Promoting STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering Math) Careers

By Calvin Mackie, PH.D.

“Daddy, Is everything made in China?” is the question that came from my precious and precocious four year old son. I asked, “Why son?” My 6 year old son jumped in and said, “Daddy, everything is made in China?”

To my amazement, I realized they were having a philosophical disagreement for the ages. I said, “Sons, no, everything is not made in China!” My 6 year old would not be proved wrong as he went over to his toy box and began to remove his toys. One by one, he would hold it up and read loudly, “Made in China!”, another toy, “Made in China!”, again, again and again, until I stopped him. Wow! He painfully made his point to me, although he was wrong. I began to think that his young generation and the present generation may have only myopically known Iraq as an enemy, Russia as a friend and China as the manufacturer leader of the World. America has been and continues to be the innovation leader of the world, although other countries like China and India are aiming for that leadership position. In 2006, The National Academy of Science (NAS) published a report entitled “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” identifying key threats to America’s security, technical leadership and high standard of living that this and previous generations worked so hard to create.” The NAS report listed a number of worrisome indicators:

• The U.S. has become a net importer of high-tech products, (we import more high-tech manufactured goods than we export).
• U.S. 12th graders recently performed below the international average for 21 countries in math and science.
• In 2001 (the most recent year for which data are available), US industry spent more on tort litigation than on research.
• Low-wage employers (e.g., Wal-Mart and McDonald’s) are creating more new jobs than high-wage employers.
• Considerably more than half of undergraduates in China and Japan earn degrees in science and engineering compared to one-third in the U.S.
• In 2004, China graduated 500,000 engineers, India 200,000, and America 70,000.

My son believes that everything is ‘Made in China’ because as a nation we now import more high-tech and low-tech goods, like toys than we export. Like my sons, many of us have allowed our outlook on the future and future opportunity to be blurred by our nation’s recent compromised and challenged state in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). As a country, and especially as African-Americans, we must seek out and focus our efforts in education and career development in the areas of STEM for the future belongs to the people who create it.

Clean, green and alternative energy. Natural disasters. Global warming. Cancer. AIDS. Swine flu. World hunger and water. Oil dependence. Weapons of mass destruction.

Homeland security. Pandemics. Outsourcing.  What are the biggest problems facing America or the world and its future? Ask many people and you may get numerous opinions, but everyone will have to agree that the solutions lie within innovation. Since its founding, America has been a leader in the world in technological innovation creating the next technology transforming the way we communicate, travel, live and interact from the industrial revolution to the knowledge economy. The solution to the problems of the past and those of the future can be found in those innovators studying, developing and performing research in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).

Career opportunities for those willing to pursue such are plentiful in STEM. Our government needs new workers in science, technology, engineering and math to provide services for its people, protect the country and its resources. The government on all levels, local, state and federal, needs more productive and efficient operations like the digitization of medical records to paperless government record keeping. The private sector is constantly looking for not only researchers to create the next generation of services, but developers to continue to grow and maintain technologies, systems and products to remain competitive internationally in a flat world.  A recent article in the Boston Globe documented the Pentagon fears of a severe shortage of scientists and engineers at government laboratories; such a shortage could erode the military’s technological edge in developing weapons and other projects in coming years, spawning a hiring boom at military research laboratories and an expansion of scholarships, advertising campaigns, and other ways to recruit a new generation of civilian STEM technologists and researchers.

The gap between supply and demand in science and engineering skills is a nationwide problem that has been brewing for years. A study last year by the National Science Foundation (NSF) found that the number of graduates with science and engineering degrees – at the bachelor’s level or higher – increased by an average rate of 1.5 percent a year from 1980 to 2005. But, the average employment growth for such jobs each year over the same period was 4.2 percent. From 1994 to 2003, degrees awarded for non-STEM disciplines increased by 30 percent in the United States, but STEM degrees increased by only 8 percent. The same period saw an increase of 23 percent in STEM jobs, compared with only 17 percent for non-STEM jobs.

The possibilities are endless for careers in STEM. They range from the analytical (statistician), to creative (video-game designer), to high tech (computer forensics specialist), to research (lab technician and researchers), to environmental (costal restoration, energy, levees, water and pollution), to aviation (Air-traffic controller to airplane designer or mechanic to pilot) to training (teacher, instructor and professor) and to policy (politician, lobbyist and activist) . STEM professionals can work outdoors in the environment, inside in an office, a classroom or in a research lab.

STEM jobs are critically important to growth and competitive success to a wide rage of industries like the some of the obvious ones: advanced manufacturing, biotechnology, chemical engineering, energy, actuarial science and health care all rely on high-level skills and education in the STEM fields in their workforce. Other industries may seem less obvious for their reliance on STEM knowledge and skills, such as construction, retail,transportation, and hospitality. Who ever you are, what ever you like to do and where ever you like to do it, there is a STEM career for you!

As you can see, STEM related fields are many and diverse. About 150 different college majors have been identified by the NSF as STEM majors. If you are planning for your future, you have to look and study to see where the world is going. STEM offers everyone an opportunity for the future even if your major isn’t directly in STEM. People majoring in law, economics, sociology, psychology and even English will be needed to support the new innovations and innovators of the 21st Century. The futurist Alvin Toffler said, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Simply, we have to realize that in the present Knowledge economy, “The key strategic resource necessary for prosperity has become knowledge itself in the form of educated people and their ideas (Rising Above the Storm).”  We all have to unlearn some of the habits and ideas of the past and learn what will sustain us and our children in the future. In Robert Peck’s best seller, “Road Less Traveled” the first sentence of the book reads: Life is hard! If I had to write that book again for the 21st century worker, especially the college students, the first line would read: Your skills and knowledge are obsolete already! We have to commit to lifelong learning as knowledge and technology is changing at exponential rates. It was the automatic cotton picker that freed and displaced African-Americans from the slave economy of Jim Crow and Cotton. It was technological automation that displaced African-Americans from the industrial auto, steel and chemical plants of the North and East. Presently, the Black middle class is still suffering from technological unemployment which continues to fundamentally alter the sociology of the Black community. Many of the jobs and careers our parents had are forever replaced by machines and automation; therefore, we have to secure a place in the future for ourselves and our children. We must commit to becoming citizens of the world and participating in the Knowledge economy where the currency for membership is STEM related skills and knowledge. I would have hated to be the last person studying how to make, market and sale horse saddles, and horse shoes, when Henry Ford created the Model T automobile!  STEM is the new Model T that will drive you and your children into the 21st Century. There’s a STEM Career for You!   TOC

Related articles on Teachers of Color:

Teachers Wanted for STEM Education Preparing Tomorrow’s Workforce

STEM – Corporate-Education Partnerships

Science Teachers Get A Glimpse Into The Classroom And Support For Their Future

STATE OF EMERGENCY: The ominous US Crisis in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education and Training.