Category Archives: Career

Information on jobs and careers in science and engineering.

Google Summer of Code is Accepting Application Now

Google Summer of Code 2011 is accepting applications. This is a great initiative I have highlighted previously: Google Summer of Code 2009, Google Summer of Code 2008. The deadline for applications is April 8th.

Google Summer of Code is a program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source projects. The program has brought together over 4,500 students with over 300 open source projects, to create millions of lines of code. Participants (including students and mentors) have represented over 85 countries. The program, which kicked off in 2005, is now in its seventh year.

Participating organizations include: R Project for Statistical Computing, Debian Project, WordPress and the Marine Biological Laboratory. (9 of the 175 participating organizations list Ruby as part of their project :-).

For 2010 the effort had a budget of $5,000,000 and accepted 1026 students partnering with 150 Open Source organizations. This year they plan on 1,150 – 1,200 student positions. For 2007 they had 6,200 applications and 7,000 in 2008. I don’t see any data on applicants for 2009.

As for the application it should include the following: your project proposal, why you’d like to execute on this particular project, and the reason you’re the best individual to do so. Your proposal should also include details of your academic, industry, and/or open source development experience, and other details as you see fit. An explanation of your development methodology is a good idea, as well.

IBM Fellow Grady Booch on the Value of Engineering?

In this webcast IBM Fellow Grady Booch discusses the critical role engineering plays in moving society forward. And he explores the history of science and engineering. This interesting webcast would be a good video to show children, or anyone, to bring out the desire to study engineering and encourage them to study so they can join the many engineers shaping our world and our future.

Engineering Majors Hold 8 of Top 10 Highest Paid Majors

In August, employers responding to a NACE survey reported plans to trim their college hiring, hiring 7% for 2010 graduates from 2009. In addition, just 29% of those employers said they would increase their starting salary offers for the Class of 2010.

Most, but not all majors, experienced salary decreases. In fact, as a group, graduates with computer-related degrees (computer programming, computer science, computer systems analysis, and information sciences/systems) posted a 6.1% increase – the highest increase reported, which pushed their average up from $56,128 to $59,570. Among those earning a computer science degree, the average rose 4.8% to $61,205.

As a whole, engineering graduates also fared well. Their average salary offer as a group is up by 1.2% to $59,245. Although that increase is modest, engineering majors account for eight of 10 top-paid bachelor’s degrees in the Winter 2010 Salary Survey.

Major	Average Salary Offer
Petroleum Engineering	$86,220
Chemical Engineering	$65,142
Mining & Minteral Engineering (incl. geological)	$64,552
Computer Science	$61,205
Computer Engineering	$60,879
Electrical/Electronics & Communications Engineering	$59,074
Mechanical Engineering	$58,392
Industrial/Manufacturing Engineering	$57,734
Aerospace/Aeronautical/Astronautical Engineering	$57,231
Information Sciences & Systems	$54,038

Feynman “is a second Dirac, only this time human”

Oppenheimer recommendation of Feynman, page 1

Great quotes from Oppenheimer’s recommendation of Richard Feynman

“He is by all odds the most brilliant young physicist here, and everyone knows this. He is a man of thoroughly engaging character and personality, extremely clear, extremely normal in all respects, and an excellent teacher with a warm feeling for physics in all its aspects. He has the best possible relations both with the theoretical people of whom he is one, and with the experimental people with whom he works in very close harmony.”

“Bethe has said that he would rather lose any two other men than Feynman from this present job, and Wigner said, ‘He is a second Dirac, only this time human.”

Oppenheimer recommendation of Feynman, page 2

Images of letter from Oppenheimer to the University of California – Berkeley Recommending Richard Feynman for a position, November 4, 1943 (from Big Science at Berkeley).

via: He is a second Dirac, only this time human.

Related: Vega Science Lectures: Feynman and More – The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Richard P. Feynman and Robert B. Leighton and Matthew Sands – posts on physics

Kids Not Clamoring for Engineering Careers

Engineering careers with experiences

Engineers are terribly misunderstood. Which might be one reason 85 percent of kids say “no way” to an engineering career. “The stereotype of the engineer is just wrong,” says Warren Miller, a retired Florida engineer who e-mailed me after I wrote about the short supply of workers in science and technology.

They think it’s “someone who is half-robot super genius” and “way more interested in machinery or circuitry than people.”
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Part of the misunderstanding starts with adults who influence future workers. The survey found that only 20 percent of parents have encouraged or will encourage their children to consider an engineering career. More girls say their parents are likely to encourage them to become an actress than an engineer.
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The National Science Foundation estimates a shortage of 70,000 engineers by 2010. To reverse the trend, we need to apply the engineer’s biggest tool: logic.

Based on the title of this blog you can guess I am in favor of engineers. Engineers can find great rewards in their careers from interesting work to high pay and leadership positions. In the modern world you need an understanding of science and engineering just to be a literate member of society.

Movie Aims to Inspire College Students With Tales of Successful Minority Scientists

African American women are still rare in many science professions, despite their increasing representation in undergraduate science classes. The documentary – Roots to STEM: Spelman Women in Science—seeks to explore how these women were able to succeed and to hold them up as role models.

Tarsha Ward remembers begging her mother for a stethoscope so she could be the star of career day at her kindergarten class in Charleston, S.C. Her mother presented her with something that proved more prophetic: a white lab coat.

“For me that was the beginning of a career,” said Ward, who is working toward her doctorate in biomedical sciences at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga., focused on cancer research. “Ever since then everything was about science.”

“If you get into a bind you have to think it out yourself,” she said. “A Ph.D. has really taught me to think on my own. You’re here thinking in the midnight hours and there’s no book to tell you what’s right. You just have to see if it works.”

Such struggles have already paid off. “In seven months, I published my first paper. I worked on it day and night,” said Ward, a 2004 Spelman graduate. “I (loved) the fact that I could find something no one else could find and actually publish it.”

Read the full press release

S&P 500 CEO’s: Engineers Stay at the Top

2008 Data from Spencer Stuart on S&P 500 CEO (link broken so it was removed, it is so sad that companies still pay people to manage web sites that don’t even understand basic web usability principles such as web pages must live forever) shows once again more have undergraduate degrees in engineering than any other field, increasing to 22% of CEO’s this year.

Field
	2008	2007	2006	2005
Engineering	22	21	23	20
Economics	16	15	13	11
Business Administration	13	13	12	15
Accounting	9	8	8	7
Liberal Arts	6	6	8	9
No degree or no data	3	3

In 1990 Engineering majors accounted for 6% of the bachelor’s degrees in the USA (1970 5%, 1980 7%). Business accounted for 23% of the majors in 1990 (1970 14%, 1980 21%). Liberal arts 3% in 1980 (1970 1%, 1980 2%).

The report does not show the fields for the rest of the CEO’s. 39% of S&P CEOs have MBAs. 28% have other advanced degrees. The University of Wisconsin-Madison and Harvard tied for the most CEO’s with undergraduate degrees from their universities at 13. Princeton and the University of Texas had 9 and Stanford had 8.

While the CEO’s have engineering education backgrounds the work they have done is often in other functions. The top function that CEO’s that have worked in during their careers: Operations (42%), Finance (31%), Marketing (24%), Sales (17%), Engineering (11%).

Data for previous years is also from Spencer Stuart: S&P 500 CEOs are Engineering Graduates (2007 data) 2006 S&P 500 CEO Education Study – Top degree for S&P 500 CEOs? Engineering (2005 study)

HHMI Science Internships

Undergraduate Scholars Live the Scientific Life at Janelia Farm

With Janelia Farm lab heads as their mentors, the students have delved into projects that include identifying the neurons that control feeding behavior in fruit flies, designing better labeling molecules for use with sophisticated microscopy techniques, increasing the longevity of dragonflies, and developing computer programs for automated image analysis. The Janelia environment, they said, provides a unique opportunity to focus intently on research.
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The summer program offers students more than just hands-on experience in the lab – it aims to expose them to a more complete picture of what it is to work and think as a scientist does. An important component of the program is a weekly seminar in which students present their work to one another and field questions. Likewise, scholars are encouraged to attend the campus’s frequent seminars, conferences, and journal clubs, for exposure to research other their own.

For Gloria Wu, who is majoring in biochemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, the interdisciplinary nature of research at Janelia Farm and the diversity of backgrounds among her fellow scholars were important assets. “A lot of students are coming from math or computer science backgrounds, and that really stimulates a lot of discussion between us, so we can see other approaches to solving biological questions. That is something really wonderful about this program,” she said.

Another Survey Shows Engineering Degree Results in the Highest Pay

The PayScale salary survey looked at both starting and mid career salary. Engineering topped both measures. Of the top 10 mid career salaries, 7 were engineering degrees – including the top 4. The survey is based upon data for full-time employees in the United States who possess a Bachelor’s degree and no higher degrees and have majored in the subjects listed above.

The top 11 paying degrees are:

	Highest Paid Undergrad College Degrees
Degree	Starting Median Salary	Mid-Career Median Salary
Aerospace Engineering	$59,600	$109,000
Chemical Engineering	$65,700	$107,000
Computer Engineering	$61,700	$105,000
Electrical Engineering	$60,200	$102,000
Economics	$50,200	$101,000
Physics	$51,100	$98,800
Mechanical Engineering	$58,900	$98,300
Computer Science	$56,400	$97,400
Industrial Engineering	$57,100	$95,000
Environmental Engineering	$53,400	$94,500
Statistics	$48,600	$94,500

HHMI Expands Support of Postdoctoral Scientists

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute provides a huge amount of science and health care related funding. HHMI is expanding existing relationships to fund postdoc scientist fellows at with Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund, the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation, the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, and the Life Sciences Research Foundation. The funding should support 32 additional postdoc scientists. HHMI Expands Support of Postdoctoral Scientists

Fellows will be selected competitively by each organization. Each fellowship will have a three-year term. When the initiative is at full capacity, HHMI will be supporting 96 postdoctoral fellows at an anticipated annual cost of about $5 million. The program began in 2007 when HHMI announced it would fund up to 16 postdoctoral fellows in HHMI labs each year. There is no requirement that future fellows be appointed in HHMI labs.