Girls in STEM is failing both girls and STEM? 99

[moltenmetal]

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/com...m-culture-is-failing-both-girls-and-stem.html

Read the article, THEN discuss...

Growing up, I increasingly saw my good grades as a trap locking me into a single career: STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). It felt like a dystopian YA novel, and my high school report card was The Choosing. A’s in math and science? Here are your jeans and sweatshirt.

Well-meaning people lied to me. They said computer science was a great work-from-home career if I wanted children (when in fact a majority of women quit STEM because the culture of poor work-life balance makes it too difficult to raise a family), that STEM careers are secure (actually the industry has frequent layoffs and is very competitive), and more....

 

[moltenmetal]

Saying that there are 500,000 graduates from STEM programs and 200,000 STEM-related positions doesn't say anything to you?

It says volumes to me!

If we're graduating people who don't have the skills industry needs, frankly that's not the fault of the educational systems. It has ALWAYS BEEN SO- educational institutions are NOT merely job-training institutions, and employers have the responsibility (and the business imperative) to train young people to do the jobs they need done.

I think there are two quite different problems:

1) We're cranking out too many university-educated people of all kinds, relative to labour market needs, primarily because we aren't being honest with ourselves about what the labour market really needs or more properly, what the economy can generate in terms of labour market needs, and

2) Employers have become addicted to the notion that they are not responsible in any way for building the next generation of professionals and tradespeople. They want to outsource that task entirely to others and entirely at the cost of others.

When we realize that these problems exist, we'll be at least part way toward solving them in a meaningful way- but right now, we're not even acknowledging what the real problems are!

If there were actual shortages of graduates from STEM fields, employers would be bending over backwards to accommodate and retain women, because they would truly need all hands on deck. But they don't, so they see this as a secondary issue- one which they may feel they need to address to be socially progressive and just, but not because it's a business imperative.

 

[lacajun]

Thread drift.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
Dinner program:

http://nspe-co.org/events.php

 

[solid7]

Inconvenient to many/most of your points, but definitely not off-topic...

 

[IRstuff]

It came back, briefly...

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[MJB315]

If we're graduating people who don't have the skills industry needs, frankly that's not the fault of the educational systems. It has ALWAYS BEEN SO- educational institutions are NOT merely job-training institutions, and employers have the responsibility (and the business imperative) to train young people to do the jobs they need done.

I think there are two quite different problems:

I hear you but I think this is just one, big problem.

The goal of an university degree program should jumpstart the development of a student's expertise in a particular field of study. Current programs do that.

But what if they don't do it enough?

Professional firms have always (and will always) bear a burden for training employees. That's part of the arrangement for joining a firm... receiving expertise passed down from senior staff. It's as important as your salary - if not more.

But as it is, professional firms have to eat the first year (or two?) of an entry-level student's employment before they become profitable. That's in addition to the non-billable time spent by senior staff transferring expertise. That's ignoring the opportunity costs involved when this is occurring. This is multiplied across several hires. This happens year in, year out. And just getting the employee to "profitable" status does not mean they are competent practitioners. That still takes several more years.

So I don't agree that employers want to pass the expertise-transfer buck to universities. Instead, they want universities to jumpstart the students expertise much further than they do to just lessen their burden. It's not unreasonable.

Thread drift.

My point is broader than the initial post - but it's the same topic. I'm happy to move this to a different, broader thread if that helps continue the discussion on the OP.

But men, women - we're all in the same system. And the system should be better. The more I look at it, the more I realize the Emperor isn't wearing clothes. Students forget what they learn and while it's a shared burden - it's also a plague on all our houses. In the 21st century, it shouldn't take 4 years, several hundred thousands of dollars of tuition, costly-infrastructure, well (reasonably?) paid staff to impart an unconnected jumble of information that is quickly quizzed and is most forgotten to graduate overconfident 20-somethings that take another 4 years and several hundred thousands to retrain so they are useful.

It's too inefficient.

America went to the moon. Musk is heading to Mars. Why can't we do better job developing expertise in students while they devote 5% of their expected lives in a dedicated, high cost, immersive program?

If we did, we'd attract and retain more in our profession. Men and women, alike.

"We shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us." -WSC

 

[moltenmetal]

The fact that the entire STEM marketplace is over-supplied allows employers the luxury to NOT deal with the problems affecting women in STEM fields head-on, because frankly they don't feel any desperate need for that talent.

That is EXACTLY on topic, folks- I started the thread, remember?

 

[solid7]

But men, women - we're all in the same system. And the system should be better.

For me, this is much closer to the heart of the matter. It's not about STEM failing girls - it's about society failing us all with its wacky logic, and confusion over what's important.

For years, my complaint has been that we use educations as a means to set a price point in the workplace, or as a means to allow or prohibit entry into certain fields - rather than using education to actually train the people who really want to be in those fields, or improve the ones currently in it.

Education should NEVER be the reason we choose a particular field. We should always use education to supplement an existing interest in an existing field.

Education is big business. I don't know how old everyone here is, but I'm Generation X. Since I was in grade school, I've always been told that if I don't go to college, I'll never get a good job. Post-Secondary is crammed down our throats, and the expectation set very early. Forget the tokenism that seeks to put <person type x> into <education type y> - when I was growing up, there were far fewer people getting degrees, or going to college/university. Sometime, between now and then, we've all been convinced, and told our kids, that they need to go to the best schools, and some of us may have even pushed them in a direction. It used to be that every parent wanted their kid to be a doctor or a lawyer. However, in this Wal-Mart world we presently live in, everyone is looking to get the most for the their money. Kids will go into a degree program, having no idea what it even is - and they'll often base it on earning potential. The sad part is, many of them are bright kids, and go the distance in the program. But at what cost?

 

[IRstuff]

"Sometime, between now and then..."

That's because you are GenX. The baby boomers were the last generation where you could imagine getting a high school diploma and going to work for the BIG THREE for the rest of your life. The fact is that 2/3rd of the population in 1910 didn't have degrees nor needed them because the high-school level jobs were readily available and relatively well-paying. In the meantime, between now and then, all those that didn't get degrees had to compete for the Walmart-ish jobs, and while there are well-paying jobs that don't require degrees, there's tons of people qualified for those. The big growth area has been professional jobs that do require a degree.

"It used to be that every parent wanted their kid to be a doctor or a lawyer."

I don't see that as a big difference. Becoming a doctor or a lawyer was never a slam dunk. JFK Jr. famously required 3 tries to PASS the bar. Nevertheless, being a doctor or a lawyer was likewise an earning potential + prestige thing. Today's doctors aren't really the big moneymakers unless they're a specialty that requires an additional 4 years on top of what the typical family doctor needs. Now, computer science is THE THING to be in. But the highest paying jobs still only go to a few, and while many make extremely good wages, it's much more talent driven, and there are lots of people unable to find a job.

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[solid7]

That's because you are GenX. The baby boomers were the last generation where you could imagine getting a high school diploma and going to work for the BIG THREE for the rest of your life. The fact is that 2/3rd of the population in 1910 didn't have degrees nor needed them because the high-school level jobs were readily available and relatively well-paying. In the meantime, between now and then, all those that didn't get degrees had to compete for the Walmart-ish jobs, and while there are well-paying jobs that don't require degrees, there's tons of people qualified for those. The big growth area has been professional jobs that do require a degree.

While not disputing any of that, the simple fact is, the hammer has swung the other way. College degrees are a dime-a-dozen, while the cost of education has skyrocketed. The cost of education relative to the value added, may or may not be proportional - or in some cases, it may not even be all that beneficial. (consider people who were educated with the false hope of getting that stellar job, only to end up with half a lifetimes worth of discretionary income tied up in repaying student loans)

Moltenmetal just spoke of too many STEM degrees being at least part of the problem. What if the bigger problem is that there are too many degrees, period? I'd go so far as to argue that we've cheapened education to the point that not everyone who has a degree in a particular field, is actually capable of doing the work that the education is supposed to prepared them for. And that's a tragic failing.

So if one is already inclined to believe that way, how then can one embrace tokenism in recruiting?

 

[IRstuff]

I'm not arguing that there aren't too many degrees. I've stated many times that the motivation for pushing for degrees and pushing for STEM is to maximize the applicant pool, so as to minimize wages. I've always felt that generational continuance of H1B visas was likewise a strategy to bring in cheaper labor.

But, your point raises another possibility; in a zero-sum situation, women, STEM or otherwise, are competing for the same jobs, and that makes it less likely for men to be altruistic in supporting additional, or any women, in the workplace. Certainly, from a self-interest perspective, every job women gain is a job not filled by a man. Now, culturally, there may be different variations of that. The oft-mentioned Scandinavian countries might have a different cultural imperative that overrides the basic competition for jobs, so while women in Scandinavia are heavily represented in the political arena, they are poorly represented in STEM, and that might reflect some sort of in-culture quid pro quo, particularly given the apparently stronger notion there that women are more suited for the traditional gender roles. And I think similar cultural imperatives certainly existed when I was going the high school; certain girls that were SMART in science and math in junior high would take Home Ec in high school, and wouldn't take ANY AP math or science.


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[lacajun]

moltenmetal, my, my, my. I was being humorous and it was apparently missed.

Eleven years ago I knew of a plumber that charged $350/hour for his work. He was busy, busy, busy. I don't know of too many engineers, PEs or otherwise, that charge what he does. Journeymen electrician charge more than some EEs, at a range of $125 - $250/hour. We are losing out in the US because we are not organized and not thinking clearly. But, I digress, seriously.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC
NSPE-CO, Central Chapter
Dinner program:

http://nspe-co.org/events.php

 

[solid7]

But, your point raises another possibility; in a zero-sum situation, women, STEM or otherwise, are competing for the same jobs, and that makes it less likely for men to be altruistic in supporting additional, or any women, in the workplace. Certainly, from a self-interest perspective, every job women gain is a job not filled by a man.

That's pretty extreme. Like I tell my kids - while that scenario might be possible, it isn't really probable.

Where does this idea come from? I can't empathize with it. Is this a feeling that you, yourself struggle to repress?

I can't conjecture on what might be the feelings of the collective. What I can say, is that having fewer women creates issues that exaggerate other issues. For example - you have a woman that is truly a terrible employee. (yes, that can happen) By all means, she deserves to be shown the door. But because of her minority status, does she deserve to be untouchable? When that causes palpable discord in the workplace, and she cites it - albeit, with her own slant - how is that helpful? We can really never objectively look at this issue, in the present state.

There are a lot of people of all sexes and backgrounds who are not good employees, and if they use their angst to bandwagon the issue, it never gets dealt with properly. This is a question whose answer just cannot be crowdsourced. Again, not a STEM failing. Society failing.

 

[JohnRBaker]

In our family only one of our three sons went to college and despite him getting a BA in Psychology, he ultimately decided to go back to school and get a culinary degree and is now working for a major catering company in LA and teaching pastry arts in the evening at the local art institute. Our oldest, who barely made it out of high school, is now an executive with a very large restaurant/hospitality company responsible for a major nation-wide restaurant chain.

The irony is that our youngest son is the only working in a STEM field, he's the IT Director at the American division of a German high-tech company which is a subsidiary of a very large French IT company and he hasn't spent a day sitting in a 'formal' classroom since high school. However, he has taken extensive corporation-sponsored courses from people like Apple, Microsoft, etc. as well as your normal OTJ training and has a very good 'STEM' job.

I guess my point is that there is nothing normal any more and that the parent's primary role should helping to remove barriers, including their own biases, if it interferes with their children's goals and plans.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[moltenmetal]

There were five guys in my band in high school.

Two ended up being engineers, two are professional musicians, and the last (the drummer) is in financial services.

The richest is one of the professional musicians, and likely not by a small margin. Every time you watch a certain popular syndicated TV show, he gets a little money for listening to his music. The engineers are not doing too bad either, because both of us have business interests rather than just jobs as engineers. Same with the other musician and the financial services guy- all have comfortable upper middle class lives. But from the point of view of our parents at the time, the two musicians were taking a path to certain poverty. That's not how it has worked out 30 years later, not by any stretch of the imagination.

solid7: we're definitely generating too many degrees of all kinds, but the prevailing wisdom is not that we're cranking out too many uni grads, just the wrong kinds. That just isn't true- there's certainly no STEM shortage.

The reality is, we don't want to admit that the dream of an education leading to an almost guaranteed future is long, long gone. The economy cannot possibly create a cushy white-collar job for everyone capable of getting a Bachelor's degree of some kind, or even a Bachelor's degree in engineering. And that's true whether you're male or female. If it weren't true, things would be better for both sexes...

 

[JohnRBaker]

In the case of our three sons, the one with the two degrees is making less than his brothers who never went to college. That being said, he's probably the happier of the three and the most satisfied with his situation.

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[solid7]

The reality is, we don't want to admit that the dream of an education leading to an almost guaranteed future is long, long gone.

That's one perspective. Another is that a certain generation of people sold their children a false bill of hope. Like certain things that we've envisioned in our society, that were most beneficial to the generation that got in early. But it ended up being rather like a Ponzi scheme, when the first couple of waves settled out.

I don't really want to take this topic there. Education is a good thing. It should never ever be frowned upon, or discouraged. But we are exploring a topic relating to how something has failed a particular group of people, while becoming rather myopic about how the same has failed everyone, almost equally.

It seems pretty clear to me, at this point, that we have the ghosts of social injustice, freely mingling with the adolescence of unsustainable educational models.

 

[HamburgerHelper]

"It seems pretty clear to me, at this point, that we have the ghosts of social injustice, freely mingling with the adolescence of unsustainable educational models."

More than one problem exists and they co-mingle but calling it a ghost is marginalizing the issue. I have worked at places that had owners who have openly said that they wouldn't hire a female that was not done having kids or when a younger female employee walked by saying during the interview "if you work in a plant you won't get to see that". Or the employees who didn't like that young female draft constantly talking about how she must be sleeping with the owner, she never did. She ended up having to leave. She took contract work and was probably underemployed. She later joined a firm she had worked at previously at a grade well below her level. That isn't representative of the industry on a whole but things can get very crude and nasty when they are allowed to and there are few internal mechanisms rectify bad behavior and it is encouraged by management or an owner. In my opinion, there is a lot of more "grit and bear it" than a lot of people want to admit.

This is all aside from getting proper mentorship and career support. You don't get proper mentoring or support, you don't understand the in roads of a company. You don't get eye catching projects. You don't get promoted because you never got the eye catching projects. You don't build the same set of skills that your peers did because you never were mentored the same or had your responsibilities and skill set allowed to expand as quickly. The end result is stunting and lag in career development. It really is night and day when someone does or doesn't have someone to go to bat for them.

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If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.

 

[solid7]

We can talk all day long about things we've seen/done/heard. But the fact of the matter is, that those things are no longer acceptable in the American workplace, and with every successive generation, they become less and less so. So yes, I say ghosts. I am not marginalizing the issue. Generational attitudes have shifted to an enormous degree. If you don't see that, you're very out of touch. We can't change the minds and attitudes of the old guard. We can only wait them out.

 

[HamburgerHelper]

Better doesn't mean it is what it should be and later is never now.

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If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.f.

 

[solid7]

OK, fair enough. So what's the "right now" solution, then?