State of the Engineer and American Education
A nice way to start your thinking about your job and education on a whole for the week.
From EETimes.com:
- State of the Engineer - Nice high-level review of EE employment
- Salary Survey responses - Responses to the above article
- My personal favorite response in whole is here:
The government doesn’t operate under the same “business model” as industry, and this is where the achievement gap develops between U.S. and European/Asian engineering counterparts. K-12 schools tend to teach children the skills they need to be functioning adults, i.e., capable of financially supporting themselves, and be law-abiding citizens. If this end is achieved, big-government feels they have done their part. Industry needs more than just “functioning” adults in the workforce. It needs highly skilled and motivated engineers. That’s really beyond the K-12 system’s job description, as the government has ostensibly determined.
From SF Chronicle:
- American kids, dumber than dirt - blunt title, with even more inflammatory content. Here’s part of the conclusion:
As for the rest, well, the dystopian evidence seems overwhelming indeed, to the point where it might be no stretch at all to say the biggest threat facing America is perhaps not global warming, not perpetual warmongering, not garbage food or low-level radiation or way too much Lindsay Lohan, but a populace far too ignorant to know how to properly manage any of it, much less change it all for the better.