On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 08:15:05 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>Better than an opinion, studied assessment by professor of sociology at UCSD...

I expect that a sociology degree is an equally bad investment.

>
>'But there is a problem with these massive investments: Most STEM graduates don’t work in STEM occupations. The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs. These include diverse sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and energy, but about half of STEM jobs are in computers, and tech firms typically complain the loudest of STEM shortages.'
>
>That's ridiculous! This always happens when politics is involved: vast amounts of waste, lost opportunities, cesspool products and workplaces...
>
>https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/opinion-why-pushing-stem-majors-is-turning-out-to-be-a-terrible-investment/ar-AA1mGDM9

On 10/01/2024 11:50 am, John Larkin wrote:
> On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 08:15:05 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Better than an opinion, studied assessment by professor of sociology at UCSD...
>
> I expect that a sociology degree is an equally bad investment.

John Larkin skipped most of his chemistry lectures at Tulane because he
thought that that was a bad investment of his time. He might even had
been right - making sense of chemistry needs more intelligence that he
has shown here. I may be biased

>> 'But there is a problem with these massive investments: Most STEM graduates don’t work in STEM occupations. The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs. These include diverse sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and energy, but about half of STEM jobs are in computers, and tech firms typically complain the loudest of STEM shortages.'
>>
>> That's ridiculous! This always happens when politics is involved: vast amounts of waste, lost opportunities, cesspool products and workplaces...
>>
>> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/opinion-why-pushing-stem-majors-is-turning-out-to-be-a-terrible-investment/ar-AA1mGDM9

What the article actually says is that the people who want STEM workers
don't pay them all that well, and are happy to fire them at the drop of
a hat.

If the STEM employers actually wanted more employees, they would treat
them better. What is actually happening is that they are leaning on
politicians to get the universities to churn out more potential
employees so that they can hired gullible newbies, exploit them for a
couple of years and replace them with new suckers when the previous
generation move on to better employers.

Pushing STEM majors works fine for everybody involved, except the STEM
majors. It should be backed up by pressure on the STEM employers to
treat them employees better. Encouraging STEM workers to join trade
unions who could put pressure on the employers to treat their employees
better would make sense, but that isn't going to happen in the US.

STEM workers aren't a particularly homogenous group so conventional
trade unions don't work that well for them, but as the screen actors
guild make clear, they can still be useful.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 1:20:12 AM UTC+11, a a wrote:
> The idiot Bill Sloman <bill....@ieee.org> persisting in being an Off-topic troll...

A a is half-wit. STEM education is an entirely on-topic here, but Fred Bloggs had completely missed the point of the article he was drawing our attention to, and I'd pointed this out, which is an on-topic response.

Since a a does seem to be a half-wit, he may well have failed to understand what was going on - he regularly abuses people for posting perfectly sensible on-topic comments - but this particular example strikes me as even more flagrantly silly than usual.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 08:45:10 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 10:59:56?PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:
>> On 10/01/2024 11:50 am, John Larkin wrote:
>> > On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 08:15:05 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
>> > <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Better than an opinion, studied assessment by professor of sociology at UCSD...
>> >
>> > I expect that a sociology degree is an equally bad investment.
>> John Larkin skipped most of his chemistry lectures at Tulane because he
>> thought that that was a bad investment of his time.

I took the mandatory 2 semisters and got A's in both. But we called it
Betty Crocker Chemistry, mixing stuff without much useful theory.

First year, I did get one B, in English.

First year Physics was enlightening, much more valuable. The freshman
course "Engineering Design Analysis" was a great revelation.

>He might even had
>> been right - making sense of chemistry needs more intelligence that he
>> has shown here. I may be biased

Biased? Sloman? Say it ain't so!

On Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 3:45:15 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> On Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 10:59:56 PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:
> > On 10/01/2024 11:50 am, John Larkin wrote:
> > > On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 08:15:05 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
> > > <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Better than an opinion, studied assessment by professor of sociology at UCSD...
> > >
> > > I expect that a sociology degree is an equally bad investment.
> > John Larkin skipped most of his chemistry lectures at Tulane because he
> > thought that that was a bad investment of his time. He might even had
> > been right - making sense of chemistry needs more intelligence that he
> > has shown here. I may be biased
> > >> 'But there is a problem with these massive investments: Most STEM graduates don’t work in STEM occupations. The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs. These include diverse sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and energy, but about half of STEM jobs are in computers, and tech firms typically complain the loudest of STEM shortages.'
> > >>
> > >> That's ridiculous! This always happens when politics is involved: vast amounts of waste, lost opportunities, cesspool products and workplaces....
> > >>
> > >> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/opinion-why-pushing-stem-majors-is-turning-out-to-be-a-terrible-investment/ar-AA1mGDM9
> > What the article actually says is that the people who want STEM workers
> > don't pay them all that well, and are happy to fire them at the drop of
> > a hat.
> It only says that in support of the thesis of it being a gigantic waste of money for excessive government funding of STEM education.
> >
> > If the STEM employers actually wanted more employees, they would treat
> > them better. What is actually happening is that they are leaning on
> > politicians to get the universities to churn out more potential
> > employees so that they can hired gullible newbies, exploit them for a
> > couple of years and replace them with new suckers when the previous
> > generation move on to better employers.
>
> University faculty are people whose careers were terminated early due to non-performance or uselessness in general. Then they suddenly see the light and determine 'they love teaching' to get a cushy teaching job.

Not true of any of the university people I've known. Most of them went from being Ph.D. students to post-docs to becoming university staff without any exposure to a commercial environment.

> I believe an IEEE statistic of EE's in U.S. is that after 5 years, 70% of them are no longer employed as engineers. The reality is 90% of them should never have been given employment to begin with.

They get promoted to management or drift into sales and marketing, all of which pay better. Companies hire people who ave managed to get university degrees more because they've made it through a particular sort of obstacle course, rather than because they've been taught stuff that is immediately useful in the job they are doing.
It typically takes about two years before a graduate knows enough about the job they have been hired to do to be all that productive in it.

Hiring experienced people from the competition can be a better short-term solution, but you are likely to get assholes, who needed to get away from people who had learned to dislike them.

> > Pushing STEM majors works fine for everybody involved, except the STEM
> > majors. It should be backed up by pressure on the STEM employers to
> > treat them employees better. Encouraging STEM workers to join trade
> > unions who could put pressure on the employers to treat their employees
> > better would make sense, but that isn't going to happen in the US.
> >
> > STEM workers aren't a particularly homogenous group so conventional
> > trade unions don't work that well for them, but as the screen actors
> > guild make clear, they can still be useful.
>
> Most of those STEM degree people are assholes, so who cares. The answer is nobody, because they're hated at the personal level.

Not my experience either. STEM degree people tend to work in cooperating and collaborative teams. People who don't play nice don't do well, and don't last.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 4:29:18 AM UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 08:45:10 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >On Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 10:59:56?PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:
> >> On 10/01/2024 11:50 am, John Larkin wrote:
> >> > On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 08:15:05 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
> >> > <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> Better than an opinion, studied assessment by professor of sociology at UCSD...
> >> >
> >> > I expect that a sociology degree is an equally bad investment.
> >>
> >> John Larkin skipped most of his chemistry lectures at Tulane because he
> >> thought that that was a bad investment of his time.
>
> I took the mandatory 2 semisters and got A's in both. But we called it
> Betty Crocker Chemistry, mixing stuff without much useful theory.

If you had the wit to learn to spell "semester" (it's your habitual spelling of the word, not a typo) you could have picked up some useful theory.
The fact that you got an A while failing to learn much confirms my opinion pf Tulane.,
> First year, I did get one B, in English.
>
> First year Physics was enlightening, much more valuable. The freshman
> course "Engineering Design Analysis" was a great revelation.\
>
> >He might even had
> >> been right - making sense of chemistry needs more intelligence that he
> >> has shown here. I may be biased.
>
> Biased? Sloman? Say it ain't so!

I've got a Ph.D. in chemistry, and both my parents had undergraduate degrees in the subject - my mother was en route to get an M.Sc. when WW2 broke out and she got "manpowered" into a job in industry. I do tend to think that prowess in chemistry does demonstrate intelligence, but I may be extrapolating from too small a sample.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 08:45:10 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
<bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 10:59:56?PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:
>> On 10/01/2024 11:50 am, John Larkin wrote:
>> > On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 08:15:05 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
>> > <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Better than an opinion, studied assessment by professor of sociology at UCSD...
>> >
>> > I expect that a sociology degree is an equally bad investment.
>> John Larkin skipped most of his chemistry lectures at Tulane because he
>> thought that that was a bad investment of his time. He might even had
>> been right - making sense of chemistry needs more intelligence that he
>> has shown here. I may be biased
>> >> 'But there is a problem with these massive investments: Most STEM graduates don’t work in STEM occupations. The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs. These include diverse sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and energy, but about half of STEM jobs are in computers, and tech firms typically complain the loudest of STEM shortages.'
>> >>
>> >> That's ridiculous! This always happens when politics is involved: vast amounts of waste, lost opportunities, cesspool products and workplaces...
>> >>
>> >> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/opinion-why-pushing-stem-majors-is-turning-out-to-be-a-terrible-investment/ar-AA1mGDM9
>> What the article actually says is that the people who want STEM workers
>> don't pay them all that well, and are happy to fire them at the drop of
>> a hat.
>
>It only says that in support of the thesis of it being a gigantic waste of money for excessive government funding of STEM education.
>
>>
>> If the STEM employers actually wanted more employees, they would treat
>> them better. What is actually happening is that they are leaning on
>> politicians to get the universities to churn out more potential
>> employees so that they can hired gullible newbies, exploit them for a
>> couple of years and replace them with new suckers when the previous
>> generation move on to better employers.
>
>University faculty are people whose careers were terminated early due to non-performance or uselessness in general. Then they suddenly see the light and determine 'they love teaching' to get a cushy teaching job.
>
>I believe an IEEE statistic of EE's in U.S. is that after 5 years, 70% of them are no longer employed as engineers. The reality is 90% of them should never have been given employment to begin with.
>
>>
>> Pushing STEM majors works fine for everybody involved, except the STEM
>> majors. It should be backed up by pressure on the STEM employers to
>> treat them employees better. Encouraging STEM workers to join trade
>> unions who could put pressure on the employers to treat their employees
>> better would make sense, but that isn't going to happen in the US.
>>
>> STEM workers aren't a particularly homogenous group so conventional
>> trade unions don't work that well for them, but as the screen actors
>> guild make clear, they can still be useful.
>
>Most of those STEM degree people are assholes, so who cares. The answer is nobody, because they're hated at the personal level.
>
>>
>> --
>> Bill Sloman, Sydney

Pre-WW2 only a few per cent of Americans went to college. Now the
number is over 40%. Most of those shouldn't be trying to get their
degrees, which are expensive and ultimately useless.

There are lots of dropouts who are made to feel like losers and
struggle to pay off student loans. Private universities are now mostly
gigabuck money machines.

We dropped into a 2-year course at Sierra College that trains control
and process engineers. 100% of the grads get job offers. One lady grad
runs the enormous Budweiser brewery near Sacramento.

On 1/9/2024 10:59 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:

> What the article actually says is that the people who want STEM workers
> don't pay them all that well, and are happy to fire them at the drop of
> a hat.

US employees in e.g. fleet maintenance and railroad work have similar
complaints, they say "There are few industries whose managements will
promise you so much of the world in exchange for signing on, and then
dedicate their existence to finding a reason to fire you once you do"

On Thu, 11 Jan 2024 16:02:04 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:

>On 1/9/2024 10:59 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>
>> What the article actually says is that the people who want STEM workers
>> don't pay them all that well, and are happy to fire them at the drop of
>> a hat.
>
>US employees in e.g. fleet maintenance and railroad work have similar
>complaints, they say "There are few industries whose managements will
>promise you so much of the world in exchange for signing on, and then
>dedicate their existence to finding a reason to fire you once you do"

If you don't like your job, find a better one.

On Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 5:57:41 AM UTC-8, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 11:00:24 PM UTC-5, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > On Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 3:45:15 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 10:59:56 PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:
> > > > On 10/01/2024 11:50 am, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 08:15:05 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
> > > > > <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >> Better than an opinion, studied assessment by professor of sociology at UCSD...
> > > > >
> > > > > I expect that a sociology degree is an equally bad investment.
> > > > John Larkin skipped most of his chemistry lectures at Tulane because he
> > > > thought that that was a bad investment of his time. He might even had
> > > > been right - making sense of chemistry needs more intelligence that he
> > > > has shown here. I may be biased
> > > > >> 'But there is a problem with these massive investments: Most STEM graduates don’t work in STEM occupations. The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs. These include diverse sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and energy, but about half of STEM jobs are in computers, and tech firms typically complain the loudest of STEM shortages.'
> > > > >>
> > > > >> That's ridiculous! This always happens when politics is involved: vast amounts of waste, lost opportunities, cesspool products and workplaces...
> > > > >>
> > > > >> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/opinion-why-pushing-stem-majors-is-turning-out-to-be-a-terrible-investment/ar-AA1mGDM9
> > > > What the article actually says is that the people who want STEM workers
> > > > don't pay them all that well, and are happy to fire them at the drop of
> > > > a hat.
> > > It only says that in support of the thesis of it being a gigantic waste of money for excessive government funding of STEM education.
> > > >
> > > > If the STEM employers actually wanted more employees, they would treat
> > > > them better. What is actually happening is that they are leaning on
> > > > politicians to get the universities to churn out more potential
> > > > employees so that they can hired gullible newbies, exploit them for a
> > > > couple of years and replace them with new suckers when the previous
> > > > generation move on to better employers.
> > >
> > > University faculty are people whose careers were terminated early due to non-performance or uselessness in general. Then they suddenly see the light and determine 'they love teaching' to get a cushy teaching job.
> > Not true of any of the university people I've known. Most of them went from being Ph.D. students to post-docs to becoming university staff without any exposure to a commercial environment.
> > > I believe an IEEE statistic of EE's in U.S. is that after 5 years, 70% of them are no longer employed as engineers. The reality is 90% of them should never have been given employment to begin with.

> > > Most of those STEM degree people are assholes, so who cares. The answer is nobody, because they're hated at the personal level.
> > Not my experience either. STEM degree people tend to work in cooperating and collaborative teams. People who don't play nice don't do well, and don't last.
> That's a bunch of baloney. The infighting and workplace conflicts are well-documented and publicized.

In the spirit of 'if it bleeds, it leads', any documentation and publications
will include story-teller exercises in finding conflicts, real or otherwise..

On 12/01/2024 1:48 am, John Larkin wrote:
> On Wed, 10 Jan 2024 08:45:10 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
> <bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 10:59:56?PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>> On 10/01/2024 11:50 am, John Larkin wrote:
>>>> On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 08:15:05 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
>>>> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:

<snip>

> Pre-WW2 only a few per cent of Americans went to college. Now the
> number is over 40%. Most of those shouldn't be trying to get their
> degrees, which are expensive and ultimately useless.

This was also true pre-WW2. The skills that let you do well in secondary
school don't guarantee good performance at university, Putting 40% 0f
the population through university is an expensive way if finding who
does have those skills, but we don't have a better one, and finding as
many people as possible who do have those skills is vital if we are
going to keep on making society and our economy more productive.

> There are lots of dropouts who are made to feel like losers and
> struggle to pay off student loans. Private universities are now mostly
> gigabuck money machines.

All true. If you are selling a valuable service you can make money out
of it. Ethical institutions would identify the students who weren't
doing well and chuck them out before they'd invested too much, but that
doesn't go down well with the students involved.

> We dropped into a 2-year course at Sierra College that trains control
> and process engineers. 100% of the grads get job offers. One lady grad
> runs the enormous Budweiser brewery near Sacramento.

But what proportion of the incoming students end up graduating?
When I was an undergraduate 30% of the students graduated in minimum
time, and 30% never graduated. I did get my first and second degrees in
minimum time, but the fact that I've ended up as an electronic engineer
rather that a physical chemist illustrates one of the problems. Win Hill
followed a similar trajectory, even if he bailed out of his chemical
physics Ph.D. program before he got the Ph.D.

John Larkin's take on university education may reflect the fact that the
university he was trained at - Tulane - isn't highly regarded.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On Friday, January 12, 2024 at 12:57:41 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 11:00:24 PM UTC-5, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
> > On Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 3:45:15 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
> > > On Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 10:59:56 PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:
> > > > On 10/01/2024 11:50 am, John Larkin wrote:
> > > > > On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 08:15:05 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
> > > > > <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > >> Better than an opinion, studied assessment by professor of sociology at UCSD...
> > > > >
> > > > > I expect that a sociology degree is an equally bad investment.
> > > >
> > > > John Larkin skipped most of his chemistry lectures at Tulane because he
> > > > thought that that was a bad investment of his time. He might even had
> > > > been right - making sense of chemistry needs more intelligence that he
> > > > has shown here. I may be biased.
> > > >
> > > > >> 'But there is a problem with these massive investments: Most STEM graduates don’t work in STEM occupations. The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs. These include diverse sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and energy, but about half of STEM jobs are in computers, and tech firms typically complain the loudest of STEM shortages.'
> > > > >>
> > > > >> That's ridiculous! This always happens when politics is involved: vast amounts of waste, lost opportunities, cesspool products and workplaces...
> > > > >>
> > > > >> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/opinion-why-pushing-stem-majors-is-turning-out-to-be-a-terrible-investment/ar-AA1mGDM9
> > > > >>
> > > > What the article actually says is that the people who want STEM workers
> > > > don't pay them all that well, and are happy to fire them at the drop of
> > > > a hat.
> > >
> > > It only says that in support of the thesis of it being a gigantic waste of money for excessive government funding of STEM education.

If you want more STEM graduates funding lots of people to study the subject may be expensive, but until you have a better predictor of who will succeed in their studies, it's the only approach that will get you more of them.

> > > > If the STEM employers actually wanted more employees, they would treat
> > > > them better. What is actually happening is that they are leaning on
> > > > politicians to get the universities to churn out more potential
> > > > employees so that they can hired gullible newbies, exploit them for a
> > > > couple of years and replace them with new suckers when the previous
> > > > generation move on to better employers.
> > >
> > > University faculty are people whose careers were terminated early due to non-performance or uselessness in general. Then they suddenly see the light and determine 'they love teaching' to get a cushy teaching job.
> >
> > Not true of any of the university people I've known. Most of them went from being Ph.D. students to post-docs to becoming university staff without any exposure to a commercial environment.
> >
> > > I believe an IEEE statistic of EE's in U.S. is that after 5 years, 70% of them are no longer employed as engineers. The reality is 90% of them should never have been given employment to begin with.
> >
> > They get promoted to management or drift into sales and marketing, all of which pay better. Companies hire people who ave managed to get university degrees more because they've made it through a particular sort of obstacle course, rather than because they've been taught stuff that is immediately useful in the job they are doing.
>
> If they're in engineering management and technical sales, then they're still working as engineers. The statistic doesn't apply to them.

Not any place that I've worked. I spent about 25 years working in industry in the UK and the Netherlands. If you've ever worked in industry you've never talked about it here.

> > It typically takes about two years before a graduate knows enough about the job they have been hired to do to be all that productive in it.
> >
> > Hiring experienced people from the competition can be a better short-term solution, but you are likely to get assholes, who needed to get away from people who had learned to dislike them.
> >
> > > > Pushing STEM majors works fine for everybody involved, except the STEM
> > > > majors. It should be backed up by pressure on the STEM employers to
> > > > treat them employees better. Encouraging STEM workers to join trade
> > > > unions who could put pressure on the employers to treat their employees
> > > > better would make sense, but that isn't going to happen in the US.
> > > >
> > > > STEM workers aren't a particularly homogenous group so conventional
> > > > trade unions don't work that well for them, but as the screen actors
> > > > guild make clear, they can still be useful.
> > >
> > > Most of those STEM degree people are assholes, so who cares. The answer is nobody, because they're hated at the personal level.
> >
> > Not my experience either. STEM degree people tend to work in cooperating and collaborative teams. People who don't play nice don't do well, and don't last.

> That's a bunch of baloney. The infighting and workplace conflicts are well-documented and publicized.

By whom? Tracy Kidder is about the only author I know who writes about technical projects - he does mention differences of opinion, but they do get sorted out, usually by firing the asshole with the silly ideas.. Journalists do like to play up any conflict they can find, but it wouldn't be news if it happened all the time

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On 12/01/2024 10:45 am, whit3rd wrote:
> On Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 5:57:41 AM UTC-8, Fred Bloggs wrote:
>> On Wednesday, January 10, 2024 at 11:00:24 PM UTC-5, Anthony William Sloman wrote:
>>> On Thursday, January 11, 2024 at 3:45:15 AM UTC+11, Fred Bloggs wrote:
>>>> On Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at 10:59:56 PM UTC-5, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>>>> On 10/01/2024 11:50 am, John Larkin wrote:
>>>>>> On Tue, 9 Jan 2024 08:15:05 -0800 (PST), Fred Bloggs
>>>>>> <bloggs.fred...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Better than an opinion, studied assessment by professor of sociology at UCSD...
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I expect that a sociology degree is an equally bad investment.
>>>>> John Larkin skipped most of his chemistry lectures at Tulane because he
>>>>> thought that that was a bad investment of his time. He might even had
>>>>> been right - making sense of chemistry needs more intelligence that he
>>>>> has shown here. I may be biased
>>>>>>> 'But there is a problem with these massive investments: Most STEM graduates don’t work in STEM occupations. The Census Bureau reported in 2021 that a paltry 28% of STEM grads are working in these supposedly in-demand, highly paid and important STEM jobs. These include diverse sectors such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and energy, but about half of STEM jobs are in computers, and tech firms typically complain the loudest of STEM shortages.'
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> That's ridiculous! This always happens when politics is involved: vast amounts of waste, lost opportunities, cesspool products and workplaces...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/opinion-why-pushing-stem-majors-is-turning-out-to-be-a-terrible-investment/ar-AA1mGDM9
>>>>> What the article actually says is that the people who want STEM workers
>>>>> don't pay them all that well, and are happy to fire them at the drop of
>>>>> a hat.
>>>> It only says that in support of the thesis of it being a gigantic waste of money for excessive government funding of STEM education.
>>>>>
>>>>> If the STEM employers actually wanted more employees, they would treat
>>>>> them better. What is actually happening is that they are leaning on
>>>>> politicians to get the universities to churn out more potential
>>>>> employees so that they can hired gullible newbies, exploit them for a
>>>>> couple of years and replace them with new suckers when the previous
>>>>> generation move on to better employers.
>>>>
>>>> University faculty are people whose careers were terminated early due to non-performance or uselessness in general. Then they suddenly see the light and determine 'they love teaching' to get a cushy teaching job.
>>>
>>> Not true of any of the university people I've known. Most of them went from being Ph.D. students to post-docs to becoming university staff without any exposure to a commercial environment.
>>>
>>>> I believe an IEEE statistic of EE's in U.S. is that after 5 years, 70% of them are no longer employed as engineers. The reality is 90% of them should never have been given employment to begin with.
>>>>
>>>> Most of those STEM degree people are assholes, so who cares. The answer is nobody, because they're hated at the personal level.
>>>
>>> Not my experience either. STEM degree people tend to work in cooperating and collaborative teams. People who don't play nice don't do well, and don't last.
>>
>> That's a bunch of baloney. The infighting and workplace conflicts are well-documented and publicized.
>
> In the spirit of 'if it bleeds, it leads', any documentation and publications
> will include story-teller exercises in finding conflicts, real or otherwise.

Fred shares Darius's enthusiasm for unjustified and unjustifiable
assertions.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

On 12/01/2024 9:49 am, john larkin wrote:
> On Thu, 11 Jan 2024 16:02:04 -0500, bitrex <user@example.net> wrote:
>
>> On 1/9/2024 10:59 PM, Bill Sloman wrote:
>>
>>> What the article actually says is that the people who want STEM workers
>>> don't pay them all that well, and are happy to fire them at the drop of
>>> a hat.
>>
>> US employees in e.g. fleet maintenance and railroad work have similar
>> complaints, they say "There are a few industries whose managements will
>> promise you so much of the world in exchange for signing on, and then
>> dedicate their existence to finding a reason to fire you once you do"
>
> If you don't like your job, find a better one.
When all the employers in a particular industry conspire to keep wages
low, you may have to immigrate to do that.

US employers outside the US are notorious for being implacably anti-union.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney