The $71 million public-private partnership, a new effort of the THSP, will establish 35 small schools that offer focused teaching and learning opportunities in STEM subject areas and five to six STEM Centers to develop high-quality teachers and schools. The highest-quality education in these subjects is critical to workforce development in Texas and to ensuring that the United States keeps its competitive edge as a world leader in scientific and technological innovation.
Google opens research office near CMU
Google to open new research facility in Pittsburgh:
Google Inc., the leading online search engine company, will open a new engineering and research office in Pittsburgh next year to be headed by a Carnegie Mellon University professor, the company announced Thursday.
The facility will be charged with creating software search tools for Google. It is expected to create as many as 100 new high-tech jobs in the Pittsburgh area over the next few years, said Craig Nevill-Manning, director of Google’s New York engineering office.
This is another specific example how higher education in engineering and science can create jobs. Obviously, there are many cheaper places for Google to start new offices.
Related posts:
USA Under-counting Engineering Graduates
How accurately the data reflects the situation is something that must always be considered: data is a proxy for something. All models are wrong, some are useful – George Box.
A very interesting report has been published by Duke’s Pratt Engineering School: Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate by: Dr. Gary Gereffi and Vivek Wadhwa – Primary Student Researchers: Ben Rissing, Kiran Kalakuntla, Soomi Cheong, Qi Weng, Nishanth Lingamneni. I strongly recommend reading this report. Report Appendix with data:
Typical articles have stated that in 2004 the United States graduated roughly 70,000 undergraduate engineers, while China graduated 600,000 and India 350,000.
The report puts the 2004 figures, based on their operational definition of a engineering degree at:
USA: 222,335
India: 215,000
China: 644,106
The fact that there are fewer equivalent degrees in India and China doesn’t amaze me. Tripling the degrees in America does surprise me. If I understand the report this is due to including IT and computer science degrees (that are included in China and India counts) and including subbaccalaureate degrees (also included by China and India). In practice, US data includes some IT and CS degrees as engineering and some not (depending on how the school classifies them I believe).
These massive numbers of Indian and Chinese engineering graduates include not only four-year degrees, but also three-year training programs and diploma holders. These numbers have been compared against the annual production of accredited four-year engineering degrees in the United States. In addition to the lack of nuanced analysis around the type of graduates (transactional or dynamic) and quality of degrees being awarded, these articles also tend not to ground the numbers in the larger demographics of each country.
These types of distinctions are exactly the type of additional information that can be very important to consider when drawing conclusions based on data. While agree that looking at the percentage of the population is worthwhile, I think the report may over emphasis this measure. If looking at how much engineering ability China and India are bringing online what is most interesting is the absolute measure of that capability. Continue reading
Engineers in the Workplace
The engineers are feeling gloomy by Aliza Earnshaw:
Engineers interviewed in depth for the survey went so far as to say they would not recommend that their children follow them into the profession.
“There’s no money in it, there’s nothing but layoffs, and it’s all being outsourced to India,” said one engineer.
“There’s no respect,” comparable to that accorded lawyers or physicians, said another. “Someone with a bachelor’s or master’s in electrical engineering or software, he’s just a flunky.”
It is true some jobs are being moved overseas. But the unemployment rate for engineers is still very low (under 3%). Also the pay for engineering graduates is very high.
The status (respect) accorded to engineers may well indicate a long term trend in the United States to value those who work with money (salesmen, managers, finance…) over those who work on things (engineers, skilled workers, software…). I think this is a significant problem that does require that management improvement. In my view companies that realize that engineers, other knowledge workers, should be the focus of their management (not playing games with quarterly earnings) will outperform those that try to manage companies through financial measures alone.
In a post on our Curious Cat Management Articles blog, Google: Ten Golden Rules, we quoted a Business Week article, Googling for Gold:
The suits inside Google don’t fare much better than the outside pros. Several current and former insiders say there’s a caste system, in which business types are second-class citizens to Google’s valued code jockeys
…
with engineers and product managers tending to carry more clout than salesmen and dealmakers.
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with engineers and product managers tending to carry more clout than salesmen and dealmakers.
Maybe the suits shouldn’t complain too loudly. They may get others to look at why Google is doing so well and decide it is due to placing more respect on engineers and less on suits (not that suits don’t deserve respect but I question the current balance of respect in most companies). I believe the success of Google will eventually get more “suits” to realize they need to do everything they can to allow the engineers in their companies to innovate. At this time, it is easy for most to see this concept for software engineers but similar potential exists for many engineers.
Here is some data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (which has some great data but the web site could be much better).
| Hourly Rates for Engineers in the USA | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Field | 1997 | 2000 | 2004 | |
| Aerospace | 30.44 | 33.34 | 41.15 | |
| Chemical | 30.65 | 36.39 | 37.97 | |
| Electrical | 29.24 | 33.94 | 37.32.15 | |
| Petroleum | 35.44 | 36.75 | 43.26 | |
| Other | 29.00 | 33.52 | 36.59 | |
Some additional data from IEEE, Employment Data Paints a Disturbing Picture:
In the first quarter of 2005, electrical engineers (EE) faced an unemployment rate that by fell to 2.1 percent, just about its historic average. The rate has been declining since 2003 when electrical engineers faced an unemployment rate of 6.3 percent — the highest ever recorded for EEs.
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Between 2003 and the first quarter of this year, unemployment fell along with total employment, which declined from 363,000 in 2003 to 335,000 in March of 2005, almost 8 percent. The only way the number of unemployed engineers and the number of employed engineers can both fall at the same time is if a large number of engineers are simply leaving the profession.
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Between 2003 and the first quarter of this year, unemployment fell along with total employment, which declined from 363,000 in 2003 to 335,000 in March of 2005, almost 8 percent. The only way the number of unemployed engineers and the number of employed engineers can both fall at the same time is if a large number of engineers are simply leaving the profession.
While the situation is difficult there are positive and negative trends. We will continue to post on this topic.
Related posts:
Engineers Trained in Lean Manufacturing
14 engineers trained in ‘lean manufacturing’
One North East is investing £9.4m into the North East Productivity Alliance (NEPA) to ensure its acclaimed work with regional companies continues until at least 2009.
The cash will allow 14 new engineers, handpicked from regional firms, to be trained under the NEPA programme, to work with management and shopfloor staff to engrain best practice ‘lean manufacturing’ into companies and raise their productivity.
The funding will also ensure the future of NEPA’s Digital Factory project – which helps firms adopt new technologies to boost productivity.
One NorthEast is a Regional Development Agency helping to create and sustain jobs, prosperity and a higher quality of life. The mission: ‘To transform England through sustainable economic development.’
David Allison, One North East Director of Business and Industry, said: “This further investment by One NorthEast in the NEPA programme is proof positive of the importance the regional development agency attaches to manufacturing.
”The NEPA programme is held up as a shining example nationally of how the public sector can work with private manufacturers to raise productivity and help them compete in a fierce global marketplace.
“Manufacturing continues to be a cornerstone of the North East economy, employing 169,000 people, contributing 25% of its GDP and generating £2.6bn in wages every year.”
The NEPA team is keen to work with regional companies to identify new engineers to work in the project. Employees will gain valuable new qualifications, boosting their worth to their parent companies by bringing best practice technique into the workplace.
Joint Singapore MIT Degree Programs
The Singapore–MIT Alliance offers joint degrees from Singapore’s Nanyang Technical University (NTU), National University of Singapore (NUS) (where my father taught for a year and a half when I was a kid) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Programs are offered in:
- Advanced Materials for Micro- and Nano-Systems (AMM&NS)
- Chemical and Pharmaceutical Engineering (CPE)
- Computational Engineering (CE)
- Manufacturing Systems and Technology (MST)
Students study in Singapore and while in residence at MIT and distance coursework from MIT while in Singapore. The students earn masters degrees from MIT and a masters from NUS/NTU and possibly a doctorate from NUS/NTU. As an example, An MIT Masters and an NTU Masters details:
The Dual Masters will comprise a Master of Engineering Degree in Manufacturing from MIT and a Master of Science Degree from NTU. This programme combines a broad based approach with independent research and concentrate on problems of emerging industries. Students will combine industry-based project experience with a university-based research derived from that experience. Depending upon the student’s progress the programme may be completed in 1.5 years, but no more than 2.0 years. The MIT degree will be taken partly in residence at MIT and by distance at NTU, and will be primarily coursework-based with a group project in industry supervised by MIT. The NTU degree will include coursework and independent research with NTU faculty supervision.
The Future of Engineering Education
The future of engineering education an interview with Emma Shepherdson who studied this topic for her doctorate at MIT.
The student’s experience is not passive, she is forced to engage in a dialogue with the module as she proceeds through it. Her progress is fully controlled, ensuring she interacts appropriately with the material; and yet the environment still allows for a sense of play and experimentation. This effectively engages the student through continuous deep feedback, tailored specifically to the student’s own interaction with the material.
Also on the ARUP site: Time to push the secret art of engineering by Richard Haryott:
In the United Kingdom alone, applications in most disciplines – and certainly those in the built environment – have fallen by some 50 per cent in five years and they are still falling.
The problem is not confined to the UK but effects, to a greater or lesser extent, much of the western world. There are, no doubt, many reasons for this. Arguably one of the greatest is that the understanding that engineering is a highly creative art – albeit one requiring a deep understanding of the exciting sciences that underpin it – remains something of a secret.
Save Tulane Engineering
A new blog called Save Tulane Engineering was started today and is already very active. Tulale is located in New Orleans and announced, yesterday, actions to cope with the results of Huricane Katrina.
Through our ingenuity, Tulane Engineers will enable our leaders to reinvent Tulane, without the loss of its most important institution. If you, or anyone else have statistics regarding Engineering at Tulane such as per capita earnings, grant numbers, donation numbers, or scholarship recipients please let me now. We, Mary McCarty (Biomedical), Laura Wells (Biomedical), Shawn Sarwar (Biomedical), Justin Mikowski (Computer Engineering) and Will Clarkson (Computer Engineering), are spearheading an initiative to save our school. But we can’t do this ourselves.
All engineering majors except biomedical engineering and chemical engineering will be eliminated. Students in discontinued programs will be allowed to continue if they can finish by May 2007.
After Katrina, A Leaner Tulane, Washington Post:
Tulane, the largest employer in New Orleans, expects 86 percent of its students to return next month. Although it did not suffer insurmountable damage, the university still faces a $200 million deficit because of recovery efforts and loss of revenue. The university’s operating budget for fiscal 2005 was $593 million, according to its Web site.
Humorous Take on the Language of Engineers
A humorous take on the language of engineers from Xooglers (former Googlers):
Orthogonal – Engineers are always talking about things being orthogonal to each other. The first time I heard the term, I thought it meant something like “11-sided.” It doesn’t. I’ve read the definition many times. I still don’t really get it, which didn’t stop me from casually dropping it into conversations with engineers. “Oh, yeah, that press release is totally orthogonal to the ads we’re running on Yahoo.”
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Non-trivial – It means impossible. Since no engineer is going to admit something is impossible, they use this word instead. When an engineer says something is “non-trivial,” it’s the equivalent of an airline pilot calmly telling you that you might encounter “just a bit of turbulence” as he flies you into a cat 5 hurricane.
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Non-trivial – It means impossible. Since no engineer is going to admit something is impossible, they use this word instead. When an engineer says something is “non-trivial,” it’s the equivalent of an airline pilot calmly telling you that you might encounter “just a bit of turbulence” as he flies you into a cat 5 hurricane.
Have a nice weekend.
USA Science and Engineering Doctorates Hold Steady
| 1995 | 2000 | 2004 | |
| Total S&E Doctorates | 29,533 | 26,536 | 26,275 |
NSF also indicates 33% of all doctorates (including those outside science and engineering) went to non-USA citizens in 2004 compared to 32% in 1995. It is not surprising that the percentage of non-USA-citizen doctorate degrees, awarded in the USA, is much higher for many science and engineering fields (65% in engineering, 56% in mathematics, 55% in physics). It might be surprising to many people that 56% of computer science doctorates were awarded to non-USA citizens.
More detailed data on Science and Engineering Doctorate Awards is available from NSF.