Re: Outsourcing jeopardizes U.S. chemical industry, expert says



On Mon, 8 May 2006, Threeducks wrote:

Thomas Bartkus wrote:
"Threeducks" <threeducks@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:U4mdnelpV75wDcDZnZ2dnUVZ_smdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Thomas Bartkus wrote:

"Straydog" <asd@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Pine.NEB.4.63.0605031444390.27771@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx


swiped (from a.c.c) and reposted to s.r.c
======================

On Wed, 3 May 2006, lcs Mixmaster Remailer wrote:



I don't hang around an a
science newsgroup and bitch and moan about how science and/or
engineering jobs are all crap.


Then hang around those newsgroups where there is exchange built around
career success stories. Whatever happened to those?


Christ, if my career in engineering went
in the toilet I would walk away and never look back. You guys are like
the guy who gets dumped by his girlfriend, but keeps her picture in
their wallet for years afterward.




50 somethings are doing post mortems.

Where are all the young graduates from your classes hanging out? Exchanging
succesful career info now that we curmudgeons have driven them off this
particular newsgroup? Where are the personal success testimonies?


Ah hah! That is a great question. Over the last five years, not one of my students has spent ANY time on usenet. I would guess 95% haven't even heard of usenet. Usenet is mainly kept alive by the old guard who, perhaps, remember what it was like in its golden age 10-15 years ago.

That is because _advertising_ (instead of "networking") draws attention to the WWW which almost everyone confuses by thinking that the WWW _is_ the same thing as the internet. Now, probably most email is interfaced at a website (eg webmail, and gmail - which uses old "mail protocols"). Much USENET is also interfaced (eg. at Google, for one) at a website. Commercial interests can "own and control" at a website. USENET is really free and public. So, in the end, we all fall victim, knowingly or not, to commercial interests instead of public interests. Think about it. Infinitesimal numbers of people know what I'm talking about when I talk about shell accounts (I've used them for over ten years now) and PINE as a email-news client. Far superior to all that "modern junk".


Fair enough! If I haven't made it abundantly clear, let me do so now and
state that my own particular career pathways have taken me down one road and
I don't necessarily see what is going on down roads I haven't traveled. I
hang around places like this to see the experience of others. One thing I
am particularly struck by is the notion that unless you are ensconced in a
well funded academic situation - you have no science career. I suspect this
notion is true. And I look for credible evidence to the contrary!

Where are the older guys who can point back at 30 or 40 year successful
careers in chemistry.

We have one of those guys on our faculty as an adjunct.

20 years? 10 ? Who do incoming freshmen talk to
when choosing their majors?

Who knows?

They don't. They walk down the sidewalks and think "what sounds to me like a 'cool' job?" and, they talk not with parents or experts, don't read books or articles about careers, but their peers in their peer group. Grad students don't talk to faculty, they talk to each other. Post docs don't even have frank discussions with their faculty, they talk with other post docs who know just as little as they do about real life. I know this from guys (grad students and postdocs) who came on SRC the last 13 years and ask questions and I wonder why it did not occur to them to ask the faculty in their own departments the same questions. THEY would be in better positions to advise their students than us.

Our university is hardly doing a bang up job recruiting
engineering students.

Are they doing a bang-up job building and expanding and enriching its endowment? Like all the other "pro-growth-forget-quality" campuses?

Who can show them that chemistry/science will
provide rewarding careers when compared to a business major? By offering
their own prosperous work history as a practical example?

The kids we get in our engineering program are there because they made their own decisions to be there. Our recruiting is so bad it's essentially non-existent. Therefore, I can rest easy at night knowing that I didn't snooker anyone into doing something they didn't want to do.

Well if you ever do want to, then write letters to "The Discovery Channel" or something and ask them " How come you never have any programs on engineering?"


Or do you, like our own congress, just piss and moan about lazy Americans
who shun science careers? Offering nothing but lame rationalization to
explain the situation to a compliant and lazy media.

Actually, I don't complain at all. I strongly believe that students should focus on things they can do exceptionally well, and that they should make their own decisions. If no one wants to do science or engineering anymore, so be it.

What a shitty attitude!!! :-| or >:-(

Well, that's what I'm told, right from the guys who are doing the
hiring. I don't know why they would tell me they would need more ChE if
they didn't. They also hire our graduates, so I haven't seen the
"produce more, but we aren't going to hiring any of them" phenomena.

Do they tell you what their actual numbers are in the applicant pools AND how many of those that they hire? That is the real indicator, not what they SAY. Its the number of applicants per job offered, not the position announcements. Its also a fact in lots of corporations that authorization to announce a position AND authorization to recruit are BOTH separate events from authorization to hire!!!!

I don't think I ever mentioned anything specifically about specialty
chemicals, although that is were some of the industry in the US has gone.


I would still be interested in hearing where the *growth* in
science/engineering careers are. Particularly chemistry and chem. E.

I think all industry in general is contracting.

Commercial manufacturing, yes. Financial services, no. Services in general are expanding.

What we are seeing a lot of
is the boomers all retiring and leaving positions open. 10 years from now, I don't think the job market is going to be all that great.

The jobs are going to be in LDCs, if anywhere.

Obviously there are
a lot of jobs coming up in oil/gas, but who knows how long that is going to last.

Obviously there are always opportunities for good people in any field of
endeavor. Are science and engineering positions in the US growing as fast
as job seekers enter the workforce? Are those positions as lucrative as
careers in marketing or accounting.

My mother is an accountant and after 25 years she doesn't make what I made my first year as an assistant professor in ChE. My wife has a degree in business and was making about $27K/year when we met.

Yeah, but if you look at the Forbes 400 richest people in the USA, most of them have "dumb degrees" in those areas, too. Only 2/3s of the richest people even finished college.

My school experience is rather dated.
But I do remember that chemistry was not only more academically rigourous,
it was also more expensive. More credit hours and tuition compared to
accounting,

Its now a sold 5 year program at the undergraduate level.

for example. The saving grace is that if you can do chemistry,
you can *always* fall back on accounting if you can handle the boredom ;-)

I already know about highly educated eastern Europeans, Indians, and Chinese
fleeing from a lack of opportunity and looking towards the US.

Not so much anymore. A lot of students who would have come to the US 5 years ago are staying at home because they now have jobs for scientists and engineers. While it is difficult for a US citizen to land a PhD level job, if you are a foreign student, it is 10 times harder. No one is interested in processing an H1B visa in anything related to chemical engineering.

For how many is their english good enough to _write_? (journal articles, grant proposals) and _speak_ (in teaching so as to not piss off the students?).

.

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    ... but the truth is I just love being involved in the science in whatever form ... situation has become for the people who seek those careers. ... not one of my students has spent ANY time on usenet. ... Obviously there are a lot of jobs coming up in oil/gas, but who knows how long that is going to last. ...
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  • Re: Outsourcing jeopardizes U.S. chemical industry, expert says
    ... science newsgroup and bitch and moan about how science and/or ... engineering jobs are all crap. ... my students has spent ANY time on usenet. ... I think a small fraction of incoming students have done some homework on jobs and would be receptive to "facts", the rest are in college because that is what you do after you go to high school. ...
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  • Re: Outsourcing jeopardizes U.S. chemical industry, expert says
    ... and, they talk not with parents or experts, don't read books or articles about careers, but their peers in their peer group. ... I know this from guys (grad students and postdocs) who came on SRC the last 13 years and ask questions and I wonder why it did not occur to them to ask the faculty in their own departments the same questions. ... The kids we get in our engineering program are there because they made their own decisions to be there. ... If no one wants to do science or engineering anymore, ...
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