<p>Bloomberg.com:</a> Exclusive</p>
<p>Interesting article on engineering majors (US vs. China) and Harvard/Yales desire to compete with other engineering schools</p>
<p>lol @ harvard engineering.</p>
<p>jk..</p>
<p>The article says that Yale is a " gentlemen's " university. I guess "gentlemen" don't like to get their hands dirty with minor details like hands-on engineering.</p>
<p>That quote caught my eye too. I just don't think that's the best approach to engineering, which is very much a hands-on subject.</p>
<p>I dont understand how everything has to be a "race". I do think the Ivy League should improve over having just 1 top ranked engineering program.</p>
<p>The sad facts are:</p>
<p>China grads 220,000 bachelors degree engineers a year.</p>
<p>Japan grads 125,000 bachelors degree engineers a year.</p>
<p>The U.S. grads 60,000 bachelors degree engineers a year. And a significant number of them are foreign nationals that after graduating return to their home countries.</p>
<p>I think 80% of my graduate engineering department is international.. It is somewhat known that if you are a domestic student you have much better chances of getting into grad school in engineering because you are a "rare specimen."</p>
<p>I like my foreign buddies though. They actually provide a much broader perspective to the world and science. Plus, I swear those guys from IIT are the smartest people I know, ever (professors included).</p>
<p>Well you have to consider IIT's attract the best students an entire country has to offer, so I expect them to be some of the best India has to offer. I hear entrance exams are GRUELING and acceptance rates are like a few percent. It's much different than here (USA), where we adopt kind of a "leaky pipe" philosophy and gradually weed people out after they have been accepted.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The sad facts are:</p>
<p>China grads 220,000 bachelors degree engineers a year.</p>
<p>Japan grads 125,000 bachelors degree engineers a year.</p>
<p>The U.S. grads 60,000 bachelors degree engineers a year. And a significant number of them are foreign nationals that after graduating return to their home countries.
[/quote]
And the wealth transfer out of the US continues.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The article says that Yale is a " gentlemen's " university. I guess "gentlemen" don't like to get their hands dirty with minor details like hands-on engineering.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
The sad facts are:</p>
<p>China grads 220,000 bachelors degree engineers a year.</p>
<p>Japan grads 125,000 bachelors degree engineers a year.</p>
<p>The U.S. grads 60,000 bachelors degree engineers a year. And a significant number of them are foreign nationals that after graduating return to their home countries.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, I think the truly sad fact is that a lot of American engineering students at even the best engineering schools don't really want to get their 'hands-dirty' either. For example, as I have said in other threads, a lot of engineering students at schools like MIT and Stanford do not actually want to take jobs as engineers, instead preferring to work as management consultants or investment bankers. </p>
<p>The real problem is that, sadly, engineering firms don't really want to pay better or provide better career opportunities, hence spurring many of the best US engineering students to choose against engineering jobs. I wish it wasn't true, but it is true.</p>
<p>Even at M.I.T., the U.S.'s premier engineering school, the traditional career path has lost its appeal for some students. Says junior Nicholas Pearce, a chemical-engineering major from Chicago: "It's marketed as--I don't want to say dead end but sort of 'O.K., here's your role, here's your lab, here's what you're going to be working on.' Even if it's a really cool product, you're locked into it." Like Gao, Pearce is leaning toward consulting. "If you're an M.I.T. grad and you're going to get paid $50,000 to work in a cubicle all day--as opposed to $60,000 in a team setting, plus a bonus, plus this, plus that--it seems like a no-brainer."</p>
<p>Are</a> We Losing Our Edge? -- Printout -- TIME</p>
<p>
[quote]
And the wealth transfer out of the US continues.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Now, here I have to disagree, as I don't really see this as a matter of 'wealth transfer' out of the country. Sure, some of those foreign nationals will return to their home countries. But many more will choose to stay and hence improve the technology base of the nation. I strongly suspect that the ledger would therefore show a net gain for the nation.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Now, here I have to disagree, as I don't really see this as a matter of 'wealth transfer' out of the country. Sure, some of those foreign nationals will return to their home countries. But many more will choose to stay and hence improve the technology base of the nation. I strongly suspect that the ledger would therefore show a net gain for the nation.
[/quote]
You misunderstand. I'm merely referring to the general exodus of design work out of the US. Management consultants, investment bankers, & lawyers to not make patents. Our per capita patent production is very high right now due to imported talent. Will foreign engineers continue to come when their own countries offer similar pay & opportunities? I'm not so sure.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You misunderstand. I'm merely referring to the general exodus of design work out of the US. Management consultants, investment bankers, & lawyers to not make patents. Our per capita patent production is very high right now due to imported talent. Will foreign engineers continue to come when their own countries offer similar pay & opportunities? I'm not so sure.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, regarding patents, the first thing I would say is that I'm not really sure that they're all that indicative of value-creation anyway. Nor am I the only one saying it: this has also been found by numerous academics who study the issue. The truth is, many patents are basically worthless from an economic standpoint, and many of them are just downright silly. For example, a patent was once granted for the combover hairstyle<a href="yes,%20the%20Donald%20Trump%20hairstyle%20is%20actually%20patented">/i</a>. Even worse, numerous patents are used as little more than litigation weapons by patent trolls who sue or extract royalty payments from others who may attempt to commercialize those inventions but who themselves have no intention of actually producing a product, with the effect being to *deter overall commercialization. Hence, these patents actually have negative value to the greater society. {They're good for the trolls, but they're bad for everybody else.}</p>
<p>Personally, I think the brunt of the problem falls mostly on the small entrepreneur/small businessman. If you, as an entrepreneur, come up with an invention for which you to start a new company, then in order to make sure that you're perfectly legal, you have to hire a patent lawyer to make sure that your idea hadn't already patented by somebody else, lest you end up later being sued by somebody you never heard of that holds a patent that you didn't even know about. But come on, when you're just a guy in a college dorm room or a garage somewhere, you don't really have the money to hire a patent lawyer to do a good defensive patent search for you. This is why some researchers of entrepreneurship now believe that the country may actually be better off if there were no patent system at all, as the value of the patents is now being captured by patent lawyers and the court systems, with no net benefit to society. </p>
<p>But anyway, putting that issue aside, the other issue seems to be regarding immigration and whether good people will want to continue to come to this country. What you are saying is absolutely correct, and that's all the more reason to make this country more desirable and more welcoming to immigrants. For example, I find it ridiculous that the country makes it so difficult for new immigrants who went to college here, especially graduate school here, to be able to stay here. For example, I know a foreign guy is completing his PhD at MIT and wants to stay in the country, but may not be allowed to stay and hence be forced to go home. Why? If he goes home, he's just going to take all of his knowledge and training to boost the technical base of his home country. Why not just let him stay here?</p>
<p>1) Patent production is highly correlated to wealth creation. Now, do I believe that patents themselves (ie: the legal devices) create the wealth? No. I believe the innovation behind them creates the wealth. I was just using patents because they are a reasonably good substitute for innovation in the current world economy.</p>
<p>2) Patent (and innovation) production per capita is highly correlated to technical personnel per capita. Which is the primary reason we want to graduate more engineers/science majors.</p>
<p>3) Agree with your immigration point. We should try heavily to get more highly educated immigrants.</p>