Does a STEM degree guarantee a job? Not always.
Does STEM always spell success for college graduates?
Whenever I write about the efforts to bolster U.S. graduates in science, technology, engineering and math, readers send me notes about their problems finding work despite a STEM degree. And that includes math teachers.
(If you are interested in this topic, take a look at this Duke study on which countries produce more engineers and the job prospects for those graduates. The report concludes: Our research shows that companies are not moving abroad because of a deficiency in U.S. education or the quality of U.S. workers. Rather, they are doing what gives them economic and competitive advantage. It is cheaper for them to move certain engineering jobs overseas and to locate their R&D operations closer to growth markets. There are serious deficiencies in engineering graduates from Indian and Chinese schools. Yet the trend is building momentum despite these weaknesses…The calls to graduate more engineers do not focus on any field of engineering or identify any specific need. Graduating more engineers just because India and China graduate more than the United States does is likely to create unemployment and erode engineering salaries.)
A recent story in the AJC examines the assumption that there are American jobs aplenty in STEM fields. Here is an excerpt:
In some STEM careers, the employment picture is downright lousy. “Record Unemployment Among Chemists in 2011, ” screamed the March headline in Science magazine’s Careers Blog. A headline from June: “What We Need is More Jobs for Scientists.”Unemployment in STEM fields is still well below the general population and slightly below college graduates in general. That “record” unemployment for chemists, for example, was 4.6 percent, compared with overall U.S. unemployment at that time of 8.8 percent.
Nevertheless, the glut of workers in some STEM areas (resulting in flat wages, and STEM grads forced to take jobs in non-STEM fields) directly contradicts the widely held view that the United States suffers from a critical shortage of qualified STEM graduates.
The truth, many experts say, is more complicated. “In a general sense, science and innovation do create jobs and drive growth, ” said Elizabeth Popp Berman, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Albany (N.Y.) whose book “Creating the Market University” examines the history of university research and its economic impact. “As a nation, having lots of scientists and people inventing stuff is good for us.”
But that doesn’t mean all STEM graduates have a guaranteed job, Berman stressed. The STEM employment picture, Berman said, is “very mixed” and largely dependent upon a student’s particular major. Petroleum engineering majors are doing very well these days; biologists and chemists are not.
Some studies, meanwhile, have challenged the notion of an overall STEM worker shortage — instead finding that the United States is producing vastly more STEM graduates than there are STEM jobs awaiting them. As science organizations and corporations continue to sound the STEM shortage alarm, critics charge that these groups are motivated by self-interest — tech companies, for example, have claimed a shortage of trained workers even as they laid off thousands of U.S. employees, and moved those jobs to low-wage developing countries.
“It’s a way for them to sort of excuse why they’re shifting so much work offshore, ” said Rochester Institute of Technology professor Ron Hira, who has testified before Congress on the need to tighten the legal loopholes that allow such maneuvers.
In Florida, Gov. Rick Scott’s has sometimes mocked liberal arts majors as impractical. Speaking to a Tallahassee, Fla., business group last year, Scott asked: “Do you want to use your tax dollars to educate more people who can’t get jobs in anthropology? I don’t.”
Despite being mocked by Florida’s governor, anthropologists have been deemed important to national security by the U.S. Department of Defense. Its recent study on STEM-related workforce needs found that the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have “highlighted the importance of sociology and anthropology, ” and it recommended “ongoing investment” in those two areas, even as the wars wind down.
Why did anthropology show up in a military STEM report? By some definitions, anthropology is a STEM field. There is no clear, universally accepted definition of what careers comprise STEM, making it easy for job projections to be radically altered based on what industries are counted.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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85 comments Add your comment
rhc
December 31st, 2012
4:38 pm
at 38, I wanted to change careers and received a STEM degree. When I decided to start looking for a job, I was hired within two weeks, working in my degree field for an international environmental company. I think it all depends of whether you are willing to get out of a bad economical area (I was) and willing to expect a lower starting pay (that too). I certainly didn’t go into the career field expecting to make 80k right out of college.
So, I don’t know if getting a STEM job is hard or not. I guess it’s all in the way you look at it.
wsj
December 31st, 2012
4:46 pm
@ RAMZAD
For a technical position, yes the mathematician. But some jobs require good interpersonal skills and dealing with people in different areas…take the political science graduate.
Private Citizen
December 31st, 2012
4:47 pm
altmom, My concept of doing business is providing value in a market environment. The decision process is based in hard reality and prior history of delivery of services. I.e., “the cheapest bid is not the best bid.” Competent buyers should understand what they are buying. Competent service providers should understand the core of what they are doing. Very little “persuasion” is required and the best providers are generally in demand. The consumer mindset is a whole different animal, where people buy tools with plastic in them for gears instead of metal. Maybe this is the destination crowd for “persuasion.” Where there is quality, persuasion need not apply. Where there is innovation, you will find enthusiasm in place of “persuading.”
Like I prior indicated, to take “persuasion” and formally make it 50% of what it is an essay, it pretty bizarre and I think it is a misdirection away from what is competent writing. It is really an exercise in role playing. I find it pretty twisted, and more importantly, I think it is a method that detracts from good writing and substitutes something lesser in place of good writing, that is vital, genuine, and interesting. Assigned persuasion is not authentic writing. It tends to make insult to both the writer and the reader. It creates a precedent from the state to sanction and approve fakery, to require it.
The state can lie all day long with their required character training. Requiring students to imitate the state and to lie through writing is wrong.
Private Citizen
December 31st, 2012
4:59 pm
This is how STEM plays out. Someone up at central command sprays some money around. In return, the school districts are more than happy to re-arrange their schools, move around teachers and students and create a few “STEM” specialty schools to be used as “labs” to apply new teaching resources.
Maybe it is cheaper to do this than to provide materials to all of the schools for all of the students. The state and school districts will then parade there STEM programs and results. The other 80% of schools and students will not mentioned in a like manner. And a whole bunch of teachers and students will be displaced and moved around, always a political win because the political class will use this to place those who they favor and displace those whom they do not favor, a time honored activity in recent history of Georgia government schools – rearrange the deck chairs and put the favored few in positions of power, STEM program or otherwise, and route everyone else around like transient professionals in the homeless park.
Sometime people here post of this excellent careers, 20 or 30 years somewhere doing good work. What these persons may not know is that there are other places in the same state where they do things like re-arrange the schools and tell the teachers – all of them – to “reapply for their jobs.” Where there is “STEM,” this type of labor management goes with it. Master teacher? Proven years of top results? “Re-Apply for your job” is your reward for dedication and service. Spraying around money invariable brings out the authority ritual and new opportunities for the friends and family to re-lace their boot-straps for the next go-round. This is a sad reality in Georgia.
Dc
December 31st, 2012
5:00 pm
Interesting comment re obama having 4 more years….deal with it. The guy who owns the shoe shine stand near our office is a big o supporter, and quite happy about the results. Meanwhile with the new med taxes kicking in, i have started shining my own shoes. Im betting he had no idea that the result of o’s policies would cause him to lose business. Welcome to the real world
Private Citizen
December 31st, 2012
5:02 pm
Specialty money (STEM) probably creates opportunity to displace the experienced teachers and replace them with 25 year old fresh out of teaching schools teachers. These are worth “gold” because they cost less to pay and are receptive to indoctrination.
Private Citizen
December 31st, 2012
5:15 pm
altmom, check this out “Fiber Optics.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llI8Mf_faVo
RJ
December 31st, 2012
5:24 pm
“I also hire STEM graduates and I prefer to hire Americans but the problem is I received so many resumes from Americans from HBCUs who literally couldn’t use common, easy, everyday, grammar on their resume.”
Yeah, becuase white kids never use incorrect grammar!
4xtra
December 31st, 2012
5:26 pm
you guys are funny…
Nice try with the thinly veiled racist remarks (HSBC grads, ebonics and others)
Truth in Moderation
December 31st, 2012
5:31 pm
Does a STEM degree guarantee a job? Not always.
BUT BEING CALIFORNIA’S STEM CELL RESEARCH AGENCY CHIEF DOES!
“The new head of California’s stem cell research agency, which has a staff of 50, not only makes more money than the governor, he makes twice as much as the chief of the National Institutes of Health, which has 17,000 employees. Does that make him overpaid? Not necessarily. But it does make the board that hired him remarkably tin-eared about politics.
Times staff writer Jack Dolan reported Tuesday that Jonathan Thomas, picked as chairman of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine in June, ranks high on the list of the state’s highest-paid employees, taking home $400,000 a year. It always annoys voters to discover that government workers make more than they do, but what especially rankles about Thomas’ big paycheck is that his hiring comes at a time when most state agencies are making radical cutbacks and when the institute itself is considering a ballot measure to ask voters for billions in new funding. The board of directors chose Thomas over a comparably qualified candidate who planned to spend less time on the job for $123,000.”
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jul/07/opinion/la-ed-thomas-20110707
Private Citizen
December 31st, 2012
6:31 pm
Truth, Good post on the shocking information of $400k director salary for California STEM program director.
I do not give you permission to “post for me.”
Wondering
December 31st, 2012
6:41 pm
This is always a fun debate. Almost all STEM graduates in the private sector end up working for someone with an MBA, and the business people all think they need a higher salary than the employee. The MBA also views the STEM grad as an unnecessary entity after product development. Many STEM majors move into other areas for less pressure and higher salaries. Why work 70-80 hours a week so your boss can have a big house? Instead, become the boss.
The other issue is that not all STEM majors are prepared for the job of the following decade. They stop learning and stagnate. Being a STEM major often means continuous learning to keep current. Computers, as an example, are quite different now than when I first broke into the industry in 1978.
Dekalbite
December 31st, 2012
7:43 pm
STEM drives all new products, manufacturing, and innovation on this planet. That is the bottom line.
Want innovation in medicine – try to get this without STEM majors. Want clean alternative energy and less dependence on finite energy sources – try this without STEM majors. Want to feed the world with higher yields per acre of land – try this without STEM majors.
Our world depends on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.
Georgia
December 31st, 2012
8:14 pm
Good luck in this new year to all STEAM graduates. But really, Engineering is just an excuse to build bridges to nowhere, man. Science is just an excuse to create Frankensteins, and boy do we create ‘em. Mathematics? When did anything ever add up? and don’t make me laugh with Technology. In the stone age, the stones were the technology. So what? I’m so impressed with your pet rock, Alley Oop. Technology is just a word that don’t mean diddle dang piddle poo. The only thing that helps an American in business is the ability to compromise any moral values and just cheat, lie, steal, defraud, and even murder to protect your territory. Car sales. Drug Sales. Any business, really. Wanna succeed? Join the Russian Mafia. Give me a break. I’m a Walmart greeter level worker, and I have to constantly sabotage my greeter-competitions’ wheel chairs, oxygen tanks, and med dosages in order to stay competitive. If it weren’t for the Russians and the occasional hit, I’d be SOL! Biz 101. Learn and survive like me.
Atlanta Mom
December 31st, 2012
9:14 pm
It would help STEM majors if the USA would stop giving work permits in those areas to foreign workers. It’s one thing for jobs to be shipped overseas, but why are we inviting these foreign workers here?
Lee
December 31st, 2012
9:37 pm
”Unemployment in STEM fields is still well below the general population and slightly below college graduates in general. That “record” unemployment for chemists, for example, was 4.6 percent, compared with overall U.S. unemployment at that time of 8.8 percent.”
A STEM degree may not be a guarantee, but it is better than other college grads and almost twice as good as the overall population. Sounds like a winner to me.
As a general rule, STEM majors tend to come from the top of their respective classes. Those folks will do well irregardless of the economic climate.
Dekalbite
December 31st, 2012
10:48 pm
A country that doesn’t value STEM workers says a lot about that country’s industrial future and prosperity. It’s the capability of creating new and innovative industries that drives growth in the middle class and thus secures our democracy. Graduating FEWER engineers and scientists, etc. is not the answer when your country needs to spawn entirely new industries.
TTT
December 31st, 2012
10:54 pm
@ Atlanta Mom
Preach it, sister!
my2cents
December 31st, 2012
11:24 pm
I have a STEM degree and have found that my writing skills are probably the best in my team. Being able to communicate clearly, correctly and in a manner appropriate to the audience is a way to differentiate between the ones who get promotions and good assignments and the ones who don’t. Think about it. The big issue I have is the high school English class where the teacher just LOOOVES Shakespeare and sonnets and completely turns off half the class. Was that ever really appropriate? Something has to change in that area – todays students need more practical classes.
crankee-yankee
December 31st, 2012
11:48 pm
STEM, funny thing, whenever some school institutes a STEM program, it does not take long for the T & E parts to be forgotten and the S & M parts to get all the attention. This in spite of the fact that the T & E parts are the application sections of the whole concept. Once again, application takes a backseat to theory where they should be equal. Look back at the posts here and where is the focus? 4 year college programs, not much on technical/associate degrees from 2 year & technical colleges but those too are legitimate STEM components. Until all 4 components are given equal standing we will continue to short application in favor of theory and manufacturing will continue to decline.
Truth in Moderation
December 31st, 2012
11:55 pm
@Atlanta mom
It’s a plot. And it is not for your benefit. They are called H-1B visas:
“H-1B is a U.S. Immigration Service visa classification that permits aliens to be employed in the United States up to six years in a specialty occupation, including occupations in information technology. For FY 2004, the U.S. has a cap of 65,000 such visas. In FY 2001, 2002, and 2003, the cap was temporarily increased to 195,000. To be eligible for an H-1B visa, an alien must have a sponsoring employer. Fields in which specialty occupations exist for which H-1B visas have been permitted include but are not limited to architecture, engineering, medicine and health, accounting, and the arts, as well as information technology.
An employer is required to state or demonstrate that a U.S. worker will not be displaced by the H-1B applicant. In addition to the H-1B workers, up to 20,000 non-U.S. residents who earn a master’s degree or higher from a U.S. institution of higher learning will also be allowed temporary work visas. Another visa category, L-1, allows the temporary employment of managers or executives.
In general, business favors the H-1B and L-1 visas while labor and other organizations such as the IEEE oppose them or at least oppose the current numbers that are allowed.”
http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/H-1B
Private Citizen
January 1st, 2013
12:00 am
my2cents, kind of ironic you are telling of the benefits of your language / writing skills, but button-holing the “English teacher who loves Shakespeare and completely turns off half the class.” Maybe you’d prefer less writing skills adult benefit for you and more graphic novels for they, ?
Happy New Year.
Truth in Moderation
January 1st, 2013
12:06 am
85,000 SHOVEL READY JOBS! AMERICANS NEED NOT APPLY….
“In April 2013, the US Government will begin issuing 85,000 H1B visas to engineers, software developers, IT professionals, healthcare workers, financial analysts, marketers, and other skilled professionals who’ve found positions with visa-sponsoring companies. But with only 85,000 available slots (20,000 of which are reserved for people with the American equivalent of a Master’s Degree), getting an H1B visa clearly isn’t an easy task.”
http://www.h1base.com/visa/work/H1BaseReviewsHowToGet2013H1BVisa/ref/1716/
Truth in Moderation
January 1st, 2013
12:36 am
Let’s DEPORT Pierzzzzz Morgan!
That will be at least one more job for a Georgian.
“A petition calling on President Obama to deport CNN anchor Piers Morgan from the United States has passed the 25,000-signature threshold needed to require a response from the White House.”
“British Citizen and CNN television host Piers Morgan is engaged in a hostile attack against the U.S. Constitution by targeting the Second Amendment,” the authors write. “We demand that Mr. Morgan be deported immediately for his effort to undermine the Bill of Rights and for exploiting his position as a national network television host to stage attacks against the rights of American citizens.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2012/12/the-petition-to-deport-piers-morgan-152730.html
Jeff
January 1st, 2013
6:29 am
As an entry level programmer, you may find finding a job difficult – if you want to stay in a particular market/ industry. If you’re open to moving and don’t have a strong preference for one particular industry over another, you can find a job within a couple of months, even in the current climate. The more experience you get, the easier it becomes. Example: I’m a 5th year now, and when I was laid off from the Savannah River Site a couple of months ago, I started a new job just 25 days later – a personal record.
crankee-yankee
January 1st, 2013
8:21 am
RAMZAD
December 31st, 2012
4:37 pm
“Any engineering graduate can teach mathematics…”
I beg to differ.Just because you are competent doing something does not mean you can communicate how to do it to someone who cannot.
Interesting experiment by Alan Alda called the “Flame Challenge.” He asked professionals in the scientific fields to explain what a flame was in language an 11 year old would understand. Not as easy as it sounds.
The winner of the challenge (determined by actual 11-year old kids) was BEN AMES. He developed a multi-media presentation about the subject and says, “The truth is, not everybody is a qualified communicator in a sense. And so I think definitely people who have that tool set should use it. I think the people who have the tool set are then obligated.”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/july-dec12/flame_07-02.html
This year’s challenge? What is “time?”
So, something can be understood and taken for granted by professionals but not be understood by nor easily communicated to children. This is something I do every day. Makes you wonder if maybe teachers actually have developed a skill other professionals lack. But because a concept is viewed as a given by those immersed in it, they do not understand there are those who cannot easily grasp what they are eminently qualified in. I see many of those people blogging on this site. They are competent in something and do not understand why a simple, to them, explanation is insufficient in communicating a concept to children. Think about it.
Prof
January 1st, 2013
11:13 am
@ TTT, December 31st, 4:12 pm: “@prof. I’m not an English professor, but is this a comma splice when the “yet there…” phrase is dependent on the initial independent clause? Just curious.”
Yes. “Do not link two main clauses with only a comma (comma splice)”: Harbrace College Handbook.
Might as well start the new year right.
Truth in Moderation
January 1st, 2013
11:47 am
@Jeff
“I was laid off from the Savannah River Site”
That may be your good fortune. That’s where they buried all the weapons grade Plutonium from SALT 11 treaty. Good luck.
“The ongoing problems with disposing of highly radioactive waste have been 60 years in the making. Starting in the 1950s, five reactors designed to produce nuclear weapons grade materials churned out plutonium at a blistering pace. The fuel was then sent to two huge plants at SRS called canyons to chemically separate the plutonium from other elements and turn it into pits for nuclear bombs. Everything the radioactive chemicals and waste touched became contaminated with radioactivity. The giant F and H Canyons have accumulated a generation’s worth of plutonium particles in every nook and cranny of these huge and decaying buildings. The F Canyon is in the worst condition and is a few hundred yards from the new MOX plant under construction.”
http://www.dcbureau.org/201207137454/national-security-news-service/epa-helpless-to-stop-further-pollution-at-major-superfund-site-nnsa-to-resume-plutonium-separation-at-the-savannah-river-sites-h-canyon-for-mox-fuel.html
atlmom
January 1st, 2013
12:36 pm
when i was in grad school 1/2 the class was not from the US…and when one of my schoolmates graduated – he had to go home because he didn’t have a job that day. it was the craziest thing…give people money to go to school – but kick them out when they are educated. that was not an unusual story – it was pretty normal, from what I understand. we have the silliest policies in this country, that’s for sure.
Teacher2
January 1st, 2013
12:53 pm
@ Prof at 1:28 pm
Thank you for your post! Good Mother (who is now Pride and Joy) is a troll who displays little understanding of English, grammar and virtually everything else as demonstrated by the constant errors and ignorance in her post. Hypocrite!
@Grob Hahn
Yawn!
Solutions
January 2nd, 2013
9:42 am
It is an “H1B” visa, not an “HB1″ visa. Your persuasive writing is pointless if you cannot even get the name of the program correct! Oh, here is a link to assist slightly educate you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_visa
Solutions
January 2nd, 2013
9:46 am
Darn, I forgot the “&” between assist & educate!
KIM
January 2nd, 2013
2:01 pm
Anyone can have papers that certify almost anything. That does not mean performance is exceptional nor, sadly, even credible. Look at the vast number of Ed. D. and Ph. D. diplomas out of the many, many online graduate options. However, writing that I do see the STEM programs providing optimism that rigor and prep for the 21st century is moving in the right direction. Like any other preparation, the proof of effectiveness is in the application.
KIM
January 2nd, 2013
2:01 pm
@Solutions: sometimes we get bitten in the backside.
Ole Guy
January 2nd, 2013
5:15 pm
Lets remember one thing, children…THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES…NEVER WAS; NEVER WILL BE. Ya simply gotta serve your time in the trenches of reality..not always an elegant way to start a career. There’s simply no other way…get used to that!