineering jobs suck without ever having had one, I can personally attest that science and engineering jobs encompass some of the most challenging, exciting, and rewarding jobs in America. And not only that, for those willing to learn math and science, there are plenty of them.
More: Gary Cornell at Ablog says, Rall's rant is "
the single stupidest thing I have read in ages."
Though, Preston L. Bannister says, Rall's rant is "
not far wide of the mark."
