Bush and some congressmen are pushing for increased math and science education....

That's great. So we have more engineers and computer IT people without jobs.

My question is this:

Do you think it will change the tide on outsourcing if we educate our kids with math and science?

Is this really a magic bullet that will create "high paying jobs" as George Bush said last night?


From my experience I've seen corporations trying to get foreign workers in science and math, and they keep saying it's because "there are not enough in the US". Which of course is a lie, they just want those cheap foreign workers.

So is this a solution just to buy politicians time from the issue of outsourcing?

Do you think it will change the tide on outsourcing if we educate our kids with math and science?

No, there are plenty of people like me that can't make a living in the business anymore purely because we can't compete on price. I'm a top-flight computer software designer, I used to make 6 figures but for the last 2 years I would be making more stocking shelves at Target. Outsourcing is purely about paying less, not that there aren't qualified people.

Is this really a magic bullet that will create "high paying jobs" as George Bush said last night?

For as long as people in India & China are happy with $10-/Hr & no benefits for work that used to pay $50+/Hr here, there is no magic bullet. Either they start charging more, or we start charging less and accept that the cost of our years of education doesn't get us any more economic advantage than someone in a blue-collar job or retail.

Ahhh... but need we discuss the reality of outsourcing??
truth about outsourcing

I think that the problem with American education is that we've allowed political correctness to impede the process of creating well sharpened graduates and perpetuating the hunger for entreprenurial spirit.

I believe as long as there is social promotion, affirmative action in our Universities, and an overall feeling of "everyone is a winner", we'll keep pumping out mediocrity as a commodity.

Math and Science are the backbones of engineering and innovation. America's core competency over the last century has been innovation and speed to market. If we want to keep places like China and India (who HAVE spent the last decades focusing on Math/Science) on their heels, it's not going to happen by focusing on the plays of Shakespeare...

The most important part of a Child's education is not that he understands where the comma goes in a sentence, but rather standards of universal innovation: Mathematics and Science. I would doubt that international companies with monsterous profits like Exxon Mobile are out on the hunt for Drama students... if we find the cures to diseases that plague the world, if we build hardware/software platforms that the world can use, or we engineer new fixes to universal problems then the product is truly marketable globally. If we focus on how to diagram a sentence or spend a whole month focusing on the history of a certain demographic in the US... we've probably wasted X amount of time...

We employ more people than ever as posted above. It’s a real shame that we cannot produce the scientists and engineers we need and that is not all. Skilled trades-people need math and science as well. Most of our kids get out of high school unable to read a simple mechanical dwg.



The high paying joss are there and most cannot be “outsourced” overseas. Bringing skilled workers here who have language and cultural issues is often the last resort for companies desperate for skilled labor at all levels.

One doesn't have to be at the expense of the other. It's not the fault od Shakespeare and Drama class that we are lagging behind - in India, and China, and Russia they put PLENTY of emphasis on the cultural aspects of education. (Well, can't vouch for India, but they do in China and Russia). What you're proposing is building one-dimensional graduates who know squat outside of their narrow field of study. And, from my experience, one-dimensional people make bad engineers.

The problem is not that american engineers are bad - they're not; the problem is that they're EXPENSIVE.

By the way, 10 years ago I switched careers and went from classical music into programming and software engineering. I am absolutely convinced that I was able to complete a 4-year coursework in 2 1/2 years with cum laude degree because of my background. Understanding and performing classical music requires certain degree of abstract thinking and, in general, classical music is precise, structured, well-defined, based on "building blocks", and schematic... object-oriented programming, anyone?

My point is, the knowledge is never useless.

Let me guess, you're not an engineer? And exactly how does this relate to engineering being outsourced? Sure, we have the most employed...ever. What does that have to do with high paying jobs, like engineers staying in the country?

Nothing. Of course spin coming from the Heritage Foundation....any chance they get money from companies that outsource??



Refer to IEEE. American engineers have high unemployment due to outsourcing jobs.

http://www.ieeeusa.org/communications/rele...4/050404pr.html




Now you're just spouting off from a purely political vantage point. What political correctness?

If I started up a new tech firm....I'd have engineers in India and China doing the work for $5/hr. Is that what you mean by entreprenurial spirit? Then why have an initiative to learn math and science, why not just have business and finance or accounting??

That's the problem, not "political correctness" which I'm not sure what that means anyway.

How do you get good paying jobs when they're not really good paying based on global wages?

Do you think it will change the tide on outsourcing if we educate our kids with math and science?
It will not change the tide on outsourcing. Now, we do need to improve the quality of math and science education in America. The real root of the outsourcing problem is that the Central Banks in America and Asia have been artificially propping the dollar up, thus creating the illusion that Americans don't really need to make any products.

Do you think it will change the tide on outsourcing if we educate our kids with math and science?


Straw man question. Education and outsourcing are not linked. Outsourcing is related to efficiency. Education is related to skill level.

I don't think the dispassionate observer could say that many of our higher education graduates in science, math and engineering are foreigners. Go to any engineering college and see just how many people are attending from places like Pakistan, India, or Korea.

Americans simply do not place an emphasis on science and math skills. They are much more prone to go into fields like interior design or photography. Majors which engineers such as myself joked to be akin to "Underwater Fire Prevention" in use. That assessment isn't wholly fair but when half of the students and a majority of the professors are foreign born, you know something is amiss.


Is this really a magic bullet that will create "high paying jobs" as George Bush said last night?

Searching the text of the speech, I don't see the words "magic bullet". It's a good idea but it is going to be difficult to actually implement.

Let's face it: science and math are hard. People don't like to do things that are hard. They'd rather do things that are easy or fun or both. Unless we encourage math and science, people will continue to pursue other careers.

Engineering absolutely creates high paying jobs. I now have 12 years experience and have moved into the top 25% of all earners (I think...). I have never had to look for a job: jobs seem to look for me. I am constantly declining offers to interview (one every few months). This is in Ohio, a state where engineering has been in a slump for decades.

Don't get me wrong, certain high tech or high education job markets may be glutted. After the absolute boom of the late '90s, programmers are having a tough time finding jobs. Of course, no one ever mentions how good the job market was in the 90s and how glutted it became or how those jobs (many of them) were for companies that never made any money.

Cutting edge technology will always be where new jobs are created and a country without skills in the cutting edge technology areas will be left behind. We need to encourage kids to join these fields.

Straw man question. Education and outsourcing are not linked. Outsourcing is related to efficiency. Education is related to skill level.
Actually, skill level is related to efficiancy. If an unskilled person has to look at the HowTo book every 5 minutes while working at a job, that person isn't going to last long in his job. Now I assume that American colleges do a decent job at training people for their jobs.

I don't think the problem is American's wanting easy or fun jobs. The problem is the astronomical cost of education and the uncertainty of the job market. If companies are outsourcing certain types of jobs, then high school seniors are going to be less likely to study those fields. I don't think the lack of motivation by American students is causing the outsourcing. I think its the other way around.

It's not really a strawman argument. A strawman is like a loaded question. Its building up an easy to tear down argument with misleading or red herring logic.

The question I'm asking is the same argument many are making about teaching math and science. They say we can't find qualified people in the US so we need to teach American kids.

But you answered the question. Although I'm not sure if it's efficiency as much as it is fiscal.



Couldn't agree more. I must be liberterian, I haven't found one yet that I disagree with.

People talk about picky Americans and "not doing jobs". Well duh, do you think a Mexican wants to break his back picking fruit if he could have a nice office job? Americans are no different than anyone else, they want the best they can get.

Unfortunately, in the US you really don't have much of a choice if you want a reasonably decent standard of living....you take what can get even if it's a McJOb.

And you're exactly right about the astronomical cost of education. And if you look at companies these days, they don't even want to train anyone. They want people with 3-5 years experience even after you dropped several grand on training and education yourself. It's a really tight job market.

And I agree, why go into computer science if there's either a) a glut or the jobs are being done by cheaper workers in Asia.

Since I happen to be from a Computer Science background, I'll chime in a little about how the job market really is for CS people. It is possible for every Computer Science person to make money in the Computer Business. But there's really only 2 ways to do that. The first way is to have that 3-5 years of experience in the first place along with several different certifactions. Those people make 50K/year easily. The second way, is to go to Rentacoder.com and do Perl scripts and someone's Java homework at $2/hr. Just imagine a Computer specialist putting Rentacoder on their Resume. Some Experience!

Outsourcing is about economics- the help bought outside the states is cheaper and will do More for Less.
Education won't affect this at all.
High paying jobs? This goes along more with what path you choose careerwise. Where i am now is light years away from where I started. I just left IT behind because it just hasn't given a return anywhere near my total input. I still kick myself for not getting my CAD certificate as well as some basic zoning law and building spec training. Civil engineer drafters are always going to be employed, just like transportation/logistics will always be solid career areas.
The high paying jobs will emerge from the next greatest thing since sliced bread. Maybe biotech.
Something some one is working on in a garage somewhere.
Its not so much a matter of education as it is drive and ambition, along with some basic common sense.
Work hard and be willing to put in the time and sacrifice and you will go far--and be paid pretty well in return. Put in the bare minimum and get the same in return.

If we want high skilled math and science people to be paid well we need to value them as a society. It is not that we have high paying jobs without people to fill them due to lack of sufficient education. The big dollar jobs are in other fields.

My cynical side thinks George Bush wants to increase the supply of highly educated people to keep the cost of such people down. Such is the mindset of our top corporation heads which have found out it is better to control a market than compete in one.

Indeed. But working hard is not always a guarantee. Like our CEO says, to become successful you need to be lucky and sometimes it takes a lot of work to position yourself to be lucky.

I totally agree with his comment, after all he makes $30 Million/year so he must know what he's talking about.

The problem I see is that it's not always hard work that gets you ahead. From the job hunting I've done, it's maybe more important to be in the right spot. You can be a slacker, but if you're in the right field with the right experience for the right amount of time, you could have a huge advantage over someone who works 100 times harder than you.

As well, you could go out and learn all there is to know about the law, you could know more than any lawyer on the planet, but if you don't have your law degree, have not passed the bar, don't have the experience, etc. etc. you're not going to go anywhere.

The sentiment about working hard is deceiving, because if you don't work smart you can waste a lot of energy, a lot of time and more importantly a lot of money.

"Good science and math" is a magic bullet. But, it's hard to find and get. I've taught all grades from K to Grad in science, engineering, and teaching science and math. I've also been in technology/engineering/math/science, (TEMS) to "list the whole enchilada". I was/am also a Ph.D. in it careerwise wise, and have my secondary education certificate in it.

What I've seen is:

1. The tough stuff in science/math is really not being treated. This is mainly cuz it's so tough that few publications result, yielding a "publish or perish" death if you do it at high levels.

2. You hear a lot about science and math, and sometimes technology, but it takes engineering too to be "complete".

3. What science and math taught to prospective teachers is often just plain wrong, and the average elementary and secondary teacher goes for the "easier science", usually means mathless, so the full spectrum of TEMS just doesn't make it to the "students".

4. I taught "gratis" on southwest Indian reservations, as well as gringo schools. Non gringo minorities have it especially bad for all curricula, but especially TEMS.

5. State curricula are just as terrible and incomplete, in my opinion, as what I saw in the field.

6. I was able to teach teachers TEMS, very successfully, by going into their classrooms and by teaching them grad accredited "TEMS" after school, at their schools. Even did it deep in the Res, where I had to overnight with the Hanta Virus carriers, actually when and where it first broke out.

7. My vote for the hardest and most needed are: optimal control theory, Lagrangian multiplier versions of it, and Lagrangian/Hamiltonian "foundations" of science, then lots of math and good computer programming. This is what I think can be the "magic bullet" fix " for all our so-called societal ills" except the dearth of morality in TEMS and governmetn!

Regards to all---Lek

Umm... there's a good chance that a large number of privately held organizations get money from companies that outsource.

I think that you failed to address the point. The fact is that regardless of the source, the Heritage foundation is in good company when it comes to outsourcing in a world market economy. It's predominantly positive.

You also said in a later post...



The thing is that education and experience (in reference to Math or Science) are building blocks. Luck, networking, age, gender, etc are all parts of success. This is the nature of a capitalist society I suppose.

The stark reality is that knowledge will better position you to go "somewhere". Knowing what drives the market and consumption allow you to provide a globally "sellable" product. This is science in itself....

I'm sorry if you feel like Engineers get the shaft in the US, but that should be discussed in another thread. Frankly, most students that focus on mathematical and scientific disciplines, especially in college or post-graduate studies, will have a higher likelihood of working in a portion of the market that pays well.

Consider this... from the Bureau of Labor Statistics...11/2004 (here)

I believe that healthcare would be considered science, don't ya think?

Check out this one too...
LA job stats

It supports the claims of the first. It looks like science and math pay pretty well...

Do you think it will change the tide on outsourcing if we educate our kids with math and science?

No, that tide will change once it is fully out and lunar gravity gets behind the ocean so it falls by its own weight. In other words, once outsourcing no longer makes economic sense. Once the Indians and Chinese have their social revolutions, things will start looking up for Americans. In India it is labor demand pushing up wages. In China it is rapid urbanization and careless industrialization that's making things pop. For all exporting countries, it will be the cost of fuel driving up the cost of imports. We ought to start charging out the yanger for Internet access to the US -- but only on telecommuting. Hey, who the heck built this network anyway?

It's not inconceivable that the global economy evaporates in favor of local and regional economies. A few more SNAFUs ought to do the trick.

I suppose the next big technical thing would help out. I just don't know what it would be, other than alternative energy tech. Biotech seems to have had its run. I'm really looking forward to my robotic body that looks like a cross between the young Elvis and The Terminator. Oh yeah, get hooked up with a young Ann-Margaret cyborg . . . well, whatever. They will probably make a law, something to do with global flushes and warming.

Is this really a magic bullet that will create "high paying jobs" as George Bush said last night?

Nothing's a magic bullet. Everything is a risk. Learn to use your innate talents and skills to their best abilities and you won't have to look for a path. The path will find you, oh glasshopper. You might have to jump off a cliff to get to it though. Wear sturdy, comfortable shoes. Practice flying. Put on the leathers. Don't eat before swimming. Drink eight glasses of whiskey a day. Avoid yellow snow. Don't let the bedbugs bite. Take the last train to Clarksville and I'll meet you at the station.

This sticky subject matter attracts platitudes like skeeters to sweaty bods. Nobody really knows.

[quote=aevans176,Feb 6 2006, 02:25 PM]
I think that you failed to address the point. The fact is that regardless of the source, the Heritage foundation is in good company when it comes to outsourcing in a world market economy. It's predominantly positive. [/quote]

Again, other than you saying it's positive and Heritage claiming there are more jobs. Where is the connection to "Better, high paying jobs in America" and outsourcing? Or better yet, show that good paying jobs are not being outsourced, hence reducing the amount of good paying jobs.

Heritage claims "more jobs". Well big deal if you can barely feed a family and pay the mortgage on those jobs.

[quote]The stark reality is that knowledge will better position you to go "somewhere". Knowing what drives the market and consumption allow you to provide a globally "sellable" product. This is science in itself....[/quote]

Well there's no doubt about that. There's no debate here about that, it seems pretty intuitive to me. The question is, how hard do you work and how much DO YOU PAY, to get that education and more importantly where is that "somewhere" most likely to be.

Why make a giant effort to get kids to understand math and science when most of those related fields are being done in Asia for $5/hr? Why not push them to do health care (nurse aide, a nurse, etc.). And no, many of the typical health care jobs are not necessarily math or science intensive.

[quote]Frankly, most students that focus on mathematical and scientific disciplines, especially in college or post-graduate studies, will have a higher likelihood of working in a portion of the market that pays well. [quote]

I'd like to see where you pulled this from. I'd think that people in sales, law, management and business related degrees tended to land in a better salary situation.

And the science/math situation is only getting worse. Like someone said before, it's not that students don't want to do math and science, but why work so hard in a very hard curriculm to end up working a McJob or being a sales guy at CompUSA?


[quote]Consider this... from the Bureau of Labor Statistics...11/2004 (here)
[quote]Yet certain healthcare practitioner and technical occupations, such as specialist physicians and dentists, accounted for 12 out of the 14 highest-paying detailed occupations in November 2004.[/quote]

Is it surprising that doctors and dentists make a lot of money. I would think that lawyers, CEOs, managers in general, accountants, etc. etc. make much more than people in science/math related fields.

But how many dentists and doctors can you have? Sure they need to know science, but who has the finances or the ability to get such degrees? In general, the need in healthcare is going to be less high-paying doctors and more like nurses and lower-level specialists which don't require much math and some science.

But the landscape is ever-changing and technical people are making less and less. Positions that were once $30-40K/yr are now $10/hr. And all those really good salaries for engineers and IT people are evaporating.

I can vouch for India in this. I went to school there for a year and have tons of family there--we had music, dance, literature, foreign language, and drawing. But unlike the education system here, not every subject was taught every day. The core ones (chemistry, physics, biology, algebra, trig--all in my 7th grade class) were taught every day. Homework was copious. You were not expected to have a life outside of school, that's what weekends (assuming they didn't hold class on Sat, which happens a lot) and the 1-month summer vacation were for.

Do you think it will change the tide on outsourcing if we educate our kids with math and science?

No, education and outsourcing are unrelated. As others have pointed out, outsourcing is a question of economics.

Is this really a magic bullet that will create "high paying jobs" as George Bush said last night?

A better education in math and science *will* result in high-paying jobs, just probably not in the computer sector. A few personal facts, if you'll indulge me:

1. I have a B.S. in Optical Engineering and an M.S. and Ph.D. in biomedical engineering. Shortly after graduating, I took a post-doc research position that paid reasonably well.

2. I could then have taken an academic job, or gone into industry and made ~$100K+.

3. I chose instead to go back to school and get a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and am writing a novel. This and the bit pieces I write here and there net me about $200ish/year.

4. I am now employed as a medical writer, part-time, for a pharmaceutical startup. I make a fraction of what I did just out of grad school, but can balance my time between science, technical writing, and creative writing. I could not have got this job without the Ph.D. I am also lucky to have a husband who is also an engineering/Ph.D. guy and thus makes enough money for the both of us.

Moral of the story--science and math pays. Literature does not.

I'll bite, since I am Plant Engineer in heavy industry (yes, there's some left)
And there's hardly a week goes by that I don't have a headhunter call.

It's all a little thing called "value". Is a software engineer making 6 figures worth more than $10/hr? Only if he/she earns it. Business are in the business to make money.





American Engineers don't have jobs because they don't want to work for a competitive wage or have some baggage that makes their resume hit the round file.

Of course this is greatly compounded when you add all the regulatory costs to having an employee in the US. Perhaps a "regulatory surcharge" on imported goods and services vs the US would level the playing field. The costs we incur due to Health, Safety, Environmental regulations, and the litigation that goes along with it are what's killing us.

I'm not saying the regulations are all bad. Many are great, some dubious, others just plain stupid. I can cite examples of the "just plain stupid" from experience should you desire. All I'm saying if we're going to have to support 2 federal employees, one state employee, and a handful of lawyers with each manufacturing job, Let's just kill the competition with the same costs.....

But that's getting off the track.
I fully support increasing education in the sciences. It doesn't have to be "all or none" with liberal arts. It is also important for a well rounded education. Let's just tip the balance the other way. It certainly doesn't help that half the tenured professors are little more than Chompsky wanna-bes.

Less preaching and more teaching would be good

Well you're in a good situation. Good for you. Many engineers are not. You can say they can't compete and you may be correct, who wants to go through a difficult curriculm like engineering to make $5/hr?

My question to people that think we need to be "more like them" in terms of regulations and compensation, does this mean no labor laws? No environmental laws? No business taxes? No health care? Low wages?

After all, if we need to be more like THEM instead of them being more like us, aren't you saying you want to be more like a 3rd world population?




And that's what I was getting at. You can't try to educate people and expect that to make a difference in regards to losing jobs. I don't think becoming more science and math savy will save us from having fewer challenging jobs.

That wasn't my point at all. If you read it again you will see I'm suggesting that we surcharge "them", not change "us". Let's just level the playing field.




And it may not, but it certainly won't hurt. It just seems logical that there would be more opportunities.
If I was asked, I'd have to say the biggest three obstacles in front of us are energy, the environment, and the militarization of Islam. Two of the three are going to require an engineering solution. We also can, and should, have great social programs, but to remain solvent someone has to generate the revenue to pay for them.

HUH?
Medicine IS science! It's not opinion, conjecture, or a liberal art. Nursing is 100% scientific.

I'd state that pushing your child to be a nursing aide is a bad, bad, bad idea. For those that have debated w/ me in the past, know that my wife is an RN. Aides make in the $11-12 range and do some of the worst jobs in a hospital.

However, the point of the thread is really proven by your post. Medicine does pay well at this point. Why? Mostly because hospitals are extremely profitable!.

Again, this goes back to my point about educating children in disciplines that the market needs. Nurses are in a shortage, especially those with Bachelor's degrees.. but you have to agree that nursing is scientific.

Do you think it will change the tide on outsourcing if we educate our kids with math and science?

Is this really a magic bullet that will create "high paying jobs" as George Bush said last night?

I’ll try to answer both of these questions together.

I think the best approach is a curriculum balanced among the core academic areas of math, science, language arts and social studies with adequate room left for students to explore and pursue individual interest through electives.

An element to be considered is prognostication for future jobs, but there are others.

Do any of you remember, or maybe forget is a better word, taking those Kuder Preference Tests—you know the ones you stuck holes in layers of paper (assuming you weren't sticking your classmates with the pin ) to create an interest profile? Regardless of the impending job market, there is little to be said for tying to make a scientist of someone who has little or no interest in science.

Still, there is a third element—aptitude. One can have all the interest in the world, and without aptitude will probably not become a good scientist or anything else. Likewise, aptitude without intrest, is also drawing a potential blank.

Public schools should be a place for students to learn, but also a place to explore interests and aptitudes. In an ideal environment, the job market, interests and aptitudes merge to place the right people in the right jobs. If the elements do not converge, then we run the risk of assigning individuals to a hellish life trapped in an occupation they hate.

I'd say that for now the burden of proof to support this statement is on you Red Cedar, I have seen little in the way of proof in this thread indicating that entire fields are being shipped out to other parts of the world.

In reality what we are seeing happen is two things:
1) Low grade work that we used to pay people a lot for here is being shipped off to other parts of the world. This includes everything from routine IT tasks (like database administration) to call centers, to simple financial tasks, to engineering grunt work.

2) Multinational companies are taking advantage of globalization in order to create 24/7 work teams. They have a team in the US and they have one or more teams in other parts of the world so work on a project or product is done 24 hours a day.

To expand a little bit, let me give you an example of the kind of skills you claim are being shipped out and lost in the financial world - I'll use accounting as an example. Traditionally the huge firms like Arthur Andersen, PWC, KPMG, etc had a large advantage because they had an army of recent college grads doing the grunt work for things and they used more experienced people to court and finesse their clients and work on complex issues. Smaller firms or individuals had to do all of the work themselves so they simply couldn't take on some kinds of work.

The age of globalization dawns, people in places like India now have finance and accounting skills, internet technology is where it needs to be to ensure communication and security and things change.

Now that small firm can compete with the big 5 by contracting with an Indian company for example to do the grunt work on tax returns. They ship them off, the calculations are run in programs a little more sophisticated than consumer programs and checked. That frees up these small firms and individuals to use their skills to spend more time with clients on complicated matters and give them service. In the end it allows them to get more work done for less money and they can grow their business at the same time.

When this idea first became hot during the dot com boom a lot of people did lose their jobs (in various industries) but companies quickly realized the value of their US employees and realized that there were two ways this globalization thing could work effectively for them - the same ways I just defined above.

In the case of 24 hour teams, lets take the example of an engineering firm. I don't know if Boeing actually does this but let's say they have to design a new engine. They have a US team that works on it for 8 hours and then they have one or more teams that continue the work from places like the UK, India and Australia for the rest of the day. The design is produced in record time and for a lot less money.

I fail to see how either of those two situations is "bad". I can also assure you that is how things work with companies that "get it" because I've worked with and consulted for a lot of them.

All this means is that people in the US can't take their jobs for granted, they have to be competitive and earn those high salaries. You can't get yourself a nice cushy job where you do something easy and repetitive all day - You have to create value. If you are counting on doing that or you are in a job where you do that then you may find yourself being replaced.

Things like more education in math and sciences as well as colleges focusing more on getting people jobs and marketable skills is the solution to that. Where I don't agree with some people in this thread is those that take the view that liberal arts degrees are worthless, because they aren't and to suggest they are makes you look pretty foolish and uninformed.

Is this really a magic bullet that will create "high paying jobs" as George Bush said last night?
No it isn't a magic bullet, but it is a start. I've made an observation that I think applies both to high school aged kids and those in undergrad as well. My wife is back in school again for a second degree right now and there is a huge difference between our attitude towards school and the 18-20 year old kids that are her peers. That difference is that those kids don't really understand why they are there. As a general rule (there are always exceptions) they are afraid to ask questions and engage professors, they don't take opportunities when presented to them and they aren't career focused. A lot of them think that just because they get a degree then all of a sudden they'll be able to do something with it. Many (not all) of them are more interested in drinking beer, partying and breaking the rules their parents made them live by than doing something in furtherance of their future.

I can even look back on my own undergraduate experience and see the same things, and I really wish I'd known then what I know now. The difference is pretty clear. Some of my wife's peers have graduated and they are working minimum wage jobs now; our business has been profitable from a little after the first year, she's had internships with influential people in the industry and she's been published more times than I can count anymore - and she hasn't even graduated yet.

I'm not bragging or anything, that was all hard work (and continues to be hard work) but somewhere in there is a lesson and if we could figure out how to apply that to our colleges and high schools then that is the magic bullet. That is what would insure that we remain competitive in all fields well into the next century.

I don't know just my two cents, but I certainly don't think simply increasing our focus on certain subjects will cure all of our problems without a whole lot of focus on applying that knowledge and a focus on how to think and create.

1.) It's a nice start. But being an American high school freshman in pre-calculus (a junior-dominated course) I do not really think it's that much of an issue. The fact of the matter is not the education provided: it is the children we are providing it to. A student who is cramming for an A.P. Biology exam and making a project for A.P. Macro-Economics and attempting to begin defining the hundred and fifty word vocabulary assignment for Language and Composition just might not have the time required to invest enough attention into a dry subject such as math.

Math is boring. Let's admit it. It's a whole different langauge. It has syntax, vocabulary, grammar, rules and abbreviations. To invest enough time to become as adept as some people already are in math takes a great commitment and to even joke about increasing to workload of mathematics in this nation would cause many kids to explode due to pressure... I'm currently living the pressure part, thank you very much.

2.) Not really. A good way to create high-paying jobs would be to let students build their own curriculum based on their own personal interests and areas of expertise. I think that if we nurture children where they have genuine interest and talent: it will convince them that they can excel and better prepare them for the actual work force. If we give proper encouragement and necessary preparation: we shall then have the high-paying job because of specialized education... not forcing many areas that may disengage a student from their natural self and focusing on the importance of what is best for the individual and not the administration's agenda.

Well, since I'm in school right now to be a nurse, I'd take exception to the "it's 100% science" idea. I have a science/math degree already and nursing is not science, it's service. I guess if you have a really broad idea of what science is, like saying pharmacology, psychology or nutrition are "science", then I guess you may be close.



Then you go on to talk about careers that are being shipped off? You contradicted your own statement.

Your assumption that it is only "grunt" work that is being done out of the country is inaccurate. I'm sure most Americans want to assume that we are smarter and hence doing "the more important, more talent-rich work" but that's not the case.

Do a google on "radiology outsourcing" for starters. These are Mds being outsourced, not database hacks.

I take this issue personally because I couldn't find a job in 2001 with a masters in engineering, yet all the engineering firms in Detroit had nothing but Indians and Chinese, not to mention those same foreigners running the HR depts for engineering.

I could dig deep and post many threads on the outsourcing of American jobs, from lowly manufacturing jobs, to high tech manufacturing, to medical, to business, even legal work.

One question I have for you, if kids graduating from college can't do the "grunt" work to start their careers....where do they start?

Look at American real wages, there's a trend DOWNWARD. I think pushing science and math is a great idea, but it's sort of like arranging the deck chairs on the titanic, IMHO.

I don't see the contradiction. You implied in your statements that whole careers and skillsets were beiing shipped overseas for quote "$5/hr in Asia". That simply does not jive with reality and if you are going to continue to insist that it does you need to cite some kind of proof.

What I said verbatim was:

That is the reality of white collar outsourcing and in my opinion it is a good thing. If you don't like it that is fine, but that doesn't make it wrong or detrimental either.


I don't need to, I'm aware of what is going on in that field and it falls into the second category with significant cost savings and convenience for everyone involved with the medical transaction. A person can go in to have some work done, it gets uploaded to the network and analyzed by someone in India for example and sent back within an hour before the patient even leaves where a doctor on the US side makes a diagnosis. If you really care about reading about the benefits instead of propaganda then you can check out this site. If after reading that scenario you can seriously argue that isn't beneficial for everyone then I'd like to hear it.


No offense intended but it sounds like you were relying on your degree to get you a job and that simply isn't the case. I believe I just finished posting about college students having that problem. Education does not guarantee employment. Maybe you didn't have solid internships or any at all, maybe your resume wasn't up to par (most people have no clue how to write a resume, much less one appropriate for their industry), maybe you didn't do your homework on the firm you were interviewing for, maybe you could have tried to get the job through networking, maybe you didn't interview well, or maybe the person hired for the job was just more qualified. And perhaps you should have considered expanding your job search to other areas of the country. That really sounds like sour grapes to me.

Also note, we were on the verge of a large recession in 2001 and depending on what part of the year you are talking about we were in one. People don't hire in recesssions, that is part of what makes it a recession.


I have not once denied that outsourcing has happened, you can refer to my statements above and in the previous post. What I am rejecting is your claim that whole fields are being shipped off. Non-manufacturing outsouring falls into the two categories I defined and both are beneficial.


Entry level jobs will always be around, it is the only way for a person to gain experience and every company realizes that. There also may be increased focus on internships in the future and that would be a good thing. What has changed is people can't remain in jobs doing entry level skills for years and years. If they aren't bettering themselves and adding value there is a chance they might find themselves out of a job.

I can't tell you how many people I've encountered in my professional career that are happily making a very nice salary doing basic things any college graduate could do with about 3 to 6 months of experience. They are basically just drawing a paycheck and showing up and anyone that thinks that can or should continue in a global economy is not only a dinosaur but not very smart.

Edited to add: Another thought, if you don't believe that math and science are important for the future of this country then what fields exactly do you think are going to lead our country through the next century?

America enjoys an unprecedented level of prosperity right now because of engineers, scientists, etc. We invented the car, the airplane, the computer, the internet, we discovered nuclear energy, we made it to the moon first, I could go on for hours on the list of firsts this country saw in the 20th century.

Going into this century the things that will propel us forward are people in biotech, genetics and pharmaceuticals, alternative energies, computer science, physics, chemistry, engineering. All of those things require some combination of math and science. This isn't about "jobs" it is about leadership. If you are on the leading edge of innovation then the jobs follow. If you lose that edge then it doesn't matter what kind of jobs you have, overall level of prosperity will fall.

Our country is not going to lead the way with service jobs, it'll lead the way with science and math.

I'm not saying outsourcing doesn't have it's benefits. WalMart provides goods for dirt cheap so that's a benefit, of course WalMart also creates few good paying jobs and sucks our health care system dry.

A company doing legal research in India, having shoes made by children working 24/7 for pennies a day, software developed for 1/5 the cost, etc. etc. are all benefits in providing services and goods for cheap. But they also take away jobs and consumers from the economic flow.



Well it's definately something I'm bitter about, no doubt about it. How would you feel if you were looking for work and you found jobs you were qualified for and they decided to hire Asians instead of you....and the company was in your backyard? Or if they decided to move the job, THAT YOU ARE QUALIFIED TO DO, to Asia because they get servitude and $5/hr with no health care costs?

I think your assumptions are way off base. You seem to think there is a definitive line between grunt work and advanced, leading-edge, smart-people work. IMHO, 95% of work done in the US is work that could be done in Asia.

Being a radiologist isn't something you pick up "in 3-6 months". Writing software isn't something most Americans can do. Being a computer scientist isn't the same as being a fruit picker.




Again, you paint things with a wide stroke. "They are beneficial". That really doesn't say much. Again, WalMart provides cheap stuff, yay!



Huh? You think a company cares about people? If they can pay someone in India $5/hr, why would they waste time "training" people for $30K/yr? From my experience companies are trying to bring in talent and not waste time training anyone.

Not that I can blame them, I personally job hopped to get more and more experience. So I can see some resentment from companies.

But I totally disagree with you on this point. There is no mutual caring from companies about getting experience for people. It's getting worse and worse, IMHO. People have to shell out tons of money to retrain themselves and then companies ask for 5-10 years experience. I definately don't see these entry level jobs you're talking about, anywhere.





That wasn't the crux of this thread. My point was "do you think pushing math/science will overturn the tide of these jobs leaving?". The more education the better IMHO. I just see it as futile in fighting countries that pay engineers $5/hr. Why push for kids to learn math and science when the jobs of the future are service-based jobs.







Prosperity or debt? Uh, we didn't invent the car, sorry. You forget that a lot of our inventions were done by immigrants.

But I'm not sure what that has to do with today and Asia as the new tech center of the globe.

Three things with this section. First, you seem to be under the impression that getting a degree or some form of training guarantees you a job. I'm sorry to inform you that isn't how the world works, but you already know that.

If I was looking for work I was qualified for and I wasn't being hired I'd find a way to sell myself in a different way to create value for a given company. I wouldn't sit around complaining about immigrants and people in other countries being hired instead. I've already listed more than a few ways to make yourself valuabel to an employer in my previous post. Getting hired is about a lot more than the cost of your salary to a company. But let's back up even further, I would never have gone into a field where I wasn't likely to get a job in the first place.

Secondly, you aren't even stating accurate facts with regards to the whole "$5/hr salary". Depending on the profession people in other countries make significantly more than that. If you disagree then cite your facts.

Finally, there is a significant difference between entry level work and advanced work. And yes some of the advanced stuff could be done in other countries. But guess what, that has been tried and it laregly failed. During the tail end of dot com boom when outsourcing was becoming hot many companies tried that and failed. The system they determined that worked was the one I laid out above.


Who is talking about Wal-Mart here? I mentioned some very specific benefits, which you haven't bothered to address, and I also defined a very specific example which you also haven't bothered to address.


And what experience is that? Your bitter experience of not getting the job you wanted? Until you cite what you are basing your "expert opinion" on here this point doesn't carry any weight.

If you check any job posting site out there you'll find there is no lack of entry level jobs and there never will be. How competitive those jobs are is another story but there is nothing wrong with competition, you are not guaranteed a job when you get a degree or complete a training course.


None of the jobs I listed are service based jobs. So either you didn't understand my point (and should go re-read it) or you don't have a good understanding of the industries that will provide opportunities for our country to lead in this century.

Creating jobs is important, but innovating and leading is far more important because that creates industries and large numbers of jobs.

I do? Where did I say that, explicitly? You must be able to read my mind.

I'm under the impression, yet I know it already? huh?



But yet here you are, sitting around complaining.




Of course. Like I said, you can get some quality people in Asia at much, much cheaper rates.




I posted a bunch of links while editing this post, then the update timed out and I lost all of my changes. You can do the work, google $5/hr or $10/hr or $7/hr, for engineers outsourcing.



You're joking right? Ok, I'll bite:

http://www.eweek.com/category2/0,1874,1543526,00.asp

"Customers are beginning to look to Indian technology services firms to help cut costs and unify business processes."

I can't find a link immediately, but companies like GM are pushing their supply companies to move to China. Microsoft execs told their managers "find something to outsource today!".

Are you really that naive to think these companies care about American workers?

Brunswick, a company in Michigan, closed it's doors and fired 750 workers, the CEO said he no longer cared about the community or it's workers. He said they weren't being competitive and they moved to Mexico.

Try this site:

http://www.newnation.org/NNN-American-Worker.html



Entry level job, as in low level job? I guess they need truck drivers really badly, do they need math and science to drive a truck??



Oh I agree. And?

It is blatantly obvious from your posts that you expected to be handed an engineering job because you got a degree. Clearly you found out that isn't how things work but instead of persisting you decided to launch into a new career. That's fine, but my point stands that you have some mistaken assumptions about how education and training ties to a job.


Huh? You are the one complaining about outsourcing and "people in asia making $5/hr" taking your job, not me. I have taken the position that outsourcing can be beneficial for all involved based on the two scenarios I have outlined previously. Furthermore I have had no problems finding work because I don't rely on my degree to get it.


Yes you can, but there are distinct advantages to hiring US workers. One important difference is face time and having someone in the same timezone. Another is that in general US trained workers are better able to think outside the box and go above and beyond what they are told to do, they don't require as much management attention.

That is why I outlined the scenarios where this works in the posts above (which you have still refused to respond to). These were lessons learned by Fortune 500 companies when the outsourcing craze first started. I know, I was there and I was involved in some of those efforts. I doubt you can say the same.


Sorry, not how this works. It is your point, you prove it. I'm not going to do your work for you. And to be taken seriously I'd suggest taking a little more time than posting links to google search results.


I think you have some different ideas about what "caring about your workers means". If one of these companies can save a little money by outsourcing then it helps consumers, they can re-invest in their own business, even hire new graduates to groom to be the leaders of the future.

You can't seriously believe that a company like Microsoft is in any danger of losing their entire (or even a majority) of their software team to India. They may supplement their team with Indian companies but the people that work there do so because they are the best and they add value.


Uh no, are you really going to make me define what an entry level job is? Clearly I meant the lowest position on the totem pole for a given career path.

If you really want to continue this debate RedCedar I'd suggest you start debating with evidence of some kind instead of your own bitterness because you didn't get the job you wanted. I'd also suggest re-reading the things I've posted and addressing them instead of trying to make up arguments and attribute them to me.

I thought that's what you were doing?

Case in point:



Where did I say I expect to get "handed" a job? Do you even know my qualifications for a job? Talk about making assumptions, you're the king, buddy. I never once said that and frankly I'm not even sure where you pulled that from.

You tell me how AMerican companies love to train people, I give you evidence to the contrary, but apparently that's not good enough. When a company is willing to fly a dude in from 10,000 miles away who is no more suited for a job than I, how in gods name do you think that company cares about American workers???

They are in deed cheaper. Again, maybe you're assuming something you have no knowledge of.



Just keep hitting on that strawman theme and ignore what I'm saying.



Sure, face time is what is saving a lot of American jobs. As well, SERVICE BASED JOBS are generally jobs that are better done by people locally. But most technical jobs don't require face time, so there ya go.

And I think you're giving American workers too much credit.



I see. And this is based on what? The few threads we have shared? Ya know, ASSUME makes an EDITED TO REMOVE ATTEMPT AT BYPASSING PROFANITY FILTER. Ever hear that one?



Afraid it does.



Yeah, but it's not "a little money". If these companies could move the whole operation to China, they'd be gone in a second. THEY....DO....NOT...CARE.

Do you think it will change the tide on outsourcing if we educate our kids with math and science?
No.

Is this really a magic bullet that will create "high paying jobs" as George Bush said last night?
Absolutely not. The reason jobs go to India and China is manifold, but one of the core reasons is simple: Americans are fat. Indians are skinny. I mean this in both a literal and figurative way. The downfall of America will be the same as the downfall of the Roman empire: Americans have such an inflated sense of entitlement that they no longer feel the obligation to work hard for what they receive. That gives America a big, fat, soft underbelly that the rest of the world is kicking very hard. All throughout college, the one thing I could count on from the American students was laziness and sloppiness. From the foreign students, who considered my mediocre state school to be the equivalent of MIT, you could regularly expect late nights in the computer lab, lots of questions in class, and work that was consistently one or two years ahead of the Americans'.

That being said, the foreigners weren't any smarter. Some of them were actually less intelligent (but largely due to communication issues). But almost all of them worked harder, which made up for almost all the difference. The Indians had amazing math skills. As a freshman, they had already learned 3rd year calc in high school. They were more than willing to help me in math. On the other hand, they didn't seem to have much of a natural knack for CS. Part of it might have been the language, but I suspect that at least part of it had to do with cultural differences. My conjecture is that Americans, living in a more technologically advanced environment, are exposed to more instances of abstraction, which is the key element to understanding programming. Indians coming from more rural and less industrialized communities probably grew up solving more concrete tasks, and were thus less experienced in the process of abstraction, despite the extensive math training.

To flesh out my abstraction hypothesis, allow me to observe that Americans are bombarded with symbols every day. Not only do we have many abstract signs on the roadways, we have signs in buildings, on t.v., and especially on the technological devices we use every day. We are forced to accept that most symbols are not to be taken literally, and that they represent a an alternate language. Furthermore, using most technological devices requires understanding a different set of rules. Each device rule set is like a mini-language that is used to "communicate" with that device. In this way, the groundwork is laid down for more abstract thinking when a person is directly exposed to CS concepts.

Back to outsourcing. It is telling that Bill Gates recently proclaimed that Microsoft will not be using foreign labor in its research centers for the forseeable future. Is that because foreigners aren't cheap enough for Microsoft? Of course not. It's exactly the opposite. Microsoft can afford to hire the best, and the best are right here. In fact, that's a pattern I see a lot of places. Companies with competitive IT do not outsource, because they recognize that the quality of labor is lower. Spending more money on local talent might not seem competive, until you realize that one good programmer who costs $100k is actually worth more than four overseas programmers who cost $25k each, even though you may well get more than four times the number of man-hours in labor. That's because skill increases value exponentially, not linearly.

Bad software design leads to software that scales poorly, performs poorly, and competes poorly. Companies often find this out too late, when they are bleeding customers, spending increasing resources on support, and throwing more hardware at the problem hoping it will go away. But bad software is exactly what you get when you choose to spend money on two mediocre software engineers instead of one good one. It's not that the mediocre coders are bad or stupid. It's just that they are much more likely to make far-reaching design mistakes that the seasoned programmer will not. Also, mediocre to entry-level programmers tend to write code that has a much higher maintenance burden. This is due to everything from poor formatting to bulky logic. Code will be read many more times than it is written over its lifetime. Many coders don't take this into account and write sloppy code that is easy to write quickly. So companies save money by writing code faster, and then pay back their savings many times over by maintaining that code again and again and again. And the maintenance burden ripples through projects as deep-seated ill-fated decisions cascade into systemic failures and problem points.

I've witnessed companies outsource projects to India, only to take them back because the quality of the delivered product was too low, or the project didn't even come close to design goals or deadlines. Communications are sketchy over a 12,000 mile gap (due to the clock as much as anything else). Furthermore, consider that India invests heavily in math and science education, but a surprising majority of Indians in IT do not actually want to be in IT. Society and family expects them to make a sacrifice, so they come to America with their reluctant IT training and make a relatively handsome sum, returning to India to help pay down the family debt. Many H1Bs lack motivation because they were more or less forced into IT, and many lack skill for the same reason.

But the foreigners who want to be here are another story entirely. They are the ones that will own America someday, because they are hungry. They don't expect breaks from anyone. Rather, they expect every encounter to be an uphill battle, and they prepare for it. I've never met a good programmer who was a whiner or felt threatened by outsourcing or foreign competition. I personally know that my boss could outsource my entire department, but he would still keep me on board because I get my work done, and to a degree that most of my coworkers do not. He knows he couldn't replace me with 5 Indians. The Americans that do complain about foreign competition are the ones who think that their degrees and certificates mean something. They are the ones that demand training classes and extra perks and pay that is out of line with their level of work.

Some of them got overpaid at some point, and wonder why nobody else will overpay them now. I really have little compassion for those people, because it is their pride that keeps them unemployed. I've worked on box lines stuffing cardboard boxes, I've painted city buses, and I've done data entry work. But I've never been out of a job for any reason than that I didn't want to work just then. In my view, anyone on unemployment is lazy. No exceptions. The people with true talent always have work. Often times, they have work chase them. But that is because they are hard workers, and they don't demand respect...they earn it. Americans believe that they are entitled to respect because they were born an American. Foreigners believe that they are entitled to respect because they worked minimum wage jobs until they could fight their way up the ladder tooth and nail. As long as Americans demand that which they did not earn, they will continue to decline until the world belongs to those who earn that which they did not demand.

One caveat I will mention is that geography is key. The best jobs are not to be found just anywhere. Sometimes you have to go where the money is. That's a large source of unemployment gripes. People don't want to leave "home". But that's just pride again. If you think you are worth more than what people in your area are willing to pay, find a location where they will pay what you are worth and go there.

If better education won't save America, what will? Well, stop coddling our kids, for one. They are non-competitive because they are weak, and they are weak because we don't challenge them. We teach them that if they don't want to work, the government will feed them. If they don't get high marks, don't worry, because everyone's a winner! Yes. Everyone is a winner. Unfortunately, you have to include India, China and Mexico among the "winners" with that philosophy. Kids spend more time scoring drugs and getting each other pregnant than they do actually learning in school. We think that kids having sex in school is inevitable, so let's give them condoms. Did it occur to anyone to tell the kids not to have sex, and actually learn something in school instead? If our children are incapable of controlling their own bodies how do we bloody well expect them to control a complex device like a computer?!?

A better cure than more math and science education would be to take away programming. Yes, that's exactly what I said. But the funny thing is, there are two types of "programming" in America. And the scary thing is, they both involve controlling something computational. But the type of programming I'm referring to is the kind that makes you stupid, because it doesn't engage your brain in a reactive, problem-solving way. It just feeds stimulation, like a drug, into your gaping mental mouth. People dis computer games because they fear they are worse than t.v. At least games are a simulation, like sports. And most importantly, they are interactive, so the kids are forced to participate. That is, kids are solving problems when they play games, and problem solving is exactly what intelligence is for. Excessive game playing is unhealthy, but in the same way that excessive football or basketball or hockey is. There must be balance, but I would give my kid a PS3 long before I would give him a cable outlet. Better yet, I would give him a PC and make him spend at least half his game time playing strategy and puzzle games.

High paying jobs don't come from eduation. At least not the kind you get in school while being spoon fed by a teacher. High paying jobs come from the kind of education that you bleed for. The kind that you claw for and grab through toil, tears and sweat. The kind that you earn because you gained it on your own and made it your own and integrated yourself into that field. Everyone can become an expert in something. But taking an accredited course and expecting someone to pay you based on a chart is just the kind of naive stupidity that is dragging America down economically. If we want a strong American future, we've got to kick our kids in the pants and make them earn their future. If we coddle them to death, they will always be children, and when I look around me, children is a lot of what I see.

There is no question that many Americans have gotten too greedy and too lazy over the years. But Lawnmower, that's not the fundemental reason why outsourcing happened. The fundemental reason is that the wages in India really are too low for American workers to compete. Nobody wants to pay or borrow $50,000 for college only to find himself working for less than $10/hr. I've seen some of the bids for projects at RentACoder.com and have come to the realization that there are only 2 feasible ways to make money in the Software Business. Either do someone's homework at RentACoder.com for $2/hr or be fortunate enough to have enough certifications AND experience to land that $60K job at a large corporation.

And I was a little offended by your character attack against unemployed computer programmers in America. You can talk about your Talent protecting you from outsourcing and toot your own horn about how hard you worked. But when most of the local jobs are Walmart jobs, and the good computer jobs are in India, it's extremely difficult to move up the ladder or travel to where the jobs are. In a few threads in the Economics Forum, I mentioned that the Central Banks around the World have artificially propped up the Dollar and caused so many of the economic imbalances around the World. And then there are things like the astronomical cost of education in America and the frivolous taxes that poor people have to pay. All I'm asking for is a Level Playing Field.

Do you think it will change the tide on outsourcing if we educate our kids
with math and science?

Math and Science are two important subjects that develop critical thinking skills.
The outcome will be beneficial, whether it helps fight against the trend of
outsourcing would remain to be seen. One thing is for sure, you cannot fight
for jobs that involve skills you don't have.




I think George Bush is oversimplifying things. Regardless of why he is giving
lip-service to this idea, education in America is not a priority, especially
in Mathematics and Science.

I can sympathize with being poor. I've been there. But really, that's not a sufficient excuse. Poor people also get all sorts of tax breaks, like the EITC, and free help on their tax returns. They don't get hit by the AMT and stuff like that. Taxes should be the least of your worries. The rest of your response demonstrates just the type of shallow thinking that leads to non-competitive "programmers" in the US. You know what the best thing is that happened to people in your position? The Open Source Software movement. Here is an international forum in which you can effectively get an unpaid internship with global visibility. If you aren't taking advantage of that opportunity, you really have nothing to complain about.

You think that getting a college degree makes you qualified to be a professional coder. Well guess what? So do the 50 other CS grads in your class, and your local college town obviously doesn't have the industry demand to support that assumption. And if you think that certificates are at all useful, then you've really been sold a bill of goods and haven't thought critically about the process. Americans think that life is like high school: everything is structured for you and there are processes that are "supposed" to happen. You get a degree in your field, you are "supposed" to get a job in that field. Uhh...no. That worked for your parents, because when they got their degrees, they were in maybe the 10% of the work force that had ones. Back then a degree meant something. Today, a college degree is more like a high school diploma a generation ago: it is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for employment. Now to get guaranteed employment, you need a post-grad degree.

So what can a person in CS do with just a 4 year degree? Plenty. In fact, if you want to save money, don't even bother with the degree. Let me ask you this...when you were studying CS, did you ever write code that wasn't necessary to complete a class assignment? Did you ever learn technologies that weren't part of the curriculum? Is programming a hobby as well as an occupation? If you answered "no" to any of those questions, then the only way you can expect to get a CS job is to know somebody on the inside. To get a job that won't be stolen by an offshore Indian, you have to be a downright mercenary. You have to realize that "the system" don't work like it used to, and create your own "system."

That means you have to make a name for yourself. And with the popularity of the Internet, that is easier to do than ever. It is almost pathetically easy. But it still takes hard work to get there. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it...anyone can become an expert in something. That's what you have to do. Differentiate yourself from the market by making yourself an expert. It really doesn't matter what you're an expert in, because the topic of your expertise is only of secondary import. What is significant is the dedication and skill required to obtain that expertise, and that is what will get you the recognition.

If you ask me, one of the gold standards of expertise in the programming industry is participation in Boost. If you don't know C++, learn it. Write programs in it. Don't take a class on it or look for some kind of certification. That's a waste of time and money. Earn your knowledge the hard way. Once you have a solid handle on the language, read Boost regularly. When you get to a point where you can understand a library without asking questions all day, try to make a contribution. If you can get your name on a Boost library, as an author or even just a contributor, then I guarantee you there are hundreds of companies out there that would be more than happy to give you a nice job. But it doesn't even have to be as difficult as that. There are thousands of OSS projects out there, and many that are highly respected. Get on any of those, make a significant contribution, and put that on your resume. Getting to that point will teach you all sorts of other technologies along the way. But above all, don't be afraid to learn something new. Knowledge is your best weapon in the vicious employment landscape, and most people enter that arena embarrassingly unarmed. With the Internet, an absurd amount of knowledge is outright free. I dare say you could get an entire 4 year CS education over the Internet without paying a dime (and I don't mean some distance learning program!). And it would probably be of even higher quality than the kind you'd pay $20-50k on.

The other problem is that people assume they should start higher up than is realistic. Part of being a mercenary is taking entry level jobs that you think are "below" you. You have to build a reputation for being a hard worker. Find a company you want to work for and just get your foot in the door at an entry level, even if it isn't technology-related. I know lots of people who have migrated to IT that way, and your ceiling is only defined by how hard you are willing to work. Another tool is recruiters. If you can convince a recruiter that you got skillz, you can get some really nice jobs. The only trick is that you want to move to a decent sized city to take advantage of that, but you have to be willing to move to such a city, or commute there. If you think you should be able to get an IT job in a city of 50-100k people, then you're wishing for a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. There just aren't enough technology jobs in the country for that to be realistic, outsourcing or no.

Finally, you have to play the corporate part. You have to get along with The Man. The Man is kinda stupid, kinda arrogant, kinda annoying, but he holds the purse strings. If you come off as a solo mercenary in interviews, or someone who doesn't play nice with others, no amount of skill will make someone hire you. If you don't look the part, you won't get a second interview. A certain amount of sucking up is necessary until you establish your reputation. Then you will be the one demanding respect. But until you break into the industry, you have to recognize that you're a peon, and play the part to a tee.

All that considered, I will say that the computer industry is not for everyone. There's lots of people who got into it in the 90's because they saw the dot-com bubble. And there's lots who got purged in the early 2000's because their lack of skills suddenly came to the fore when the bubble collapsed and the market became a lot more competitive. I think that's great. There's so much bad software out there that I wonder if enough purging has been done. I feel no sympathy for overpaid bad programmers without a job right now, because they give the rest of us a bad name. But for motivated individuals who are willing to work hard and be a mercenary code monkey, the sky's the limit. IT is an industry with an absurdly high ceiling, unlike many other lines of work. The primary complaint about IT as I see it is that people are being asked to work harder and know more than they think they should have to. Well, that's not a problem with the industry. Free markets are pretty tight when it comes to requirements. The problem is in the psychology. It's that mentality of entitlement that makes people weak and non-competitive.

Everyone faces challenges, but the winners are people who look at obstacles and see them as opportunities for improvement, rather than excuses to complain. Nobody handed Bill Gates Microsoft on a silver platter. You never saw him complaining for lack of work because he didn't finish his $60k Harvard education. Bill may be evil in many ways, but you have to respect that the man is a fighter and an entrepreneur. If you want to succeed in IT, you have to do the same. I'm personally glad that the US is being forced into globalization along with the rest of the world. We need India and China to root out the bad coders among us and show just how good the good coders in the US really are.

Do you think it will change the tide on outsourcing if we educate our kids
with math and science?

As another Engineer weighing in as well as a intellectual property creator I will add my two cents. If we want to compete in the world where we do not have in-expensive labor, corporations that will not invest in modernization, a society that does not believe in government (like R&D in Universities), where the top paying jobs lie with Lawyers, Bankers, and CEOs we are in a lot of trouble. The emphasis in the US is not long term from companies to government.

Can we invent the next light bulb, mass production of the auto, computer revolution that drove our entire economy? It only happens by investing in R&D and our society. I do not see that happening. Our large corporations have taken the cash and run. We do not have the automated machinery to manufacture in the US anymore. We reward our CEOs for falure. We reward our lawyers for failure.

I read through your stuff. I disagree with a lot of it. After busting my hump to learn new technologies and doing much of what you suggest, I have a job for $10/hr.

And as I've argued throughout this whole thread little of that has to do with gloablization, outsourcing, or education. It has to do with the dynamics of the market where you live and the skill required to find a job (they aren't just handed out, even with fancy diplomas and certifications).