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posted by martyb on Monday August 15 2016, @09:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the correlation-!=-causation dept.

A study by Huy Le, associate professor of management at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), has identified factors that could lead more young students to successful careers in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) fields.

"People seek out the environment that fits their personal characteristics," Le said. "If they work in an arena that suits them, they'll be happy and successful. With these predictors, we can identify students with potential for obtaining a STEM degree nearly a decade before they pursue it."

Le also found no difference between the abilities of girls and boys to succeed in STEM, based on these two predictors. Essentially, if a girl and a boy have the same amount of interest and ability to succeed, they are each entirely capable of doing so.

"There are many theories about the social pressure that keeps women out of STEM," he said. "We found that young men in general were more interested in the field, but considering that young women showed the same ability in our study, that seems to suggest that the dearth of women in the field is probably due to societal factors."

Le notes that many students, especially women, who excel cognitively also have excellent verbal ability and will often choose a career other than STEM because they have so many opportunities before them. Le says that educators and counselors can influence those decisions by simply introducing students to the benefits of a career in science or engineering.

"This is a critical issue in our economy right now," he said. "We have a crippling deficit of participants in the STEM field, and if we can encourage our students to pursue this path, we'll be on our way to eradicating [the issue]."

The full report, Building the STEM pipeline: Findings of a 9-year longitudinal research project (pdf), is available at Research Gate.


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  • (Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday August 15 2016, @11:12AM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Monday August 15 2016, @11:12AM (#388143)

    Wait, where did this "crippling deficit of participants" come from? We have too many STEM graduates chasing too few jobs from what I read. I wish these people would get their stories straight.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by VLM on Monday August 15 2016, @11:52AM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 15 2016, @11:52AM (#388149)

    Until the pay rate for everyone, even at the very top of the field, is minimum wage, corporate shills will say there is a"crippling deficit".

    http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/07/employment_rates_for_stem_ph_d_s_it_s_a_stagnant_job_market_for_young_scientists.html [slate.com]

    If I had stayed in chemistry AND gone all the way to PHD, in my graduation year more than 1 in 5 of my fellow grads would be unemployed. If I were lucky I'd have been one of the few to get a postdoc and be enjoying that sweet $50K/yr income. Thank god I didn't do that.

    If the employment picture for PHD grads is that dismal, imagine how bad it must be for mere MSCS or BSCS degree holders.

    many doctorate holders end up working a bit outside of their fields. Among biomedical science grads, only 59 percent landed in a job “closely related” to their fields of study, down from more than 70 percent in 1997. Among chemists, the percentage was 52 percent, down from 55 percent a decade earlier.

    Planning on a STEM career isn't quite as stupid and unrealistic as planning on a pro basketball career as maybe half of people who try it actually make it (and half are working at starbux right now), but its definitely high risk and unrealistic thinking patterns.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 15 2016, @07:04PM

      by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday August 15 2016, @07:04PM (#388338) Journal

      If the employment picture for PHD grads is that dismal, imagine how bad it must be for mere MSCS or BSCS degree holders.

      I don't know the current market for chemistry majors, but there are a number of problematic aspects concerning your anecdote:

      (1) Most Ph.D.'s have always been a poor investment. And I'm talking about even when you don't pay for grad school (and that's true of most STEM doctoral students -- degrees at good schools are generally fully funded). But what you get by getting a doctorate is another 4-8 (or more years) beyond undergrad, all the while earning a "stipend" that if you're lucky will be equal to half the salary of someone who went right into industry. And then once you have your Ph.D., you might spend another few years (as you mention) doing some sort of research postdoc-like jobs earning small salaries. Basically, the math has been similar for decades -- you're unlikely in many fields to catch up in lifetime earnings and savings to people who merely have bachelor's or master's degrees in your field. Again, this is nothing new and has been well-known for decades. You get a Ph.D. because you don't want to do as much "grunt work" and want to do more research, not because you'll make the big bucks.

      (2) There is such a thing as being "overqualified" on the job market. If you're not taking one of those postdocs or academic jobs as a Ph.D. if you can't find a research job in industry, then you're going to have a harder time convincing someone in HR or even someone in your field to hire you into a position where they want just a bachelor's or master's. First, they're worried you want too much money. Second, they're worried you'll leave if you get offered a job closer to research (and they don't want to invest time in you). Third, they're worried that you'll be bored just doing "lesser stuff" and won't do a very good job. Fourth, particularly if they're in your field, they're worried you'll be "too smart" and become an annoyance -- either asking too many questions, creating trouble, or even outshining your superiors.

      Employers don't want that headache. I have quite a few friends who went to grad school thinking it would make them more qualified for jobs, and a couple of them took to dropping their graduate degrees over their resume completely -- which they could only do because they also had part-time jobs while in grad school, so it didn't look like they had a "gap" on their resume. Being overqualified can be a real problem, particularly in more academic fields.

      So, anyhow, my point is that your anecdote about chemistry doctorates likely doesn't apply to those with lesser degrees -- and in fact I'd bet the job market is somewhat better for bachelor's or master's. Far too many universities these days are trying to compete in their research stats and look like they are a "major research university," which means graduating a lot of Ph.D.'s. Unfortunately, that's also creating job market problems in a LOT of fields.

      Planning on a STEM career isn't quite as stupid and unrealistic as planning on a pro basketball career as maybe half of people who try it actually make it (and half are working at starbux right now), but its definitely high risk and unrealistic thinking patterns.

      Can I ask exactly what you'd recommend instead? I think there are many, many levels of "bad majors" between "pre-basketball" and STEM, but it's pretty hard to think of degrees that are significantly better in the job market in terms of hiring than STEM... other than obvious shortage fields like nursing, etc. I'm not "fresh out of college" anymore, so I don't really know what the job market is like for younger people, but the sense I get is that most young grads are struggling in most fields to find entry-level positions. STEM may not be at the top of all the lists, but there are literally dozens and dozens of degrees/fields that I think would be worse choices. If anything, I imagine the best recommendation right now is to be "adaptable" -- and that may be the one disadvantage to a STEM degree, since it often tends to lock you into one specific technical area. But combine STEM with a double-major that's broader, and I imagine you'd be as marketable as anyone else these days, no?

      • (Score: 2) by VLM on Monday August 15 2016, @07:32PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday August 15 2016, @07:32PM (#388354)

        WRT point #1, its all supply and demand and there's no reason postdocs "have to" accept half pay other than there's too many of them and too few positions. Frankly its the same situation WRT PHDs. There's no reason PHDs "have to" take a vow of poverty other than there's too many of them and too few positions.

        I suspect dealing with bubbles is a headache. Boom bust conditions. If you go petroleum engineering you'll either get six figures at graduation or wait tables.

        I don't have answer either but I do know that the correct answer to "we have too many of them" is definitely not "therefore we need more grads because having too many is the definition of a crippling deficit".

        Corruption seems rewarded, go for something protected by politically active groups, like pharmacist or maybe skilled trades...

        Maybe look at outsourcing, you can theoretically outsource near 100% of chemists out of the USA into China or whatever, but you can't outsource a civil engineer, at least until we stop having roads and public utilities.

    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 15 2016, @08:13PM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Monday August 15 2016, @08:13PM (#388375) Journal

      I reflexively feel skepticism every time another story about the supposed STEM shortage comes along. Even saw stories about the talent shortage back in 2008, in the midst of the Great Recession and unemployment rates of 25%. There's usually something else behind the stories, and we have a pretty good idea what the ultimate goal is: money. Follow the money. Businesses want to:

      1. Drive employee pay down.

      2. Make money off the latest education fads of teaching programming in elementary school, and increasing STEM education.

      3. Have despotic control over their engineers, want being fired to be very painful so they can pressure engineers to work harder and longer hours.

      An excellent measure of whether there's a shortage or not is pay. If engineers are being offered more pay, then there really is a shortage.