Competing with basketball

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Ben Streetman, dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Texas, Austin, summed up the key problem: “We graduate 70,000 engineers per year in the US and import an equal number. Other people have been paying to educate half our engineers.” In the short term, he said, it’s a “sweet deal.” But he added, “Ultimately, it’s a strategy for failure. As technology advances elsewhere, we can’t expect the best and brightest [from other countries] to keep coming.”

Solutions range from the establishment of mentoring programs to the infusion of substantial R&D and technical-educational investments from the government or private organizations.

Investment could indeed increase the supply of technical-education resources, but lack of supply may not be the problem. In fact, DEKA Research president Dean Kamen is adamant that it isn’t. Delivering a keynote address at NIWeek from one of his Segway scooters, Kamen attributed the state of engineering education to a lack of demand for it.

Twelve-year-olds, Kamen said, see a bright future for themselves in professional basketball—not engineering. And collegiate athletes who don’t make a pro team can fall back on their sports-management degrees, which they earn at a rate of 84,000 per year. “If the world is going to compete in anything that involves handing out hot towels, [the US] is going to win,” Kamen lamented.

“You get what you celebrate,” Kamen said, which in the US is sports and entertainment. He said pro athletes and entertainers have full-time jobs being in front of children. Engineers tend to have jobs that keep them out of public view. Kamen is working to change what we celebrate through the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) program, a multinational competition for engineers and students—with plenty of recognition for the participants at venues like Disneyland and the Georgia Dome.

Others, too, are working to celebrate engineering. Leah Jamieson, dean of the Purdue College of Engineering, said that the Engineering Projects in Community Service (EPICS) program, which she co-founded, emphasizes engineers’ roles as citizens and demonstrates that engineering is a helping profession. But while EPICS draws on resources from the academic community, FIRST needs volunteers like you to serve as team mentors for young participants. Visit www.usfirst.org to see how you might help.