The ‘No-Glory’ Profession – 11/20/2006 – Design News

0atwong • 22nd Nov 2006 • Conversation Pieces

The ‘No-Glory’ Profession – 11/20/2006 – Design News
Amid a firestorm of controversy over the future of American science education, working engineers have been weighing in with opinions that have been largely ignored.

Before we tell you about the response of engineers, however, let’s first recap the controversy: It started two years ago, when American universities and professional organizations began comparing the U.S. to China and India. Those two Asian countries, they claimed, were collectively churning out a million engineers per year, while the U.S. was graduating a paltry 70,000 (see “America’s High-Tech Quandary,” DN 12.05.05). Then Duke University researchers weighed in with a dramatically different set of numbers (see a recap of Duke’s results).

In essence, the debate revolved around two basic issues: First, whether computer science majors should be counted as engineers and, second, whether India and China were counting three-year techs as engineers.

Depending on how engineering grads were counted, the U.S. could be woefully behind or slightly ahead of India and China.

Even today, experts still aren’t sure what to believe. “How many engineers are there in India and China?” asks Frank Huband, executive director of the American Society for Engineering Education. “That’s a very good question and I’d love to know the answer.”

While the confusion has continued, the U.S. Congress has begun work on a bill that would appropriate millions — perhaps even billions — of dollars to an effort to create more science and engineering graduates in this country. The bill was created in response to the U.S. Department of Defense’s fear that it won’t have the engineering talent needed for high-end research and development as an aging engineering workforce moves to retirement.