The lower school system is not as good as overseas lower school systems.
I definitely realize this. I am all for school funding and improvement. I don't beleive I have ever said anything to the contrary. At this moment, I believe US engineering universities are the best in the world while the lower grades are substandard compared to other western nations. I don't believe US lower education is substandard compared to india or china.
RE: "The NSB doesn't know why the U.S. is producing fewer engineering graduates."
Well, it's not exactly like they try to increase the number of people, by increasing the number of women in science.
OK- true, but can you see that the real issue is that students have no incentive to embark on a difficult field that has no payoff?
What are Fiorina and Barrett talking about anyway? They way they put it, you'd think every engineering graduate has multiple offers or something and that our economy is absorbing all the NCGs in engineering we produce. Way, way off fwiw. Of the approx 30 recent graduates we had at my startup company in 01, only 5 or 6 have managed to retain employment in the field of software engineering.
An even worse development, imo, is that quality standards have been lowered in order to support this ideal of cheap offshore R&D. Management doesn't really want the best products anymore- just something good enough- as long as it is dirt cheap. A glaring example of this is Dell's support center, or Microsoft R&D who can't even manage to release a service pack within a 2 year window. In times past these two organizations would have been dumped by management as inneffective. They should be dumped now- to Dell's credit they made the hard decision and dropped their call center. Microsoft will probably implode before they accept the fact that they are 1/4 of the engineering powerhouse they were in 98 (when they had R&D in Bellevue and released products soup to nuts in 9 mos routinely).
I can't imagine anybody exceptional choosing a career where management is completely cost driven and not trying to hire the best people, to build the best products that they can. Fortunately I think companies that try to bypass the best products will get their comeuppance in the market. This will happen soon to Intel with Xeon, unless they *really believe* that their indian design center can crank out an opteron competitor.
If more people like started companies, we wouldn't need to import so many immigrants, but the reality is, 50% of startups are started by immigrants.
Fine- this doesn't have anything to do with importing engineers from Bangalore at Bangalore pricing and dumping on the US engineering workforce afaic. We have an immigration program, and it seems to work. Presumably these peole - the immigrants starting companies- came through the standard immigration channel. If the govt wants to encourage this activity of foreigners starting companies, they can set up a fund or something... I don't know. But it has nothing to do with my point which is purely centered around Fiorina and Barrett making an artificial case that US engineers are unprepared and untrained, while their real objective is to import "good enough" less skilled workers from Bangalore and pay them 1/5 US engineering salaries.
" Someone who recruits at Berkeley told me Cisco was trying to hire new software graduate students last year for $30/hr, no benefits. She said they have been cut by 40% since 2000."
Do you have her name (thru PM)? Demand is picking up. Unrelated, what positions were they interviewing for and in which group?
I met this person through somebody else at a party so I'm not sure of the details. But most campus recruiters are echoing the same thing, these past few years have been the worst recruiting seasons in YEARS. For all disciplines including engineering.
RE: "This is the same excuse they used to try to expand the visa program last year even though US engineering unemployment is at an all time high. It is simply an effort for large firms to induce severe wage deflation."
Lizzie, they don't have to hire in the USA, so your argument (on this point) is invalid. You know as well as I, that a company can offshore if the rates for an NCG hit $105,000 like they did during March 2000 - that was a challenge I believe you would acknowledge.
Their interest in the immigration visas isn't about wages, their concern is legitimately about getting the best PhD hardcore scientist here, rather than see them go to Europe and other countries. Don't you see the concern here?
Yes indeed- I see the concern, but I don't believe the claim that immigration visas are not about wages. I think they are all about wages. And I don't think offshoring works as well as close-in R&D, so Fiorina and Barrett would *rather not* do it but they will if they have to. Right now they feel they have to, but they are lobbying to get this immigration plan going so they won't have to in the future.
OK- let me ask you a question.
What do you think will happen to engineering if this immigration plan passes and Intel can hire from anywhere and bring them here at will with no immigration concerns. Do you think salaries will go up or down? Do you think it will create an incentive for US citizens to study engineering or no? Do you think it will be GOOD for enrollment in US universities or no?
You once mentioned that you saw a 2-tier society developing, as do I. I think this immigration plan is the kind of thing that causes it. |
