Bring Back Manufacturing
Recently, there has been a significant amount of rhetoric by President Obama on how we need to re-establish manufacturing in the United States. This topic was front-and-center in the State of the Union speech in January. Additionally, President Obama has been touring the country, speaking at universities, businesses, campaign stops, and fundraisers about how we can boost our economy by emphasizing manufacturing. The President, thankfully, has backed this initiative with a serious amount of funding. Much of the following information is paraphrased from Manufacturing.Gov, the website detailing the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation. In a nutshell, the government is looking to fund up to 15 Institutes for Manufacturing Innovation in the next year backed by up to $1 Billion in funding. The pilot institute, with a focus on Additive Manufacturing, will be funded using FY2012 funds, meaning it will be awarded before the end of September. These Institutes will primarily…
STEM graduate crunch solved
We’ve been hearing a lot on how there is a huge shortage of STEM workers and how the US needs to have more to stay on top. It looks like our concerns are well on our way to being fixed. The financial sector is apparently downsizing, so all those tech majors who originally planned to go into business and banking are thinking of a career in…you guessed it…engineering! An article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek discusses the fact that the financial sector has been seriously cutting down on hiring. Many tech majors discussed in the article said that they majored in technical fields to get into finance, but now that jobs aren’t available, they’re looking for jobs doing the stuff they were actually trained to do. The article does mention that things are shaky in the tech sector, but says that, “few expect Silicon Valley to undergo the carnage suffered by Wall…
Solving the World’s Problems
This week’s theme is perceptions of engineers and engineering, and obviously I’m biased. My perception of engineers and engineering is that we make the world better and, through our thought processes, we can save the world. Now some of you are probably thinking, “Hmmm, engineers do create nifty gadgets and build things that save lives, so even though I’m not an engineer, I agree that you make the world better. But save the world? That’s far-fetched.” However, I’m not talking about your cell phone or a MRI scanner. I’m talking about saving the world in a political sense. That’s right, if you replaced Congress with 435 engineers in the House and another 100 in the Senate, you’d save the world. I’ll pause for effect… … And I’m not talking rockstar engineers. But if you take normal, working class engineers with working class families, you would solve most of the issues…
Green (card) with envy
The US Congress is looking at immigration reform, specifically questioning how to deal with the H1-B visa issue. For those who aren’t familiar with the system, the H1-B visa classification is meant to employ immigrants who have attained at least a bachelor’s degree and work in an area that requires highly specific skills. There is a cap on the number of visas granted, but there are exemptions to the cap for those who have a master’s degree and above, as well as those who work at (but not for) a university. When someone comes to the US on an H1-B, they can also simultaneously apply for residency (i.e. a green card), something not allowed on most other visas. There are a number of problems with the program. Specifically, H1-B visas are often tied to the employer because the employer applies for and pays the costs of the visa on…
Cynicism and Engineering Salaries
If there’s anything I’ve gained from corporate America it’s realism and bitterness in abundance. Chris just wrote an excellent post on the expectations for starting salaries in electrical engineering. His curve for how an engineer’s salary might start out comparitively high but then flatten out over time is spot on. Chris gives some good numbers that are fairly reasonable for a mechanical engineer as well. Back before this recession the average graduate with a BS from my institution (which ranks fairly well, but not in the top 10 or anything crazy) was about 55k. Most of these graduates would be taking jobs in high cost metropolitan areas so this might run a bit high compared to other places. And there are several great comments on the post. An old engineer discusses the importance of training in the latest technology and how companies often try to squeeze employees out if they…
Forecast: Engineering Jobs
Time to look at the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook for engineers in 2010. The Occupational Outlook Handbook usually does a decent job at giving a very brief overview of a position, the number of people employed in the field, and an extremely rough estimate for median wages. They do statistics by metropolitan area as well which made it really unique and useful before salary websites started cropping up everywhere. One thing I don’t like is how the BLS decides to split up different engineering occupations. For instance, there’s aerospace engineer but no automotive engineer. Would someone who changed fields into aerospace consider themselves still a mechanical engineer? How about someone whose field was chemical engineering but got a job in the oil industry as a petroleum engineer? I just think there’s too much overlap in their categories which could make these numbers a little unreliable. But what’s…
What the World Needs Now
The above graph is from a Pew Research Center report on the American public’s global focus. More and more see China as the world’s leading economic power. David Leonhardt at the Economix thinks we have an irrational awe of China. He points out major innovation (GE, GM, Apple) has all occurred here and that 25% of Americans have college degrees compared to 5% of people in China. Several of the commenters tell Leonhardt where he’s missing the point: the reason for this “awe” is simple enough and is NOT irrational. jus as in the stock market, what matters is THE DIRECTION AND SIZE of growth, not simply the CURRENT situation. the world is moving very fast, and anyone who simply rests on their laurels or worse, goes backwards will not remain in a good spot for long. in this case, china is VERY deserving of their “awe”. the ability of…