IEEE Spectrum May, 2008 - 5

forum

WHAT'S WRONG
WITH THIS
PROFESSION?

obert W. Lucky has
long been the most
lighthearted spokesman
within our profession,
so if he concludes that
"the trends are bad"-
most notably fewer
young Americans choosing to become engineers-then we all have
reason to feel discouraged ["U. S. Engineers
and the Flat Earth,"
Reflections, March]. Of
course, with ever more
engineering jobs offshored, thousands of
"emergency" visas issued
to foreign engineers-
and leaders of industry
ascribing this to their
need to pursue profits-
we should be prepared
for depressing news.
Samuel C. Florman
IEEE Life Member
New York, N.Y.

The writer is chairman
of Kreisler Borg Florman
and the author of many
books on engineering.

hortage? What
shortage? I read
Robert W. Lucky's
column with disbelief.
False alarms about

NA * iEEE SpEctrum * mAy 2008

Lance Nizami
IEEE Member
Decatur, Ga.

submit that we
don't attract more U.S.
students to engineering
because of how some
prospective students
view our profession. We
engineers are seldom
viewed as being in touch,
let alone in charge. We
need to fix this negative
perception. We need to
recognize when we've
put technology above
human relationships and

when we've idolized our
designs without regard
to their consequences.
While technology can
mitigate crises like
climate change, resource
depletion, poverty, and
war, engineers must
confront the fact that
technology has made
these problems worse-
and made them global.
The IEEE could have a
leading role in this fix.
It might start by giving
social responsibility a
more prominent position,
along with better
support for members.
That support might help
us resist lucrative salary
offers from promulgators
of weapons, spam, and
porn, among other
pollutants.
Scott Wiley
IEEE Member
Portland, Ore.

obert W. Lucky
has captured the U.S.
situation. Sure, you can
put the onus on elementary school teachers, but
what about overworked
parents, greedy business
leaders, and irresponsible elected officials?
Popular media idolize
entertainers and athletes and seem to regard
engineering and science

as toxic. Few parents in
the developed countries
want their children
to become engineers,
if being an engineer
ultimately means competing against engineers
in China or India on
salary. It's more profitable to open a laundry,
which requires no costly
college education.
Following the greed
lead, in the United States
anyway, most graduating
engineers are interested
in business positions
that offer quick economic
gain, not a quiet, steady
lifetime in the lab. And
corporate America
won't fund research-
not because it can't, but
because it must prostrate
itself before the altar of
the financial investment
community, going for
short-term results.
Wayne Bowen
Sequim, Wash.

CORRECTIONS
In the photo caption in
March's Tools & Toys, we
should have said that the
Golden Temple is located in
the state of Punjab, India.
In The Data for March, the
unit for world production
of copper should have been
millions of metric tons.

METEORS ARE A HAM'S BEST FRIENd

n the Dream Jobs profile of sigrid close ["star
struck," February] is the statement: "it turns out
that meteors, as well as the ionosphere itself,
disrupt radio signals." that depends on your point
of view! while close's concern is about communication between satellites and earth, the ionosphere
can help in communicating from one point on earth
to another. many amateur radio operators routinely
bounce their signals off ionized trails caused by
meteors and thereby communicate over longer
distances than would otherwise be possible.
Myron A. Calhoun IEEE Life Member, Manhattan, Kan.
www.spectrum.ieee.org

MICk wIggIns

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pending shortages of
college science and
engineering graduates
have been popping up
since the 1970s. It's just
a crass attempt to keep
the job market stuffed to
bursting, all in the name
of "competitiveness."
The drop in science and
engineering enrollment
is a natural response
to market forces, one
that's been delayed two
decades partly because
of false alarms like those
sounded by Lucky and
government and university personnel who
have a fiscal interest in
keeping the classrooms
and laboratories full.
There has been a
glut of science and engineering graduates at all
degree levels in the West
ever since the Great
University Expansion
reached its peak circa
1975. This grad glut has
caused stagnant salaries
and poor prospects
of advancement for
hundreds of thousands
of young Ph.D.s looking for tenure-track
professorships. So let's
not warp reality with
talk of shortages.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum May, 2008