Why engineering majors switch to English

[rdean]

By the time engineering students get to the top level, presenting the material and answering the questions may be all they need. Some students will never learn because they don't have the ability.

Just about everyone can learn to read and write. It makes sense to grade the teacher on what the students have achieved. Much harder to do in engineering because most people simply don't have the capacity to be a top notch engineer. Or doctor. Or scientist. But from those fields, engineering is easiest.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

I saw this article, and have a few thoughts:

On Professors and teaching ability: Part of this is the fault of students. If you go to a R1 institute, where tenure is solely awarded based on grants and research, then don't expect to get a good teacher. Or thank God himself if you do. The advantage of an R1 institution is that you get access to the minds at the very forefront of the fields.

I myself am at a lower tier school because I love teaching. I've cranked out a few referred articles (averaging about 1 every other year or so), but my first love is the classroom. So I sought out an institution where teaching is a much larger component towards tenure. Institutions like that exist, you just have to look.

On the influx of foreign minds at institutions: True fact. At the R1 level most of the guys getting tenure now in Mathematics are Asian. That's a whole other issue. It's actually getting hard to find Americans that will do research in academics. Part of it is pay. I know a young Ph'D in Mathematics like myself can jump over to actuarial science and double his income in a year or so. I could go work for the NSA and make half again what I earn at an entry level. Part of it is budgetary concerns. Public and Private institutions are slashing tenure track jobs like crazy. Every job opening has about a 100 applicants and if you land the job there is no guarantee, even with tenure, that the job will last.

On the plethora of college students: I agree, there are too many with degrees. In fact, there are too many even going. A lot of students are using college as a "Snooze Bar" on life. What's unfortunate is that the trend towards online classes is making it easier for students to cheat and get degrees. One of my frustrations is the sheer level of complaints I get because students are flying through History, English, etc, and can't do the mathematics so they can't get a degree. And because of how we've structured our courses, they've yet to figure out a way to "cheat" past the course. So instead, they complain. Loudly.

The OP: I think the number of folks changing away from the Sciences has more to do with the fact that the High Schools have lowered the bar when it comes to science and Math education. I have students coming in, wanting to get into a professional school, that tell me they've had up to Vector Calculus in high school. When I was a new Ph'D, that was a cause for excitement. I've since learned that students claiming to have had Calculus in high school typically can't work simple story problems, or have been taught things that are just flat wrong. Typically those students are a lost cause, as I'll be wasting a lot of time unteaching them the ridiculous things they think they know.

So if they come in weak in Mathematics, what chance do they have as an Engineer? If you can't take Calculus out of the gate in college, you're looking at what, 5-6 years for a BS in Engineering. The same is true for a lot of fields right now. For a CS Major, if you can't take Pre-Calc at the very least you're on a minimum 5 year plan.

Last but not least: On Engineers versus Scientists: google a few good Engineer/Physicist/Mathematician jokes. All of them are on point. The point is that if you need to get something done in the real world, you want an Engineer.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

By the way, you might enjoy this article:

Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education | The Nation

I've seen a lot of this happening. Tenure track jobs are evaporating fast in favor of part time positions and adjuncts, and with that comes a fair amount of serious issues in higher Ed.

 

[Samson]

By the way, you might enjoy this article:

Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education | The Nation

I've seen a lot of this happening. Tenure track jobs are evaporating fast in favor of part time positions and adjuncts, and with that comes a fair amount of serious issues in higher Ed.

It seems to me, the article believes PhD's are special: Why?

Because society benefits from scholorship.

However, not so much that we wish to PAY for "scholorship."

I think it was Edison that said he didn't wanna invent something that wouldn't sell, because if it didn't sell, it was worthless. Ditto PhD's: Unless scholorship PRODUCES SOMETHING, the who needs it?

This bullshit about it being "good for society" is the author's opinion: Society was just fine for centuries before the small blip in time between 1950-1970 when all the sudden, PhD's were fashionable.

 

[Wonky Pundit]

By the way, you might enjoy this article:

Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education | The Nation

I've seen a lot of this happening. Tenure track jobs are evaporating fast in favor of part time positions and adjuncts, and with that comes a fair amount of serious issues in higher Ed.

In my opinion, the real cause of the problem is that outside of academia, PhD's generally do the job seeker more harm than good. All PhD's have done their research in a very narrow area, so, unless an employer is looking for that particular expertise, the person is overqualified.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

By the way, you might enjoy this article:

Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education | The Nation

I've seen a lot of this happening. Tenure track jobs are evaporating fast in favor of part time positions and adjuncts, and with that comes a fair amount of serious issues in higher Ed.

In my opinion, the real cause of the problem is that outside of academia, PhD's generally do the job seeker more harm than good. All PhD's have done their research in a very narrow area, so, unless an employer is looking for that particular expertise, the person is overqualified.

I'm sorry, but that's kinda a clueless post.

If your Ph'D is in an actual Math or Science area, you're fairly employable out in the real world. Mine was in Mathematics, and the area of specialty was pretty esoteric, but I still had as many offers out in the business world as I did in academics. Most of the physicists I know had more offers out in the business world than the academic world...which is a commentary on the sad state of Physics education. Most of the Chemistry and Biology folks I work with are actively head hunted by government and private labs.

Now, if your Ph'D is in the allegorical narratives of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Lost World", yeah, you're probably screwed. But again, that comes down to the student's mistake, not the professor's. If you spend 15 minutes studying the job market you'll learn really fast that in Mathematics a Ph'D in any of the following topics will allow you to name your price both in the Private sector and in Academia:

1. Math Education (Yeah, you can get private industry jobs with this. Lots of them, and Universities simply can not hire enough of these guys)
2. Mathematical Biology
3. Financial Math
4. Statistics
5. Applied Math
6. Number Theory (One of the Professors at would routinely place his students at 6 figure jobs in private industry)

A Ph'D tells an employer that you're capable of actively pursuing research. Believe it or not, some folks need that.

 

[Dr.Traveler]

It seems to me, the article believes PhD's are special: Why?

Because frankly, not everyone can do it. I started grad school with 21 other Americans. Of that group only 4 made it to the end. The wash out rate in graduate school is incredible. A Ph'D requires an original contribution to an active research area, which is something not everyone is capable of doing.

Because society benefits from scholorship.

However, not so much that we wish to PAY for "scholorship."

I think it was Edison that said he didn't wanna invent something that wouldn't sell, because if it didn't sell, it was worthless. Ditto PhD's: Unless scholorship PRODUCES SOMETHING, the who needs it?

Edison was short sighted there. I can think of a half dozen things in just Mathematics that even Mathematicians thought was pointless that turned out to be the central engine for some innovation in the real world. Poor Lobachevsky and Bolyai died in poverty, their research into Non-Euclidean Geometry was pretty much ignored, and yet Non-Euclidean geometry is pretty much the mathematical basis of Einstein's theories, which led to the bomb, which led to.....

Expand things out to the sciences in general, and you see tons of examples of stuff brushed off as useless or esoteric that turned out to be the most important thing in the world.

Of course, the reverse is true. Mathematicians wasted centuries on straight-edge and compass constructions and the best application of that now is a $0.99 app on the App store.

The fact is, you never know. Academic research is conducted at a bargain basement price for the world at large and typically forms the basis of innovations great and small. Some of that research will turn out to have practical applications, some won't.

This bullshit about it being "good for society" is the author's opinion: Society was just fine for centuries before the small blip in time between 1950-1970 when all the sudden, PhD's were fashionable.

They were fashionable long before that, just not here in the USA. Most of the growth in Mathematics and Science research was a direct result of Einstein and Von Neummann putting out the welcome mat at the Institute for Advanced Studies at MIT. The USA got a fire sale on European scientists and Mathematicians. Prior to that, American education kinda sucked.

Before the 1950's Europe was the center of research, and Ph'D's were pretty fashionable there. The trend of people coming to the USA for advanced degrees if fairly new. It used to be you went to Germany for Mathematics, England for Physics, etc.

 

[Wonky Pundit]

By the way, you might enjoy this article:

Faulty Towers: The Crisis in Higher Education | The Nation

I've seen a lot of this happening. Tenure track jobs are evaporating fast in favor of part time positions and adjuncts, and with that comes a fair amount of serious issues in higher Ed.

In my opinion, the real cause of the problem is that outside of academia, PhD's generally do the job seeker more harm than good. All PhD's have done their research in a very narrow area, so, unless an employer is looking for that particular expertise, the person is overqualified.

I'm sorry, but that's kinda a clueless post.

If your Ph'D is in an actual Math or Science area, you're fairly employable out in the real world.

In theory, yes. In practice, I beg to differ.

Anecdotes about you and your colleagues notwithstanding, most employers gag slightly at the sight of those three letters on a resume, mainly out of fear that the candidate will demand more than they are willing to pay. The one family friend I know who earned his PhD in physics spent three years looking for a relevant job, and even then it was with the government.