Who cares if math is cool?

My (great big defense contractor) employer is one of many companies on the "Oh my god, we have no engineers!" bandwagon. We sponsor one of the thousands of programs aimed at making math and science "cool", just like pretty much every technology company in the lower 48 (can't speak to Alaska and Hawaii, but I don't imagine they're different). Some background on why I think this is idiotic; when I was in, oh, 8th grade or so our guidance counselors came into my science class (yeah, honors, I'm a geek) and told us all about the need for people in science and technology and how many opportunities there would be and how we should keep taking science and math (which become elective after two years in high school). A few years later, around the time I was juggling AP Chemistry and AP Physics (told you I was a geek) the teachers started bringing in people to tell us about all the cool things you could do with math and science degrees.

Now, you might say that something clearly worked because here I am, an engineer but if you survey my classmates (and we had our 10 year high school reunion a year or two back), you'll find that I am an engineer, one teaches physics and the rest are doctors and lawyers and bankers and other successful people, but not engineers, mathemeticians or scientists. Why do I mention this? Because the Engineering is Cool movement clearly goes back in excess of 14 years with a success rate of less than 1%! If it was going to work, than the first generation of students to be exposed to these programs would have their PhDs by now and you'd see some kind of demographic bump indicating success in an increase in engineers...but no, you see a decrease.

Now, like any young engineer I have a fairly good idea of why this is (hint: it has to do with capitalism), but it isn't politic for me to say so, since doing so would reveal that I have not drunk the "kids just don't think math is cool" kool-aid. I did, however, have the distinct pleasure of attending a conference last March where a very bright woman from Morgan Stanley pointed out the painfully obvious to a room full of people who weren't really listening... young people don't go into engineering, and particularly don't go into defense, because the payscale sucks.

When I say no one was listening I don't mean no one heard her. They did, but they all were shaking their heads and grumbling about how that's not really it and how she was basically off her rocker. The questions asked were sharp to the point of rudeness, all basically saying she needed to go back to the drawing board with this theory. But here's the real rub... she analyzes DEFENSE stocks; she probably knows the business better than many people who are in it and I've looked her up and seen her record and reputation and this woman knows her stuff. Plus, I'm a young engineer who is considering leaving the business because I can make twice the salary and have a lot less stress if I go into patent law or stock brokerage, where my math and engineering degrees are actually valued.

Let's pretend, for a second, that we're actually open minded about this and do what engineers are supposed to do best... the math. I went to a public college and received scholarships that covered my tuition. Thanks to books, mandatory fees, room & board and the fact that my financial aid office wouldn't acknowledge that a court-mandated legal emancipation meant my mother wasn't supporting me financially I still graduated about $20k in debt. So every month I have to pay my student loans. I also have a mortgage (because who wants to put up with stomping upstairs neighbors and 2 hour waits in the laundry room at almost 30?) and a car loan (my clunker barely survived the move and did not survive its first New England winter) and other expenses... property taxes to educate other people's children, income taxes to subsidize aid to countries I don't live in or care to visit, utility bills, registration fees and all manner of other things. So I have a budget. I live by my budget, but trust me I'm getting a little tired of sitting down at the end of the month and thinking "if I had gone to work for someone else, I could go on vacation this year". Note the if.

So, the real solution isn't to raise the number of H1B visas or to throw more money into middle schools (the visas further depress wages and convince still more students that engineering isn't worth the time, expense and trouble and the middle schools, well, we've already establishe that's been tried before and hasn't worked yet). It isn't to get people (who aren't engineers) to talk about how cool engineering is because, let's face it, if you can take your engineering degree and be an engineer or a professional skateboarder, how many people are really going to be engineers if the pay is lower and the work less fun? It's time for the industry to face reality... you created this problem and no amount of government aid is going to fix it for you.