CNN: "Why would-be engineers end up as English majors"

[yagottabelieve]

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While I can’t speak for other state universities, I would say that that argument gains little sway at Berkeley, which already rejects the vast majority of applicants, particularly within admissions to the engineering programs. Let’s face it: there’s practically no difference between rejecting 80% of your applicants - as Berkeley does now - versus rejecting 85% of your applicants. Either way, you’re still rejecting the vast majority of your applicants. But that final 5% of admittees surely represents a large chunk of students who are likely to perform poorly.

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<p>It strikes me that over the past ten years, at least, there have been numerous complaints about how difficult it has become to be admitted to UC schools. There have been all sorts of allegations of discrimination. So any attempt to further limit admissions, especially based on rather questionable criteria (e.g. it was “statisically” determined that you fit a profile of students that generally don’t graduate (with engineering degrees), so you were not admitted), would be met with further complaints, it seems.</p>

<p>Even you have argued, in the past, that some students don’t even know what they want to major in, let alone pursue as a career, before they go to college. So why would you refuse admissions to those who might not even major in engineering, if they meet the admissions criteria for all students?</p>

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I could actually argue that the opposite might be true. We have to keep in mind that there isn’t a fixed number of jobs in engineering (or any industry for that matter). The number of jobs in any industry is a function of the economic health of that industry, which is itself determined by the talent level of the people in that industry. For example, if more talented and creative people are drawn to study engineering, more innovation and entrepreneurship will be spurred, hence increasing the overall demand (and hence salaries) of engineers. Just consider all of the engineering/CS jobs spawned by the social networking and smartphone/tablet boom.

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<p>There is a fixed amount of money available for paying salaries (or money earned from stocks). The number of jobs will vary with the salaries the workers expect to get. While some people may opt to work for free for a while (if they think they will eventually be paid from selling company stock), eventually, people will expect to be paid. (Certainly, if they borrowed money for their educations, they will need to be paid.) Therefore, there are some upper bounds on the number of jobs that can exist.</p>

<p>The innovation and creativity that has led to increased salaries for some people in social networking, smartphones, tablets, and a few other subspecialties of the software industry has not spread to all people interested in working in that field. Other companies, such as Cisco, Juniper, and Yahoo! are not growing nearly as much (and there has been talk that Cisco may even lay people off).</p>

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