We hear so much these days about the problems with American education. Take this comment about the relative states of South Korean and American education. The South Koreans are educating more scientists and engineers per capita.
It has been obvious since the launching of Sputnik that science and technology are the keys to national wealth. So let me ask you: why didn’t you become a scientist or engineer?
The following reading list may provide some helpful insights.
A comment
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The IQ of Nations
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A book review
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Some Charts and stuff
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More Charts and Stuff
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They found that intelligence made a difference in gross domestic product. For each one-point increase in a country’s average IQ, the per capita GDP was $229 higher. It made an even bigger difference if the smartest 5 percent of the population got smarter; for every additional IQ point in that group, a country’s per capita GDP was $468 higher.”
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Moreover, he argues, because of Americans’ growing tendency to pair up with the similarly educated, working-class children are increasingly genetically predisposed to be on the dim side.“
Where will it all end? Who knows? All I can tell you is that I came from a working class background. My education is limited to one year of college – I flunked out. And yet I became an aerospace engineer. Plus #3 son is a working engineer and #1 daughter is in training (finishing her 3rd year) to become a Chemical Engineer. Rumor has it that her current boyfriend is in training to be an Electrical Engineer. I’m doing my part. I hope.
I don’t think America holds back anyone who wants to succeed. A bad attitude and a lack of ability will hold you back. A man has got to know his limitations.
Just for fun I used this handy probability calculator to figure out what % of the population is suitable for a science/engineering career.
For America:
Mean IQ: 98
Standard deviation: 15
IQ cut off >= 125
Result: 3.577%
Mean IQ: 98
Standard deviation: 15
IQ cut off >= 130
Result: 1.629%
For South Korea:
Mean IQ: 106
Standard deviation: 15
IQ cut off >= 125
Result: 10.26%
Mean IQ: 106
Standard deviation: 15
IQ cut off >= 130
Result: 5.466%
Well isn’t that interesting. Now what I need are stats about the relative rates of science/engineering education in the two countries in order to figure out if we are missing talent. Comments appreciated.
Comments
4 responses to “The State Of Education”
The US is a big place, I’m pretty sure there enough people on the right hand side of the i.q. distribution to staff all the engineering slots imaginable. I don’t think the high i.q. people go into engineering, it’s more people with a particular thinking and imagining style plus a minimal threshold of i.q. The US is missing the large manufacturing companies that employ tens of thousands of engineers like are found in Asia, because that kind of work has been outsourced there and there is limited demand left in the US. Engineering in the US isn’t even necessarily a desirable occupation — little job security, shelf life or prestige. My U of M aerospace engineering brother in law designs radiators for heavy equipment, my manufacturing engineer friend that did the battery pack for the ford escape hybrid has been unemployed 3 times since then. Most engineers I know have ended up in software after suffering repeated career setbacks. You seem to be unusual with a family in the field, most engineers council their children to do something else.
rustbelt,
I enjoy the work. I’d do it for free if it didn’t pay.
I encouraged my kids to do what they like.
#1 son is an artist. #2 son is into the humanities – languages. He is currently living in Moscow looking for a job. Did I mention he graduated with honors from the U Chicago in Russian language studies?
And yes. Software is one of my sidelines. I like doing bare metal programming. A dying art – so I’m told.
Engineering is a pretty good occupation if you have a lot of diverse experience and are in the upper half of the field. Or start your own business.
It is good when ones abilities, passions and opportunity for remuneration all coincide, but it’s hard to plan for.
Engineers, almost by definition, build things. American manufacturing has expanded in sophistication and dollar value, but declined in scope and depth, so there’s a lot of demand at the top end, but no way to get there outside of “being smart”, and there’s declining demand for anybody not at the very top of capability. Demand has shrunk, so supply shrinks. Automation has reduced the skill required and compensation to labor for laboring and increased the compensation for merely existing (by providing fun and tasty stuff really cheaply), so it appears to me they are adapting the supply of skill to the demand for it. I just don’t see the effect of i.q. as a driver.
This is a bit late, but as someone who dropped out of Engineering in college, I think a big part of the problem is the teachers at the college level.
It’s almost entirely non-English speakers – I don’t mean non-native speakers, it’s people that are almost completely incomprehensible. At least if you’ve never been exposed to someone like that before.
Advanced math & physics is hard enough without really having a proper teacher. If you could learn it from a book on your own, you wouldn’t be going to college in the first place.
So basically, it’s something of a spiraling problem – the more foreign students you bring in, the more they will be used as grad student teachers, and the less natives will be able to learn because of it.