Manufacturing.Net reports on an American Society for Quality survey that says when it comes to kids’ dream jobs, engineering is not on the list. An overwhelming 85 percent of youth say they are not interested in a future engineering career, according to a recent survey of youth and adults conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of ASQ.
According to the survey, the top three reasons why kids aren’t interested in engineering:
- Kids don’t know much about engineering (44 percent).
- Kids prefer a more exciting career than engineering (30 percent).
- They don’t feel confident enough in their math or science skills (21 percent) to be good at it. This is despite the fact that the largest number of kids ranked math (22 percent) and science (17 percent) as their favorite subjects.
The article also notes that there’s a National Science Foundation report that claims that there’s going to be a shortage of 70,000 engineers by 2010. You know, ever since I got out of college in 1979, there have been dire predictions of engineering shortages.
My take on it is that there is a shortage of engineers at the wages that companies are willing want to pay. Raise wages and you’ll see lots of people becoming engineers. That’s the way capitalism is supposed to work, isn’t it?
Kids aren’t dumb. They see doctors and lawyers and finance types making bigger bucks than engineers. So, if you really want to see more kids get into engineering, figure out what it’s going to take to raise the salary structure.
David Brodbeck N8SRE says
Sadly, I think companies would rather outsource their engineering jobs than pay higher salaries.
Linear Actutator says
That is a very alarming statistics, but I’m sure these kids will change their minds when they grow up. I’m sure of it. Goodluck to the future of engineering.