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by __sha3d2 3116 days ago
> the fact remains that only half of college students who majored in science, technology, engineering or math-related subjects get jobs in their field after graduation

Whoops! This is a huge piece missing from the conversation. I'm in EdTech and I had no idea. Can we get a source?
2 comments
jmalicki 3116 days ago
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2014/cb14-130...

Note that some of the assumptions are a bit comical, like an economics major who works in finance or a biology major who becomes a physician are considered STEM majors who work in non-STEM fields.

Still, the overall picture isn't great even if you look past those weird classifications.

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wildmusings 3116 days ago
To go on a bit of a tangent, one of the things that gives me pause about my otherwise enthusiastic support of capitalism is the horrible waste of talent.

How many mathematicians and physicists are going into finance to produce marginal improvements in liquidity, instead of contributing to the advancement of human knowledge?

How many brilliant software engineers are working on mindless CRUD and API-piping tasks at Google, Microsoft, Amazon, et al.?

How many great doctors go into high-paying, no-research, largely menial positions instead of working on medical breakthroughs?

Capitalism probably does a better job at allocating talent than any other economic system we know of, but the results are still depressing.

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jmalicki 3116 days ago
How much talent is wasted coming up with medical breakthroughs that are not used to save lives because doctors who are interested enough in knowing the medical start of the art, because all of those who have an interest go into medical research, leaving people to die?
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wmil 3116 days ago
I notice that it counts "Educuation" as non-STEM.

Weird things always happen when you try to classify occupations, but I suspect a there are a lot of high school teachers who needed their STEM degree for their jobs.

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jgamman 3116 days ago
i'm training to be a teacher next year - the programme is in the school of education and social work.
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sien 3116 days ago
Great to see people find the most important quote in the article.

It is certainly true in Australia:

https://grattan.edu.au/the-number-of-science-graduates-are-g...

Australia includes Psychology in science. Which is fair enough really.

Note also, about 1/4 of University Graduates say they didn't need their degree or are not really using it for their job:

The fact is that Universities world wide try hard to get as many people enrolled as possible and are often supported by governments in this but we already over educate the population.

Getting people to get good skills to get good jobs is much harder than raising the number of people who get not great degrees in subjects where is no employment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/20/only-...

(Heaps of other sources, search for one quarter of graduates don't need their jobs or whatever)

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