<p>One professor my son talked to about a UROP required an A in a particular class. He made the A but chose a different UROP. The one he's in now didn't have any requirements. </p>
<p>I remember one meeting during parent orientation at which the speakers were discouraging freshmen from getting involved with a UROP for at least the first semester, although it is allowed.</p>
<p>Yeah, to be honest, I don't necessarily support getting a UROP first semester freshman year. I suppose it's okay for some kids, but most people are adjusting to MIT life and the MIT workload, and wouldn't be able to dedicate enough time -- at least in biology, it's not really worth doing a UROP if you're not going to be able to work at least 10 hours a week.</p>
<p>thanks for the info mollie...as helpful as ever.</p>
<p>I don't think I know anyone (even freshmen) who had TROUBLE finding a UROP when they really wanted one. I had my eye on a research project that I found very interesting in my intended department for a couple of months, finally worked up the courage to contact the people in charge right before IAP in my stupid-little-freshman voice, didn't expect anything, and was hired immediately.</p>
<p>I know others who have taken different approaches, such as machine-gunning their interest and intention to at least four or five different projects and then picking and choosing among the ones that have replied.</p>
<p>If you try hard enough and are serious about it it's no big feat to start doing research.</p>
<p>
[quote]
m not sure about China, Japan, Germany, or Korea, but it surely doesn't pay more to become a researcher in India. I would ballpark the average salary to be around the equivalent of $15-20K (standard of living is much lower here!).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What I think is really going on is that in China and India at least, getting a science/engineering degree really will allow you to make vastly more money than if you had a nontechnical degree (or no degree at all) WITHIN China or India. Hence, from a relative standpoint, getting a technical degree in China or India is a far far better deal than it is in the US. For example, I see to have read somewhere about how a person graduating with a technical degree in China can make literally 4-6 times more of a starting salary than another person in China who graduates with a nontechnical degree. </p>
<p>I think the REAL problem is not that American students are flunking science/technology. Rather, it's that American businesses simply don't want to raise the pay of scientists and engineers. Engineers in the US really don't make much more than the average college graduate. The average engineer makes about 50k to start, whereas the average college graduate makes something in the low 30's to start. That's a ratio of only about 1.5. Hence, the incentives for Americans to study engineering are not strong. The incentives are far far stronger in China and India. If you're growing up in China and India, you know that getting an engineering degree is a ticket to a far better life than you could get if you studied something else. In the US, not so much. </p>
<p>I'll tell you this. If American engineers were getting 150k to start (which is about 5 times what the average college graduate with a nontechnical degree gets), you'd have Americans coming out of the woodwork to study engineering. I'd guarantee you that you'd see a vast change in mindset in American culture about the value of a technical education. Parents, instead of pushing their kids to be sports superstars, would be pushing their kids to be math and science geeks. Instead of wanting to get into consulting or law or investment banking, the best American students would be lined up around the block to become engineers. </p>
<p>This is why I am sick and tired of hearing US corporations bemoaning the lack of American wanting to study engineering, and then refusing to raise the pay for their engineering positions. What we have here is not the lack of desire to learn the material, but rather the lack of willingness to pay. People respond to economic signals and incentives. You give people a strong financial incentive to study tech and they will do it. If you don't, then they won't. If American corporations want more Americans to get better at science and technology, then those corporations have to provide the financial incentives for American kids to study those subjects. If they don't, then they really have nobody to blame but themselves.</p>
<p>Yes. That is completely true.</p>
<p>"in China and India at least, getting a science/engineering degree really will allow you to make vastly more money than if you had a nontechnical degree (or no degree at all) WITHIN China or India. Hence, from a relative standpoint, getting a technical degree in China or India is a far far better deal than it is in the US."</p>
<p>the reasons are simple...due to the huge number of tech grads...the companies have shifted most of the engg work to India and China and hence these MNC's are paying according to low-end US job salary..but that low end US salary of like $3000-4000 is huuuge for even an Indian Institute of Technology graduate..so people are into engineering..
when will research start here? answer is not for a long long time...because for the simple reason that there is no infrastructure neither any grants or money for research or to pay scientists who willingly leave to the west for better life...and lets face it i live in India and as far as I know its gonna take atleast a 100 years for us to provide 100% food and housing to the population(if we can control the population first of all)..</p>
<p>"The average engineer makes about 50k to start, whereas the average college graduate makes something in the low 30's to start. That's a ratio of only about 1.5...."
"....why I am sick and tired of hearing US corporations bemoaning the lack of American wanting to study engineering, and then refusing to raise the pay for their engineering positions"
well they dont have a reason to increase the pay..coz for the simple reason that they are getting their work done for half the cost in asian countries...Also the quality of an average indian tech graduate is bound to be more even without a masters degree because of the curriculum followed so the companies are in a win win situation...</p>
<p>Sakky, you have a point--in China and India starting engineering positions have salaries of about 4-6X that of a typical non-technical job--thus incentivizing these careers. The same incentive is not offered in the US, since--as vampiro explained--would be impractical for employers. Why would an employer want to pay around $100K for a US employee, when he could get simillar work from an IIT graduate and pay him the equivalent of $5-7K? </p>
<p>Thus, if we were in a closed-market economy and the US companies couldn't rely on the cheaper third-world countries for labor, your theories would hold. </p>
<p>Also, on a separate note, I don't see why someone would want to move overseas (to China or India) with their technical degree. Though the salaries are 4-6X higher for engineering-degree holders in these countries, the salaries still don't compare to the salaries one would receive in the US. As vampiro correctly put it, the $50K an engineering student receives is far greater than the $5-7K an Indian engineer would receive. One might argue that the standard of living is much lower, but even then, one is at a greater monetary disadvantage in moving overseas. Thus, I'd say it's more common, or at least prudent, for an Indian or Chinese graduate from a US university to work in the US and send money back to their parents/extended family in the East.</p>
<p>Soon, China will be the major power in science.</p>
<p>I'd better learn chinese now :)</p>
<p>"One might argue that the standard of living is much lower"</p>
<p>well see by standard of living he means housing and food but then thats ok but just realise one thing....the objects of luxury are equally costly everywhere..so in a way if u come to india on the lower salary u get high standard of housing and food but still drive a honda city (outdated in US but big in India) whereas in US u can buy a toyota...in india you'd use a nokia lower end cellphone whereas in US you can buy a high end phone...remember one thing the mercedez still costs 100grand both in US and India...so if u come to india on the lesser salary u will never get that car...basically things like amenities like housing and all will be cheap but luxuries are still the same so obviously the standard is going to be higher in the US.</p>
<p>
[quote]
well they dont have a reason to increase the pay..coz for the simple reason that they are getting their work done for half the cost in asian countries...Also the quality of an average indian tech graduate is bound to be more even without a masters degree because of the curriculum followed so the companies are in a win win situation
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
Sakky, you have a point--in China and India starting engineering positions have salaries of about 4-6X that of a typical non-technical job--thus incentivizing these careers. The same incentive is not offered in the US, since--as vampiro explained--would be impractical for employers. Why would an employer want to pay around $100K for a US employee, when he could get simillar work from an IIT graduate and pay him the equivalent of $5-7K? </p>
<p>Thus, if we were in a closed-market economy and the US companies couldn't rely on the cheaper third-world countries for labor, your theories would hold.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Aha, very good, I see that you have gotten to step 1 of your thinking. But you haven't gotten to step 2 - which is quite simply that why don't all of those non-technical jobs in the US also get shipped overseas?</p>
<p>Let me give you an example. Just like you say ask why should companies hire US engineers for 100k when they can get a guy from INdia for 4k, I could just as easiliy ask why does Goldman Sachs hire all of these high-priced Americans right out of undergrad to be investment bankers, and pay them over 120k a year (including year-end bonus)? Why do investment banks pay 7, 8, or even 9 figure compensation packages to their best investment bankers? Why not replace each and every single one of them with a bunch of Indians? Indians are smart, they can do financial calculations, they're hard working, so why doesn't all of Wall Street simply fire all of their bankers and outsource it all? </p>
<p>By the same token, why does McKinsey hire all of these high-pay consultants from the US, instead of hiring just a bunch of very cheap guys from India? </p>
<p>The point is, I made the comparison between the 50k engineer in the US vs. the 30k non-engineering in the US and showed how that provided few incentives for Americans to study engineering. You guys remarked that outsourcing removes the need for companies to raise engineering pay above 50k, and that's true. On the other hand, you haven't answered why companies don't just also use outsourcing to whack all of those non-engineering jobs. </p>
<p>What I am mystified about most of all is that these American tech companies will say that they are unable to boost American engineering pay. Then these same tech companies will pay McKinsey tens of millions of dollars for a consulting engagement. And who does McKinsey bring in to complete that engagement? Often times, it is those SAME engineers who that tech company refused to boost pay for. In other words, a top engineer from MIT may find that he will get a higher paying offer from McKinsey than from a tech company, and so he will choose to work for McKinsey, and end up doing consulting for the same tech company who refused to pay him what he wanted. So the tech company ends up paying him anyway, just indirectly as opposed to directly. Wouldn't it have been more efficient for that company to have hired that guy directly to be an 'internal consultant', as opposed to ending up (indirectly) paying guy anyway, but also having to pay a premium to McKinsey?</p>
<p>And in fact, this whole subject gets into an interesting aspect of labor economics. zking786, you talked about closed-market economies. Well, the fact is, labor markets are far from efficient markets. Almost never do prices and quantities equilibrate at market-clearing points, which is the heart of classical free-market economics.</p>
<p>Let me give you an example. Take investment banking. Investment banking (IB) pays very well. And it is also extremely hard to get into IB, because far more people want to get in than there are jobs available. That's a DIRECT violation of free market economics. After all, according to classical free markets, whenever the supply of labor exceeds demand for labor, wages should drop. Since more people want to get into IB than there are spots, that should mean that banks could just create many more spots, at far lower salaries, until such time as there was no excess. In other words, there should be nobody who complains that he wants an IB job, but couldn't get one. If the free market was allowed to equililbrate naturally, then everybody who wants an IB job will get one. They may not get IB jobs that pay well, but everybody who wants one will have one, and nobody would ever have to complain about not having one.</p>
<p>As it turns out, this is clearly not the case. Plenty of people who want an IB job don't get one. And there is no "bargaining" allowed. For example, you can't just go to Goldman Sachs and offer to work for half salary. Goldman Sachs has a certain pay package and everybody gets the same package, and most people who try to get into GS do not get in. In fact, I know one guy who was so desperate to get his foot in the door into IB that he was willing to do an unpaid internship with them. Yeah, UNPAID. Yet nobody took him up on the offer. </p>
<p>Goldman Sachs could easily say that they are going to hire twice as many investment bankers by just cutting their pay in half. But they don't do that. Why? Because of the labor economic theories as discussed by Nobel Prize Winner Michael Spence. Basically, by offering extremely high pay packages, the IB's can ensure that they get lots of and lots of candidates and thus can pick the very best ones to hire. Furthermore, that high pay makes the 'pain' of doing a poor job and thus getting released extremely painful. Somebody who gets into GS may be thinking (justifiably) that the money he is making there is far more than he could make doing something else, so he better do a very good job in order to avoid getting laid off. Whereas, a regular engineer making only 50k may not care very much, figuring that if he does lose his job, he can just get another engineering job that will also pay him 50k, so he isn't exactly heavily incented to work very hard. </p>
<p>However, to summarize, I think what is really going on is a strange artifact in the way that engineers in the US are paid. Why is it that these companies are not willing to pay top dollar for engineers, but are willing to splurge for consulting services and financial services? If the companies wanted to save money, wouldn't they be interested in saving money EVERYWHERE? If these companies wanted to outsource to take advantage of labor arbitrage, then why hasn't an outsourced management consulting or an outsourced investment banking industry been created?</p>
<p>"However, to summarize, I think what is really going on is a strange artifact in the way that engineers in the US are paid. Why is it that these companies are not willing to pay top dollar for engineers, but are willing to splurge for consulting services and financial services? If the companies wanted to save money, wouldn't they be interested in saving money EVERYWHERE? If these companies wanted to outsource to take advantage of labor arbitrage, then why hasn't an outsourced management consulting or an outsourced investment banking industry been created?"</p>
<p>here u are right sakky...in a way the lure of the management companies which has struck the engineers is becasue of the tech companies...coz see as i am about to begin college i can say one thing...ever since i was a kid i wanted to be a computer scientist and work in labs on Artificial Intelligence (i still want to) but basically when i came in contact of all the professions and all i was sort of surprised to hear that even an MIT engineer gets only like $60000 starting salary and that does not go up a lot. I mean i thought what is this...these people in my school who have commerce aren't even making anything new..and frankly speaking working half as hard as us science guys(for instance the blokes never work till a week before an exam..and we'd die if we did that) and getting salaries which are like insane...so that made me think...and it makes lot of other engineers think..guys who go to IIT, MIT,Stanford..these are people who can change the world if all of them join technology and scientific research...but this makes them think that they should also join these manangement companies..coz after all money is also something if not everything...and it really is because of the tech companies (thats one of the reasons people from good colleges aren't joining microsoft and going to google...google gives them benefits like a management company unlike msoft)....
i totally agree with you coz like..if the comopanies pay the engg like 6 figures or 7 figures they wont have to spend like 8 or 9 figures on Mckinsey and the likes...and the pace of the tech world will also increase coz after all it doesnt matter where engineers do their jobs they still love math and science at heart..and being in their own profession would be the best option for everyone if we just got more money...Becausee the irony is that from say MIT( the worlds best TECH school) a management grad might start at 100k but the actual engg still starts at 50-55k which is sad...</p>
<p>Well, it's not quite THAT extreme. The engineers still make more than the management grads to start, as you can see on page 14.</p>
<p>However, my point is that the 'engineering premium' really isn't that large. Furthermore, the premium for getting an engineering degree from MIT as opposed to just an average engineering school is not large. The delta is significantl maybe only for EECS. Maybe. And there are certain engineering disciplines like chemical engineering where the MIT grads actually make LESS than the national average. </p>
<p>Is it really then so surprising that American kids aren't exactly champing at the bit to learn science? People tell those kids that they ought to study more science and math, and the kids are unconsciously thinking: "Why should I? It's a lot of work for not a lot of benefit, so I'd rather just not do it." And, sadly, the kids are right. What is really lacking is the lack of willingness to pay. If American business doesn't want to pay Americans for science and math knowledge, then we shouldn't be surprised to find that American kids don't want to study science and math.</p>
<p>you know basically i think that actually speaking the american companies are right...but in terms of pupil motivation they are faltering...
see basically people see the incentive one has in India for doing engineering but then they overlook the fact that engg's even in India are paid by MNC's which like give atleast a minumum amount of reasonable money to every employee...in a way they aren't paying any premium to the engg's but the thing is that India is so weak in financial matters (atleast per capita income) that any salary looks huge when you compare it to the salaries in arts or culture...because for the simple reason that these fields are supported by the govt and not MNC's if say tomorrow multi national research companies come to India for the arts and like fields the 'incentive' will disappear here too...
so basically this salary incentive which people or rather engg's get here is just created by the natural economy of the country.. i mean the pay in US for engg's is also decent but then US is so strong financially that any profession will give you a good standard of living....</p>
<p>But what matters most is not the sheer NUMBER of engineers/scientists but the quality. Yes, yes I understand, quality can be fished out of any big enough tank but it's not like the scientists/engineers of America today are going broke and hungry. I have no fears about being able to support myself upon graduation so the 'career-path' that I choose is one that I love. Incentives such as higher pay and more benefits could attract more workers to the field but are those the kinds of workers we WANT to be attracting? If we're after sheer man-power, sure, but if we're after innovation and advancement, it takes a dedication far beyond the desire for money.</p>
<p>Maybe I'm just an idealist.</p>
<p>sakky:
You bring up valid points. I still, however, don't completely understand your point of view. It seems like you're pointing back to the irrationality of the labor market on multiple instances. I still don't get why the company would want to pay more for the US employee. Maybe it's my inexperience in labor economics, but I don't seem to completely grasp your point as to why they aren't increasing outsourcing. Instead, you're pointing back to the companies splurging on various other financial aspects (like consulting) and thus concluding that they aren't really concerned with saving money. If you could elaborate on this specific point, it would be great. Also, I'm wondering if there are any major labor regulations, limits, quotas, or impositions that prevent outsourcing. </p>
<p>pebbles:
I agree with your point. Without desire to learn, above financial incentives, we won't find innovation. After all, it's those who passionately engage in a field who ultimately suceed in major developments. Those who half-heartedly join a field, primarily in pursuit of a large paycheck often don't derive true satisfaction in their lives and, perhaps more importantly, don't contribute anything of much significance.</p>
<p>"Maybe I'm just an idealist."
yes you are...because i dont like people putting off people who want to earn money too by saying they are not serious...this is just not right...i mean u talk abt luring people with more money...but basically what is happening is that
1. We dont want more people..but atleast we want that those who are genuinely good and passionately study science till junior grade and then see the pay checks of management and go there should remain interested in science.
2. An engineer toils hard sleeplessly...so isnt it right that he should demand pay for his work...
everyone wants to have a good social status.....</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>To refute your first sentence:</p>
<p>Well I didn't say anything about those who love science and also want to earn a decent living in it, much less "put them off". My point is that scientists today aren't the martyrs this thread is making them out to be. Sure there aren't many INCENTIVES to study science right now but there aren't any major DETERRENTS, either. People with intense interests in science and engineering aren't being turned away from the field right now due to financial implausibility, most everyone I know here loves what they study and haven't given much thought to future salaries. I mean sure, if you want to offer us heaps of money upon graduation we'll stick out our hands and gladly take it, but we are and we would be here regardless.</p>
<p>And... that's where you lost me, after the first sentence, I don't understand the rest of your post oh god sorry :(</p>
<p>"but we are and we would be here regardless."</p>
<p>not everyone thinks that way...but hey everyones personal opinion..no one is correct here.</p>
<p>what i meant was...that the money for engineers should be increased not in order to lure new people but just to retain the ones who are interested in it...And u cant deny that there has been a mass shifting of engineers..even from MIT towards management positions rather than tech position.</p>