Closing the innovation gap

Andy Womack — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:41:28 GMT

So we accept the survey as truly representing the opinions of the 12 to 17 year-old population. This is indeed encouraging.

As an ageing baby-boomer myself, I feel as though we had a tremendous opportunity to make a positive impact. The trials endured by many of our parents (economic privation during the depression, fighting the worst war in history) set the stage, at least in the U.S. dominated portion of the world, for the period of economic and political stabilty that has lasted to this day. I am proud to be a part of the generation that marginalized white supremacy, and discovered rock'n'roll. I am disappointed by the elitism and the ideology that has driven policies of the last few years.

I hope to see the outcome if this developing generation holds on to those values expressed in this survey.

Closing the innovation gap

OneVoice, Frederick MD — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:23:40 GMT

Great stuff Alan. I wonder though, in the 'not so good news' section, the 31 and 28 percent only accounts for a little over half of the reasons. I am wondering what some of the other discouraging reasons are and, in practical terms, I wonder how many of them will become discouraged by escalating tuition costs and the availability of student loans.

Closing the innovation gap

JQuinlan — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:50:28 GMT

With all of us having experienced an administration, which was completely devoid of ideas or funding for the Sciences; It will certainly be refreshing and encouraging to see the new administration looking forward into our future with Science pointing the way toward advances in Energy Independence, Medical Technologies and Physics Research, to name a few.
We can't wait to get started!

Closing the innovation gap

Don Meaker, Maywood, CA — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:44:18 GMT

The good news is that innovation usually outsmarts the lawyers, journalists, political activists, leeches, parasites, and politicians. The bad news is that the leeches, parasites, lawyers, journalists, political activists, and politicans now declare an emergency, create money from nothing, and spend it, ruining the economy, when ever they want. This reduces the demand for innovation

Closing the innovation gap

ic, chicago, IL — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:22:54 GMT

Virtually every B-school established a e-Business program in late 1990's. U of Chicago had one created, and enrollments went thru the roof. Next year, the internet bubble burst, enrollment in the program was single digit. The program closed down after one year.
Undergrad computer science enrollments in U of Illinois, a top computer science college, plummeted. ACT/SAT scores requirement for its Business School was raised to 32/1400.

The "enthusiam" in STEM may be a reflection on how bad the economy is perceived by the very practical college students. With negative hirings in Citi, Goldman, collapses of Lehman and Merill Lynch, all the shines are off the business schools. With the Fed's interventions, environmental science is where the money going to be. STEM programs are where the students going to.

Next, we'll read a poll surprising experts that enrollments in B-schools are way down.

Closing the innovation gap

Roger Godby — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 03:41:45 GMT

While it's great to see renewed interest in STEM, how many public school graduates are ready to start to cumulative acquisition of knowledge in these fields at university? If you're talking about EE and CS grads, Professor Norm Matloff has plenty of information (and testified before Congress) about how Congress and industry have connived to expand the H1-B visa program to fill a "shortage" of such grads' jobs, except the shortage means "shortage of people willing to work for 50-60% of the national average for the same job."

Those who do go for university-level study in STEM fields, especially engineering, have a good chance of cooping. Yes, that means 5 years instead of 4, but it also means tuition is less of a worry, hands-on experience is acquired, and the coop firm will likely offer you a full-time job on graduation.

If all those useless Studies departments (what percent of their grads get work in their fields?) were cut, I expect tuitions could be reduced. Ending tenure would help, too. Professors emeritus that draw full pay while teaching only 1 or 2 courses are serious dead weight.

Closing the innovation gap

TallDave — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 04:12:27 GMT

What's more, most of the teens said making money wasn't the primary reason for their interest.

Ha. That's because they don't pay their own bills yet.

"Fifty-six percent of those said protecting the environment or improving society was their interest for going into STEM," 

Trust me, most of these people will end up in Gender Studies, Comparative Lit, or something else equally easy and impractical.

and another 28 percent said they didn't understand what scientists and engineers actually did.

God help us. You don't even to pick up a boook to know this; we live in the age of Google.

In the survey conducted for the Lemelson-MIT Invention Index, 37 percent of the teens said the gasoline-powered car was the technology most likely to become extinct in the next five years.

Sigh. This is what public schools have reduced us to. We have wonderfully indoctrinated little enviro-socialists who can't imagine how a scientist or engineer might spend their day.

Well, we should be fine as long as chanting "Yes We Can!" solves all our problems.