3) and the one that got former Harvard President Larry Summers lynched from the nearest tree in the grove of academe - at both ends of the bell curve, men are over represented. While women might take comfort knowing that there are more unintelligent males, they were not at all pleased about Summer's observation about the genius end. This is probably less of a factor in engineering, where common sense is required or at least highly desirable, than in math and science, where so many display a real lack of same. Summers was making a statistical observation, not one bearing on specific individuals, but he was still gone.
Amen.
On the thought #3 above - Males tend to be over-represented in other categories too. More male saints and more male serial killers and megalomaniacs. That darn Y chromo showing up again....
-----Original Message----- From: xansys-bounces_at_xansys.org [mailto:xansys-bounces_at_xansys.org] On Behalf Of chuck ritter Sent: Friday, April 18, 2008 3:19 PM To: ANSYS User Discussion List Subject: Re: [Xansys] [OT] Why there are so few New Grads who wanttodoSi mulation
Hey, its Friday and time for a slight thread hijack.....mostly US focused
If you thinks its hard finding engineers in general and more specifically analysts....
In the US, there is an alarming set of ideas being discussed at universities. The background is that there are now and always have been fewer women than men in engineering, math and sciences. There are a number of assertions put forward to explain this including:
1) these jobs are neither high prestige nor high paying 2) there is discrimination against women 3) and the one that got former Harvard President Larry Summers lynched from the nearest tree in the grove of academe - at both ends of the bell curve, men are over represented. While women might take comfort knowing that there are more unintelligent males, they were not at all pleased about Summer's observation about the genius end. This is probably less of a factor in engineering, where common sense is required or at least highly desirable, than in math and science, where so many display a real lack of same. Summers was making a statistical observation, not one bearing on specific individuals, but he was still gone.
and from another observer (an MIT lecturer) a couple more points:
4) in math and science, it is generally believed that people's best work is done in their 20's and 30's, and that effort involves very long hours. Men may postpone having a family until successful, women take that gamble with significant risk. 5) (related to 1) a typical career arc for the smartest kid who was in your class is: low paying grad student stipends followed by low paying post doc stipends followed by low paying lecturer/assistant professorships, followed several years later by being fired/denied tenure because the research is out of vogue/not trendy followed by looking for a job with a very narrow, very deep skill set.
Fellow borderline Asperger's sufferers, women are too smart to fall for this.
Or maybe not. There is a movement afoot to introduce a set of Title IX laws for science/technology/engineering/math programs, aka STEM. Translation for non-US folks - any deviation from 50/50 male/female student ratio in STEM would require whatever measures are necessary to achieve the balance, or face loss of government grant funding. If implemented, this would royally screw up the education and graduation of tech savvy people. And leaving aside the possibility of discrimination for a moment while looking at the other points - what if women don't want a STEM education or career?
PS - I don't discount discrimination, but that is more rigorously policed than ever and the other considerations are real and significant.
Chuck Ritter JAR Associates ritter_at_jar.com 401-294-4589
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