Thoughts on the Panic Over Engineering and Science Education

Don’t Panic!  U.S. Still the Land of Engineers and Scientists

In recent months it has been popular to lament the sad state of our educational system and propose various ways to encourage more vigorous study of math and science. The fear that our weakened economy will soon fall victim to legions of Chinese and Indian engineers and scientists has caused much distress to politicians and corporate executives. 

It is true that we have built a system of tantalizing incentives that appear to lure the so-called ‘best and brightest’ away from the ascetic land of the sciences and toward the money-soaked, hedonistic shores of finance, consulting and corporate law.  An engineering or science graduate of a top university (e.g. MIT, Cal Tech, Georgia Tech, etc.) can expect to earn a small fraction of the treasure offered to graduates from top MBA or law programs, or to those heading off to Wall Street or consulting firms.  In a society where wealth and conspicuous consumption are worshipped more fervently than any deity (despite protestations and rationalizations to the contrary!), it seems natural to assume that our brightest youth must surely be hearkening to this siren call of great wealth and rejecting the more difficult and less lucrative path of engineering or scientific endeavor.

But do not despair!  The love of knowledge and truth, and the inclination to create and build, are more powerful elixirs even than the inebriating brew of huge salaries and bonuses.  Our schools are still filled with extremely bright students that choose science and technology because they want their lifework to have meaning and to be fulfilling.  The U.S. has the best engineers and scientists in the world and is the Mecca for promising technical talent from every country.  We can be proud of the fact that we not only fill our companies and labs with incredibly clever and well-educated graduates, but also seed the rest of the world with talent.  

These students will toil in the relative obscurity of cubicles in thousands of companies across the land.  They did not choose the road less travelled to get rich quick.  A few will achieve wealth through entrepreneurship or by being in the right company at the right time.  The rest will simply do the heavy lifting of our industrial world – creating the next energy technology, designing a new transportation paradigm, applying robotics to a thousand uses, engineering new biological and chemical solutions to medical or environmental problems and so on.  Most of these engineers and scientists will not be rewarded richly for their labor in any material sense.  But they will love their work and live good lives.  I would not be surprised if they are on the whole much happier than the billionaire hedge fund managers and their ilk.

It has been said that the consultants, the bankers, the traders and the corporate lawyers are the ‘smartest guys in the room’.  But I believe the smartest guys are not ‘in the room’ at all, they are back in their cubicles moving the state of the art relentlessly forward.  We didn’t lose the best and brightest to the glamour of Wall Street, only the greediest.  The best and brightest are, thank God, still on the job and tinkering about to make a better world.