The Importance of Engineering Talent to the Prosperity and Security of the Nation Summary of a Forum (2014) / Chapter Skim
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II: From Weaknesses to Strengths in the Search for Engineering Talent
II: From Weaknesses to Strengths in the Search for Engineering Talent
Pages 15-24
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From page 15... ...
But an estimated 40 percent of the students who intend to get an undergraduate degree in science or engineering abandon that intention by the end of their first year, noted Suresh, which is "a huge issue today in all universities." The engineering curriculum tends to be inflexible, requiring that students take a particular sequence of classes. And options available in other disciplines, such as a junior semester abroad, are not easy to do in most engineering departments.
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From page 16... ...
Unless graduate students want to teach in a university, Broers said, "the PhD should be shortened and those people should get out and start producing things as soon as possible." Another factor that can stymie aspiring engineers is a focus during their education on fields where an oversupply of engineers exists. Faculty members can contribute to such oversupplies by pursuing popular research topics, Banholzer noted.
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From page 17... ...
US WEAKNESSES The forum occurred during the federal government shutdown of October 2013, and several presenters pointed to government dysfunction as an obstacle to the development and employment of engineering talent. The United States is the only developed country in the Western Hemisphere that does not have a multiyear budget, noted Suresh.
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From page 18... ...
The creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy in the Department of Energy came about only after considerable advocacy by a number of organizations, including the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering, and its budget has remained small. Until the federal budget situation becomes clearer, he said, "even the remote possibility of the creation of a new agency, with its own standalone budget, is in my personal view very unlikely." The United States has other weaknesses.
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From page 19... ...
to lose." The United States has devel- William Banholzer, oped institutions and legal struc- Dow Chemical tures designed to spur advances in science and technology, Suresh said. Peer review, protection of intellectual property, procedures to safeguard research integrity, inspector general offices, and expectations for transparency were all developed and refined in the United States to foster the progress of science.
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From page 20... ...
Every industry is different and requires a tailored approach, and politicians should "My recipe is responsibility not be deluded into thinking that early with very bright people." Alec Broers, a few geniuses can lead a country past president of the Royal to the front of the world's economy. Academy of Engineering A final reason mentioned by Suresh for the success of the United States is that the private and public sectors are willing to take a risk on people born elsewhere and give them an opportunity.
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From page 21... ...
But when science and understand fundamentally how technology are explained to them a radar works and why they in terms they can understand, the should care about it." knowledge influences their deci- David Montgomery, Naval Research Laboratory sions. When senior officials know what a science-based technology can do and why they should care about it, they can apply a different value proposition to decision making.
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From page 22... ...
The United States has done a good job of uncovering and promoting those ideas for the past half century, and it needs to continue to do so. For example, the National Science Foundation funded two young people at Stanford to think about a method to rank pages on the World Wide Web, and that funding contributed to the founding of Google.
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From page 23... ...
The federal government is currently financing several large initiatives in science and technology, Suresh observed, including the BRAIN Initiative, the National Robotics Initiative, and major projects focused on the use of big data. While none may be as captivating as putting a man on the moon, they are all big problems that could capture the interest of young people.
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