Research Bursts Myths On Engineering (No Shortage)

[OhioChick]

Engineering doesn't have a higher dropout rate than other college majors, and women do just as well as men, a new study shows.

Engineering, contrary to popular thinking, doesn't have a higher dropout rate than other majors, and women do just as well as men, U.S. research shows.

Education lore has always told us that students -- particularly women -- drop out of undergraduate engineering programs more often than students in other fields, Matthew Ohland, an associate professor at Purdue University's School of Engineering Education, said Tuesday in a news release.

Engineering programs, on average, retain just as many students as other programs do, and once women get to college, they're just as likely to stick around in engineering as are their male counterparts.

Findings were based on examining a database of 70,000 engineering students from nine institutions in the southeastern United States, said Ohland, who manages the database, which followed students over a 17-year period ending in 2005.

Research also showed few students switch to engineering from other majors, indicating a potential strategy for increasing the number of U.S. engineering graduates, Ohland said.

A huge message in these findings is that engineering students are amazingly like those in other disciplines, but we need to do more to attract students to engineering programs, he said. If you look at who graduates with a degree in engineering ... 93 percent of them started in engineering. The road is narrow for students to migrate into engineering from other majors.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/trends/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=219100494

Hmmmm....No shortage of engineers, just a shortage of new grads (with loan$) that can't afford to work for shit.

[jody]

1. So H-1B visas are for professionals eager to work for marginal salaries. That's why Birmingham hired

foreign teachers, see Why Birmingham city schools hired Filipino teachers (Birmingham News AL)

[OhioChick]

2. What a bunch of BS....

I know of many teachers who have been laid off and can't find a job....and they're all willing to relocate. Once again, it's all about who will do the job.....the cheapest.

[jody]

3. You got that right!

:thumbsup: :hi:

[OhioChick]

4. Hope you're doing well!

:hi:

[DerekJ]

5. Did this study point out the ratio of male to female students in Engineering schools?

Female dropouts are more? I've never heard this one. However in every single year in my engineering school male students vastly outnumbered females. I mean VASTLY. I never took a head count but it had to be 4:1 or more.

The important question here is why?

[OhioChick]

6. The Defeminization of IT

"After decades of employment gains in information technology, women have quickly reversed the trend and are now rapidly abandoning IT -- leading to the defeminization of IT," asserts the Cutter Business Technology Council.

According to Cutter Consortium Fellows Lynne Ellyn and Christine Davis, "Mature women are opting out of the IT field in droves, while fewer and fewer young women are pursuing careers in technology. This is a fact. We can debate the reasons, but the result is a growing void of women in the current IT workforce with many stakeholders having a somewhat cavalier attitude about the issue. Whatever the reasons, the results are bad for business. Diversity is an important factor in creating an environment that is rich with innovation and creativity. If a workplace does not reflect the community it serves, the products and services it produces will lack the insight, perception, acumen, flair, and intelligence of those not involved."

In debating the significance of the situation, the Fellows of the Cutter Business Technology Council saw the impact from varying perspectives.

Cutter Consortium Fellow Tom DeMarco feels:

The decreasing number of women in IT bodes poorly for the IT industry, which is facing a potential shortfall of young professionals of both genders.

The trend is minor bad news for IT, but incredibly good news for the world-at-large and even better news for young women: within 15 years, women will so outnumber men in the midlevels of organizations that there will be no stopping them from going to the top.

IT has a problem. But women don't.

Cutter Consortium Fellow Tim Lister suggests:

IT is not the place for any young person, female or male, since they will just work hard and then their job will be outsourced to a distant land.

When we see the loss of half of the IT job candidates, we need to be alarmed.

When systems for all of us are created and built by a distorted subpopulation of all of us, there will be problems.

The women of IT will take the lead in pointing the way out of this serious problem.

Cutter Consortium Fellow Lou Mazzucchelli predicts:

The future US entry-level IT employment pool will exist because it really wants to be in IT, not due to the promise of a high-paying job.

Our challenge will be to provide this smaller pool with opportunities for financial success and personal growth so that we can at least partially meet the IT needs of US industry from within our borders and ensure that IT practitioners will speak fondly enough of their contributions and rewards that their enthusiasm will kindle a similar spark in their sons and daughters.

http://www.cutter.com/press/070221.html

[MindPilot]

8. I can't imagine anyone anywhere close to sane would choose an IT career

About the most dehumanizing soul-sucking ticket to chronic unemployment there is.

[Stuckinthebush]

7. Millions of NSF dollars have been at work here

I worked in engineering education research during the late 90s and early 2000s. There WAS a difference in drop out rates and a difference in numbers of females entering the field as compared to other fields. The NSF programs were instrumental in getting engineering professors to look at diversity issues in the schools. This paved the way for increases in female and minority enrollments and retention.

[ChromeFoundry]

9. but Bill's been telling us that there IS a shortage. n/t

[swaroop]

10. College degree is no more than a piece of paper.