Nickname: aggie99

Review: I think it comes down to the IQ and EQ of a person. There are plenty of average to high IQ engineers (transactional engineers) in the workforce but few of them have a high EQ?s, too (dynamic engineers), using both sides of their brain, thinking ?outside of the box.? My IQ, even with brain damage, is higher than the average doctor (ME by degree, Control Systems Engineer by practice), and my EQ is very high. One person asked me after leading a 1st place team in a safety contest, "Why are you in engineering?" It made me realize how few dynamic engineers were in my practice. I plan on entering grad school in neuroscience, with a MS in acoustical engineering. I've been criticized enough for my reviews of drawings from senior engineers whose transactional way of thought keeps them from seeing major design faults I just get criticized for recognizing. I?d rather be valued for my skills, with a higher salary, too. Perhaps this is ultimately why there are few dynamic engineers in the workforce.

Date reviewed: Mar 10, 2006 7:05 PM

Nickname: Kelvin

Review: The education system is just one of many factors that determine whether a nation can become technology leader. Other factors include population size and natural resources, social-economic system, culture and value system, and possibly the IQ of the nation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nations_by_IQ ). There is no doubt that China has much more 4-year engineering graduates than US now and they receive no less training than their US counterparts. However, US currently still leads in graduate level of engineering education. China gives high valuation to engineering as evidenced by the fact that virtually all its top leaders now were trained in engineering. By contrast, few US leaders were trained in engineering.

Date reviewed: Jan 27, 2006 2:17 PM

Nickname: Betty

Review: Check out the National Academy of Engineering's vision of the "Engineer of 2020." More can be found at: http://www.nae.edu/nae/engeducom.nsf/weblinks/MCAA-5L3MNK?OpenDocument. To me there are a lot of parallels between the "dynamic engineer" and the NAE's "engineer of 2020."

Date reviewed: Jan 24, 2006 5:55 PM

Nickname: Pete

Review: I've read these hand-wringing discussions since Sputnik in 1957. They focus on recruiting students with "interesting challenging work", the important role in society, or adding minorities. The solution is obvious in a capitalist economy. The talent will migrate to the money, and preferably easy money. Google "shortage of engineers (teachers)(nurses)" and find a huge number of hits. Try lawyers and you will find a shortage in Asia. Try investment bankers; get "there is no shortage of investment bankers." After graduate school, in 1962 at the outset of the space race, I started in aerospace at $9,000/year when a new sports car cost about $3,000. (Prices, not salaries, have increased about ten- to twelvefold since.) Engineers were drawn away from other industries by the higher salaries and paid overtime. (The productive limit was considered 56 hours a week.) Simply raise salaries and respect will follow in our capitalist society.

Date reviewed: Jan 18, 2006 11:39 PM

Nickname: John G

Review: Another provocative, thoughtful article from Vivek Wadwa. This one presents a very new and interesting perspective. It shows how many such debates are likely to be based on emotion rather than reality. I'm also glad to learn that someone actually reads our feedback.

Date reviewed: Jan 13, 2006 12:19 AM

Nickname: Mark

Review: It's absurd to expect that the number of engineers in the U.S. would not decline. Engineers are the workhorses of a goods producing economy. If the US does not see the value in a goods-producing economy. Enact favorable policymaking, and the goods making and the corresponding engineers will go elsewhere. One could argue that these are not the innovative engineers that will create tomorrow's value. But I believe that you won't have the creme if you don't have the milk. If you don't have the volume of engineering activity, then the overall lower level of academic and profession activity will compromise the higher levels. If Toyota has all the cash, and Toyota engineers and intellectual property is in Japan, the schools and the mature engineers will be in Japan. Why is Toyota winning? Toyota is helped by its government and the US automakers are being left on their own to battle for capital with the likes of Enron. No goods producers: no engineers!

Date reviewed: Jan 12, 2006 5:38 PM

Nickname: BatmanG8

Review: I would suggest another study of how these executives go about seeking dynamic scientists and engineers and computer programmers, because the current process is clearly defective.

Date reviewed: Jan 11, 2006 7:47 PM

Nickname: Michael

Review: Until businesspeople in the U.S. learn that technical knowledge and talent actually have value, I believe there is no point in becoming an engineer (software or otherwise) in the U.S. A primary problem is that they are unable to differentiate between a high-quality U.S. engineering graduate and a low- or no-quality Indian diploma mill graduate. I worked with an Indian H1-B programmer who, despite years of work experience (including several in the U.S. on his H1-B) and a supposed first-rate Indian education claimed on his resume, did not know that arrays in C/C++ are indexed starting from zero rather than from one. (For the businesspeople reading this: when your computer crashes and wipes out the spreadsheet you've been working on all day, that sort of error is one possible cause.) As Nancy Pelosi says, "it's all fruit to me!" Even when some of it is rotting.

Date reviewed: Jan 11, 2006 5:02 PM

Nickname: traxcavator

Review: In most respected professions many of the new graduates are children of people within the profession. This is much less so with engineers. Usually by the time engineers children are in college, the parents are disillusioned with the profession, invariably for good reason. No other profession dumps highly qualified professionals on the street every few years. Even in the best of times, the rewards from engineering are more personal satisfaction than remuneration. (Most engineers make less than plumbers when times are good. When times turn bad they turn to Home Depot.) There is no point in throwing more money at education as long as it is blatantly obvious that engineers aren't going to be respected or rewarded after graduation. If our country won't reward innovation, we are doomed in the longer term.

Date reviewed: Jan 11, 2006 12:30 PM

Nickname: trenchengr

Review: Productive and leading engineers, as in any other profession, come up through the ranks after initially working on the simpler, low-level engineering tasks. The "dynamic" engineers are not "born" through a single senior level course, to immediately start work as a productive team member on par with more experienced engineers. A solid college degree as well as years of on-the-job training are both essential. Engineering leaders and architects come up through the ranks. Unfortunately, as more and more routine engineering jobs are exported to India and China, the initial career training is less available for potential future "dynamic" engineers in the U.S. Graduating more engineers will not help, if they can't get entry-level jobs. Note that there are many fine experienced engineers laid-off from U.S. companies who still cannot find work due to the dual problems of outsourcing and H1-B visa immigrant engineers from India and China displacing them.

Date reviewed: Jan 10, 2006 8:57 PM