patrick.net

Kevin says

We should be concerned about women in STEM because those are the most important occupations for the future.

If they're so important, then why did DuPont send 2K R&D jobs to China? Or Applied Materials?

I had a few prior girlfriends ... one was in a science PhD program at Harvard, another in an engineering PhD program at MIT (FYI, these women weren't my classmates). Guess what happened, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, & Lazard wined and dined 'em to work for them, after graduation. Where was Applied Materials, DuPont, or Motorola during this time? They were happily sitting around, awaiting a flood of applicants, and expecting everyone's backgrounds to be an exact fit to the job descriptions.

The one, who took a STEM job, left w/o completing her PhD, as she'd discovered that the education wasn't all that important in the end, and that the Masters made her look less specialized. After a few years in STEM, she moved into financial services in Manhattan. The other started in management consulting, after completing her PhD, at a near six figure salary. In the end, the consensus was the same, STEM was a joke, the real careers were in finance and/or management consulting.

I'm not worried about women's career choices. If STEM was so great, they'd be in it on their own volition. And none of my tech girlfriends had soldering irons or circuit boards as girls. Like them, I was into drawing and writing short stories but instead of all of us becoming failed novelists, since we know the chances for another Ernest Hemingway or Jane Austen is slim, we decided to find real jobs.

Rin says

If they're so important, then why did DuPont send 2K R&D jobs to China? Or Applied Materials?

Because they found qualified people in China? There are qualified people in every country. Still plenty of jobs in the US though -- unemployment in STEM fields are lower than any other sector of the economy.

Rin says

I had a few prior girlfriends ... one was in a science PhD program at Harvard, another in an engineering PhD program at MIT (FYI, these women weren't my classmates). Guess what happened, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, & Lazard wined and dined 'em to work for them, after graduation. Where was Applied Materials, DuPont, or Motorola during this time? They were happily sitting around, awaiting a flood of applicants, and expecting everyone's backgrounds to be an exact fit to the job descriptions.

So a few shitty companies didn't offer them jobs and you take that as evidence of it not being valued? How about Genentech (biology, chemistry), Apple (EE, materials), Google (comp. sci, mathematics, statistics), or any other company that's actually concerned about science? AM is the only company on your list that still does actual science and engineering these days.

The average salary in STEM is $114,000. The average salary in financial services is $63,000. If you live in NYC or san francisco these numbers may be wildly skewed in either direction.

Kevin says

So a few shitty companies didn't offer them jobs and you take that as evidence of it not being valued? How about Genentech (biology, chemistry), Apple (EE, materials), Google (comp. sci, mathematics, statistics), or any other company that's actually concerned about science? AM is the only company on your list that still does actual science and engineering these days.

Genentech/Apple/Google get plenty of applicants from all over. And yes, the offshoring in biotech is now underway. The reason why Google is expanding in Cambridge MA is precisely because they've been losing applicants from Harvard/MIT/Tufts to finance careers.

And pharmacists start at $100K+ & they get to keep those jobs for life.

And the one above in management consulting started at $100K. Five years later, as a senior, she was at $175K+ w/ bonus structure. Her billing rate to clients are $250-300/hr, thus, she's quite valuable to her clients. If she makes junior partner, she'll be earning from $200-$350K/yr.

The one who went into financial services ... started at $90K. Then later, upon switching work, moved up to $150K+. She's taking it easy now, and have taken a pay cut to $120K to work 4 days per week. Is that even a possibility in STEM work, where overtime w/o pay is expected?

Kevin says

unemployment in STEM fields are lower than any other sector of the economy.

Well, because a smart person will leave the field for another job. That person is not counted as being unemployed. I know tons of persons who'd started in STEM and are now in health care, finance, consulting, patent law, etc. I'm also now one of them. Since I'm earning a nice salary and have no gaps in employment, my presence or lack of, doesn't get counted.

Kevin says

The average salary in financial services is $63,000.

This includes all ancillary services including bank tellers, telephone handlers, and loan managers. Those from top ten schools and engineering programs, do considerably better. In fact, right now, I don't know single person earning $63K in finance, and I'm including Boston, Philly, DC to the list, not just NYC. I was also offered a job above $63K but I didn't take it, as I'm making the transition on my own terms.

Rin says

I don't know single person earning $63K in finance

Ok, I made a mistake ... I know one person, earning $50K in Chicago, working for a Future's Trading house. He works from home, in metro Chicago, and answer calls for pesky traders, who're unhappy with the software and/or slippage parameters. He works Tues to Fri and takes Mondays off. So yes, it's not all roses but guess what, he's in his late 50s and has no complaints about being a telephone clerk. And yeah, if those edgy traders had their calls answered in the Philippines, like for a lot of IT companies, those traders would have a coronary.

Dan8267 says

Personally, I think that manufacturing is a 20th century industry and we need to dominate in 21st century industries, but there are plenty of people on this site alone who've argued that manufacturing is needed in America.

Hello Dan,

Instead of being a lone wolf, barking at the wind, and taking arrows from the propagandists about the impending shortage of S&Es or the "permafrost" lack of women, studying quantitative fields, how about simply leaving altogether?

I mean there's no point in waiting around, like a lot of NASA staff or contract members today, waiting for the axe to fall, while listening to the press that there are millions of STEM jobs paying high incomes with lifelong employment prospects.

A decent way to leave, if you're not into the whole finance/trading thing is to take the Patent Agent exam and then, either opt for the govt or a private sector job, supporting the analysis and filing of companies' proprietary properties.

Rin says

Kevin, age discrimination is real, not an imagined phenomena. This is in many fields, not just engineering.

I don't know about other fields, but I can assure everyone that age discrimination is rampant in IT. Absolutely no one hires a programmer in his 50s or 60s. I know many people in this age who have been out of work for a decade or more, forced into early retirement because of the perception that after a certain age, people can't program.

Luckily, I'm in the age range that actually benefits from this age discrimination. Companies love IT workers in their 30s. Those in their 20s don't have enough experience, and those in their 40s are pushing it. But they love the 30s.

thunderlips11 says

There are only two TV shows I can think of with a prominent female character that does science.

I don't even watch those kinds of shows, but even I know that there are like 14 different NCIS shows each having a female "scientist" doing Hollywood's pseudoscience crap. And I don't even watch those shows.

Rin says

Instead of being a lone wolf, barking at the wind, and taking arrows from the propagandists about the impending shortage of S&Es or the "permafrost" lack of women, studying quantitative fields, how about simply leaving altogether?

Because I'm one of the lucky ones who still makes a decent living doing what I love, software development. I have considered the patent lawyer route, but I wouldn't like it. Nevertheless, I don't think the future looks bright for the Millennials and the next generation in IT or STIM in general. In any case, I can always switch careers later.

Kevin says

Please educate yourself. Read the studies from the sources I referenced.

What studies? You provided no sources, no links, no references. Please pay attention to what you have actually written, not just the words you heard in your head as you were writing.

Kevin says

I've been involved with this issue for over 15 years now. Professionally, as a father, and as a concerned member of the human race. You can assert all you want, but the actual SCIENCE says that you're wrong.

Sorry to break this to you, but you are not science. You are just an anonymous poster asserting something with zero evidence to back it up. No matter how strongly you assert something, it does not make it a scientific fact.

Now, I personally have been in STIM professionally for 17 years, educationally for 30 years. My father was an electrical engineer going back to the days of mainframes. My brother graduated from MIT with a degree in mechanical engineering, but when into software professionally. My older sister is a biochemist and heads a lab. My younger sister and her husband are both doctors, and damn good ones having both done their residence in Mount Sinai Hospital, which is extremely competitive. All together, my nuclear family has about 112 years of STIM experience, and if you count overtime, it's probably double that. I know what the fuck I'm talking about.

I've lived through the experience of getting an undergraduate degree, taking internships, getting a graduate degree, and establishing a prosperous career. I know how people get hired, how they work, how they leave companies. And there has never, ever been a situation where women were treated as sex objects by STIM workers, ridiculed or laughed at for being female, discouraged in any way, or treated inferior by any male student, professor, or coworker. If anything, women have the advantage of an extensive support network that most male students lack.

Yet, even back in the 1990s, the political correct bullshitters have asserted without any evidence that the only reason women weren't entering STIM is because the big, bad, bullying males were forcibly keeping them out through harassment, intimidation, and overt sexism. This was bullshit in the 1970s; it was bullshit in the 1980s; it was certainly bullshit in the 1990s when I was in college; and it's bullshit today.

Mathematics, science, and engineering are the best fields in terms of equality ever to exist in all of history. STIM has united people from different races, nations, religions, genders, sexual orientation, cultures, languages, and politics. There's a plethora of examples from cold war scientists on opposite sides finding commodity over physics and the history of the universe to biologists from around the world building the extensive fossil and genetic record that proves evolution. When a white Anglo-Saxon talks about collapsing stars, he uses the same math and language that is used by his African colleague in Chad. No industry performed by man has been as much of a uniter of different people as math, science, and engineering. They are the universal disciplines in which it has never matter whether a person was royalty or a pauper. All that matters was could you bring good ideas to the table and prove them.

In contrast, music, art, politics, economics, and all those other revered liberal arts and fine arts disciplines have divided mankind. So don't give me this bullshit that male mathematicians, scientists, and engineers are fucking over women. Our fields have been the most welcoming fields in all of human history for all people. And I know this because I've lived through it first hand, every day of my adult life and most of my student life. You are telling me something that I know of from extensive first-hand experience is bullshit. And of course, you won't mention specific, verifiable facts like persons, places, and events because there are none to support the ridiculous accusation that sexism is rampant in STIM.

So I stand by my statement. The only persons to blame for women not entering STIM are the women who don't enter STIM. It is entirely their decision, based entirely on their blatant prejudices as clearly illustrated by Danaseb, and the only way to change the percent of women who enter STIM is to eliminate those prejudices. You have said nothing and presented no evidence to convince me otherwise. In fact, if anything, your false accusations against STIM would serve only to discourage women from entering those fields. So these false accusations actually magnify the problem.

Sorry, Rin, but anecdotes are not data. "I don't know anybody who" is not some sort of valid statistic. The fact remains that more people work in one segment of the economy than the other, and have higher salaries. Good for you that you know people with science backgrounds who went into finance. There are also people who studied law, medicine, journalism, and just about any other white collar profession who have done that.

Dan: SWE, IEEE. You want me to link to their websites for you? For someone who's been around as long as you say, you don't seem to know much about some of the most influential organizations in the industry.

I'm not currently (and have not previously) making the claim that it's all men's fault. I actually think that the sexual harassment issues (not sexual discrimination...that's a completely different thing) are minor compared to the overall societal issues around how we raise our daughters.

They're the same reasons why blacks and latinos also don't wind up in the fields. When you raise people to think that they're supposed to behave a certain way and do certain things, don't be surprised when that's exactly what happens.

My office currently has three female engineers and 9 males. They all have the same basic childhood experiences that the men have. Legos, video games, parental love of science and technology.

The fact of the matter is that we have *NOT* made any effort as a society to address the differences in how we raise our children. Our toys tell our girls to be princesses and mothers at worst, or doctors and business women at best. Our entertainment does the same. Yes, things people were saying about why there aren't more women in STEM in 1992 are true in 2012 because nothing has actually been done to address the problem.

The perpetual shortage of scientists story (I mean mythology) has been around since the NSF paper of 1988. There's already a website which tracks the alleged validity of this notion (http://www.phds.org/the-big-picture/scientist-shortages/)

Also Kevin, if you don't want my anecdotes, here's one from the MIT class survey (http://gecd.mit.edu/sites/default/files/GSS2011.pdf). Realize, MIT is a top tier STEM focused college, not a liberal arts place like Dartmouth or Swarthmore. If you total up the number of recruits from Finance & Management Consulting positions (i.e. Morgan & Stanley, JP Morgan, McKinsey, Boston Consulting Group, Bain, Deloitte, Citigroup), you'll see that those careers make up 40+% of MIT graduates (not attending grad programs). You'll find similar results for the past number of years of surveys. Then, collate that with my personal anecdotes ... if STEM was so great then why is it that even from MIT, an engineering school, as oppose to Wharton or London School of Economics, the monied professions attract a serious volume of candidate placements?

Then, juxtapose that with the fact that women do communicate among one another and the fact that finance and consulting attract so much post-graduation attention, why wouldn't that be the preferred location for female graduates than in being in a dead-end STEM career path? In terms of image, think of working in an executive suite vs slaving under Dilbert's boss.

My conclusion is that there's no problem with women studying the sciences. It's just that they don't have any incentive to stay in it, whereas some guys may stay in it out of a 'labour of love' or the fact that management consulting and the whole faux culture of it, is just too much BS for them.

One more anecdote for both Kevin/Dan ...

I'd spoken with a female MIT grad this morning. She's three years out of college and is working in management consulting. I'd asked her why she chose MC over STEM and this was her response.

During college, she'd interned at Genentech, doing computer support work for one of the analytics groups. When she had her subsequent on-campus interviews with Google, Amazon, and other IT firms, the first thing they'd scrutinized was why she's CO-OPed in biotech vs an IT company. They appeared to spend more time trying to fess out a feasible incompatibility than in ascertaining value in having broad experiences in peer industries.

On the other hand, the MC recruiters like Cap, Deloitte, McKinsey, etc were interested in her background and the projects where she could fit into. In the end, she said that she felt that in STEM, people are 'pigeonholed' or 'typecasted' early in their careers, whereas in MC, most everyone is a generalist upon starting, until they find themselves a niche. Also, unlike STEM, MC management expects that their junior stars will go back to school for an MBA and perhaps return, in a management-to-partner track. There are also major opportunities to seek VP positions at client companies, since MCs tend to be on the strategy/operations side of the house. She didn't have a sense that STEM careers had sort of a career track, people in STEM were sort of seen as a 'helping hand' and then perhaps down the road, that person is then seen as a senior engineer. There didn't seem to be a sense of certainty there.

I guess my point here is that while STEM may not have an overt long term unemployment rate, like let's say for Steel Workers or Machinists, there's actually a reasonably high attrition rate, relative to other lines of work. And without sustaining a population of unemployed STEM folks, sitting around, waiting for their jobs to come back, it won't show up on the standard IEEE or ACM type of reports. People, esp women, simply leave after college or after a few years in, and then, they're just not heard from again.

Kevin says

They all have the same basic childhood experiences that the men have. Legos, video games, parental love of science and technology.

My parents simply told me to do my homework or else. I'd become a fan of Star Wars and other Sci-Fi films on my own.

I'd only transitioned from being a history/literature buff to science in high school because it was kinda obvious that one needed a science/math background for college.

Kevin says

Dan: SWE, IEEE. You want me to link to their websites for you?

I want you to link to the specific studies you are referring to and not make us guess and fill in your bullshit.

Actually, I really want you to name names and places where this overt sexism took place. Then I want to find the people involved, all the people involved, and gather them and you at a big ass round table. I'll tell them all about the shit you've been talking about them and then hear their side of the story. Somehow, I doubt you'll stand up to the cross examination.

False accusations of female hostility:
1. Are hurtful lies.
2. Add insult to injury to the people who actually experienced such bigotry from women in high school and college.
3. Actually discourages women from entering STIM.
4. Re-enforces negative, false stereotypes about STIM.
5. Ultimately would become a self-fulfilling prophecy by generating backlash.
6. Further contribute the largest brain drain in history, the ongoing brain drain of the U.S.
7. Compromises future generations of STIM.
8. Erodes the U.S.'s ability to compete with other nations in high tech industries.

In short, hostile lies about STIM are bad for everyone. So, yeah, I want to see you and the exact people you are accusing of sexism in a court where they can address you, their accuser. Short of that, I will trust my own experiences to yours.

Rin says

it was kinda obvious that one needed a science/math background for college.

I don't think that's true for most degrees. When you apply for graduate school, you have to take the GMAT, the college equivalent of the SAT. The math proportion of the SAT is way dumbed down so that students on the liberal arts track will have a cumulative score equal to students on the STIM path. That's why the math SATs are such a joke.

But the math GMAT is even easier than the math SAT. How the hell is that justified? Well, all those liberal arts students spent four years taking zero math classes and forgot everything from high school, so once again the writers of these test, who are all liberal arts professors not STIM, must dumb down the math part to make sure the liberal arts students don't look like retards compared to the STIM students. This is just another example of out-right prejudice against STIM.

And don't even get me started on how the verbal portion of SAT and GMAT are way biased towards liberal arts. If we included standard English words like recursion, quark, and gradient, STIM majors would way surpass liberal arts students in vocabulary. And our vocabulary is more useful. You don't need 500 different words that all mean noisy, but quark is the only word that means what it means.

Dan8267 says

When you apply for graduate school, you have to take the GMAT, the college equivalent of the SAT. The math proportion of the SAT is way dumbed down so that students on the liberal arts track will have a cumulative score equal to students on the STIM path.

Yes Dan, all of the above is true.

Where I was going to make an honorable mention was that a number of pre-professional undergrad programs do require some Calculus. At the same time, the high school SAT Subject Math II (originally named Math Achievement II) does have math all the way till trig. All my programs wanted those Math SAT IIs, some even wanted a recommendation letter from a Math teacher, if I took the AP Calculus section. Thus, despite being a prior history/literature buff, I knew that I needed to do well in the above if I was going to study Applied Chem/Chem Eng later on in college, even as a premed or pre-business type.

Now, with the above said and done, once a person finishes her undergrad requirements for Math at let's Wharton undergrad *finance*, she may never see a Math class again and thus, you're correct, the GMAT is then a walk in the park, before starting B-school. Also, those Calculus credits count, in terms of medical school applications as a part of the overall science (or physical sciences) GPA. And you already know about Patent Agent/Patent law.

One more site on management consulting salaries (http://careers-in-business.com/consulting/mcsal.htm) There's a huge upside in salaries from not choosing STEM, if one's qualified to be in MC.

When an engineer starts to hit ~$120K, management looks for reasons to downsize and replace one with either a younger person or someone, who'll work for less than a $100K. This has been going on, in STEM related areas, for ages. In contrast, MBA types have been able to sustain high salaries for a large percent of their careers. In fact, I was surprised to see in the web site above that MC Jr Partners were at ~$450K but that makes sense, if you consider that they're part of the team which books the revenue. My ex-GF, from Harvard Univ, always wanted to do the MBA at NYU, after she started work in the city.

I really don't understand why this is a mystery to folks like Kevin. Have you not been around the block in the past few decades? Do you actually know women, with a high level of quantitative education? Or are you mainly speculating?

Rin says

One more site on management consulting salaries (http://careers-in-business.com/consulting/mcsal.htm) There's a huge upside in salaries from not choosing STEM, if one's qualified to be in MC.

The equivalent to a senior partner at a MC place would be a VP or SVP at an engineering firm, and salaries are comparable (and higher at the top tier places).

MC places recruit top talent from all fields, not just STEM. Law and Medicine are also highly represented at such companies.

Rin says

When an engineer starts to hit ~$120K, management looks for reasons to downsize and replace one with either a younger person or someone, who'll work for less than a $100K.

This only happens at companies that aren't in the business of engineering. Microsoft, Google, Apple, etc. all pay well above this. My base salary alone is $200k, and I get another $150-200 a year in bonus and equity. That's for someone under 30 who doesn't even have a college degree, and who doesn't work in Silicon Valley even.

Rin says

I really don't understand why this is a mystery to folks like Kevin. Have you not been around the block in the past few decades? Do you actually know women, with a high level of quantitative education? Or are you mainly speculating?

Yes, I know (and work with) plenty of highly educated women. This isn't a "mystery", the assertions here are simply wrong.

There's definitely plenty of cases where people are grossly underpaid or overpaid relative to their contributions, but the evidence does not support the idea that STEM is a poor career choice relative to...anything else. I can cherry pick plenty of examples of people getting paid better in various specific jobs.

Kevin, I've lived in the northeast corridor for my entire life, Boston to DC, minus NYC. I've never seen a non-management STEM, in biopharma, in defense, in telecom, in chemicals with a base of $200K. This includes established companies like United Tech, General Electric, Genzyme, Wyeth, Raytheon, Lockheed, MITRE, DuPont, IBM, Unilever, AT&T/LU, Akamai, and a slew of other Fortune 1000s. Are you working for a dotcom enterprise? Because using Google or Facebook, as a primary STEM example, is cherry picking. Or is my list of Fortune 1000s, now suddenly no longer STEM?

The only persons in that starting $200K base category were in tax, underwriting/actuary, trading, medicine, patents, and law. I do know some of them at the above listed companies but those are not STEM careers.

As for MCs, my central argument was why that track was more attractive to women vs STEM. And if MIT, in itself, has a 40+% placement into MC or finance, that's really making a statement. That's not cherry picking, that's an established trend at a top engineering college. Unfortunately, not all schools have their surveys posted or I'd post some more but since I've visited them, I can observe that trend elsewhere on the east coast. Whether or not that individual placement eventually becomes a partner is not here or there; it's the fact that it's a good career choice vs being overspecialized in STEM and if MITers & Harvardians are having that conversation in their 20s, I can only see that women will leave the STEM fields quickly, after they get their degrees. And that's been my experience and thus, I don't worry about women's career choices. Likewise, in another year or so, I can also say that I'd left STEM for greener pastures.

Dan, do you want to add something to this?

Dan8267 says

The "nerd" bigotry you see in the U.S. simply does not happen in many other countries, particularly in Asia

Possibly related to this comment; in my experience, at least 90% of the female engineers I know in the US are immigrants from China, India, or elsewhere in Asia. Also, in China and other Asian countries, around 35% of engineers are women. (Japan is an exception). I do know a few US-born female engineers, but, they usually end up in sales, or dropping out of the workforce for family reasons.

So there's something different in the US vs in Asia.

Rin says

Here's my answer ... doctors earn six figure salaries and more importantly, have near lifetime job security. STEM jobs have low-to-ordinary pay, minimal job security, expected unpaid overtime, & constant threat of offshoring.

An MD has school and internship for several years after graduating with a BS. A general practitioner makes around $150k, but, no stocks, no options, no bonus, on-call at times. An engineer with 10 years experience in Silicon Valley will make around $100k, plus stock/options/bonus and at least won't get called in at 3 am. And there's potential for more, I know many people with 15-20 years experience making 200k including stock/options/bonus, and they didn't have to have 8 years of school/internship after getting a BS.

Surgeons and some specialists can make more, but they have more schooling. And engineering managers/directors can also make more.

So purely financially, getting an MD is not obviously better than engineering.

SiO2 says

So purely financially, getting an MD is not obviously better than engineering.

A lot of that has to do with the whole layoff cycles. If you recall the layoffs in petrochemicals (mid-80s Oil Patch Bust), defense (early 90s), telecom/dotcom (2000s), engineering has a boom/bust quality to it whereas most persons seldom hear of doctors losing their work. And then, many doctors do have the option to work into their mid-60s or longer. So true, the SV in-crowd at Facebook, Google, etc may have high flying careers but for the most part, it appears to the typical female students that engineering work is working under Dilbert's boss in a ratty cubicle.

The one downside to medicine is the student loans. That's really the main sticky point, since those follow one for life.

SiO2 says

I do know a few US-born female engineers, but, they usually end up in sales

Yep, this I've seen, more often than not.

Others go back for health care careers or b-school for management and/or sales executive tracks. And there's nothing wrong with that.

Rin says

Kevin, I've lived in the northeast corridor for my entire life, Boston to DC, minus NYC. I've never seen a non-management STEM, in biopharma, in defense, in telecom, in chemicals with a base of $200K.

Maybe you're incompetent. My company has offices in all three cities you've mentioned, and people in those cities operate in the same pay bands that I do.

I would not consider half of the companies on your list to be STEM, in that science / engineering isn't really what they "do". Some of them used to (DuPont and Unilever).

Engineers and scientists at IBM, Raytheon, Lockheed, etc. all absolutely are able to get salaries comparable to mine with comparable experience levels. My company does pay a bit above average for the industry, but we're talking 10-20%.

And while it may be true that high profile firms recruit people from MIT, that doesn't really matter to most ordinary people who don't go to MIT. The fact of the matter is that across *all* science and engineering professions, unemployment has remained consistently well below average, and salaries are significantly higher than other career options with equivalent education and experience.

Career potential would be close to last in the reasons for women to choose some field besides STEM. I maintain that *culture* is reason #1, and everything else is utterly insignificant. I don't know why Dan keeps bringing up sexual discrimination / harassement (as I said, it's real, but not the driving factor. I think he's just a sexist anyway based on other threads he's posted).

Kevin says

Maybe you're incompetent. My company has offices in all three cities you've mentioned, and people in those cities operate in the same pay bands that I do.

I would not consider half of the companies on your list to be STEM, in that science / engineering isn't really what they "do". Some of them used to (DuPont and Unilever).

Engineers and scientists at IBM, Raytheon, Lockheed, etc. all absolutely are able to get salaries comparable to mine with comparable experience levels. My company does pay a bit above average for the industry, but we're talking 10-20%.

Ok Kevin, it seems like we're now in the ad hominem, the "I'm smarter than you category". I was offered a senior position at IBM Global consulting and even my potential manager there was not earning $200K (sans bonus). His boss, however, was earning in that band and he was a regional manager. Realize, in the end, someone has to pay that 'fixed' overhead and $200K is a high 'fixed' operating cost.

In terms of money, I've already earned $500K against $2M dealbook share in two months for a private investment project. This was split among my 3 crew members so I know a thing or two about generating some alpha for my clients. All and all, I see where the money is. And yes, in time, this will grow into a multi-million dollar joint venture, which is why I don't want to take an ordinary job in finance but be more of an entrepreneur.

This is partly why I don't care for STEM careers; finance is where the real money is at and when you're established as a prop trader, the only income ceiling is your will to make it happen.

Kevin says

The fact of the matter is that across *all* science and engineering professions, unemployment has remained consistently well below average, and salaries are significantly higher than other career options with equivalent education and experience.

What's missing is the attrition rate in science and engineering whereas pharmacy, nursing, and medicine have low attrition rates. When a former big wig, like Dow Chemical, decides to close an R&D center, what are those engineers suppose to do? Many are from the ages of 45 to 55 and are specialized to Dow's particular way of doing process engineering? They can't just pack up, move to Houston, and work for BP. BP would rather hire someone, in his early 30s, who's always been in the petrochemical circuit, since graduation. Thus, there's a good deal of typecasting of roles and where folks can move laterally among engineering fields. If you don't believe this, you may want to talk to a few folks working at Home Depot, it may surprise you how many educated older folks work there. On the other hand, in my new area of finance, once you're an alpha generator, provided that you still have *it*, or perhaps more accurately, if your unit still has *it*, you can earn money for as long as you want.

And let's say that for some reason ... I fail in the long run, well, there's always that telephone support job where traders don't want their calls re-routed to another continent. My hope is to be retired, long before I have to do telephone support for irate clients.

Kevin says

Career potential would be close to last in the reasons for women to choose some field besides STEM. I maintain that *culture* is reason #1, and everything else is utterly insignificant.

In all honesty, since I've had intimate relations with several STEM women, I don't believe it's culture per se but a type of combined weighing system where on one hand, MC/Finance seems attractive (executive suites, wearing nice suits, etc), and two, the culture of STEM work seemingly downtrodden, Dilbert-like, and not upwardly mobile. As for the overall culture, American/western society, I'm not as concerned about it because all and all, the key component here is that everyone has some sort of choice in terms of one's education and plausible destiny.

Rin says

Ok Kevin, it seems like we're now in the ad hominem, the "I'm smarter than you category".

He's a know it all, if he don't know it, then it ain't worth knowing.
We can only dream to achieve such blissful cluelessness.

CaptainShuddup says

Rin says

Ok Kevin, it seems like we're now in the ad hominem, the "I'm smarter than you category".

He's a know it all, if he don't know it, then it ain't worth knowing.
We can only dream to achieve such blissful cluelessness.

Well, in all honesty, there are blowhards in all professions and walks of life.

When I'm making $1M/yr or more, in trading, I can come back here and brag about how awesome I am. Here's the problem ... I've grown up a bit and have realized that blowhards don't have much to offer to others. When I hit the 7 figure zone, I'm keeping my earnings to myself. And unlike Kevin, I'll never accuse anyone of being incompetent or a poor person.

The reason why I've posted so much on this topic matter is that for some reason, life experiences has shown me that STEM work is not preferred by women, even women with math, physical or biological sciences background. At the same time, when particularly elitist posts ridiculously high salaries like $200K+ base, they can't juxtapose that against those, who were laid off from the supercollidor project which axed more than 4K physicists. What are those PhD postdocs now suppose to do? Google/Facebook hires less than 2% of applicants; it's actually easier to get into a medical school like Hopkins, Harvard, or Columbia.

The girl problem is that girls don't want to be in STEM. High Schools, Jr. High Schools, Elementary Schools, Countless Kids Programs, Colleges and Companies bend over backward to encourage girls in the arts and sciences. They seem to do fine - until they get to College, when they stop taking science classes - yet they are never personally more in control of their own curriculum than at College.

If you notice, the feminists most worried about the problem have Women's Studies, English, and other Liberal Arts degrees and little to no science background. Even the "Skepchick" is a marketing major, the Armenian-American girl who bitches about women in video games also does not have a STEM degree either.

Here's the dirty truth. Men fall in love with objects and concepts in a way that women don't. Ever hear a woman say about a boat or a new pimped out desktop, "Ain't (s)he a beauty?!" and wax poetical about it.

Seldom happens. But every guy has done this about something, be it a car or whatever, at least once in his life.

The majority of my science classmates in college were female. The majority of graduates were also female. I don't know how many continued to work in science, but anecdotally there were two I know who did not. I think one did. I didn't, and my current profession is an ALL boys club. I've never even heard of a female crane mechanic. And the ratio of females to male mechanics of other sorts needs a zero after the decimal point. We all get paid very well on the waterfront, so it's not that the remuneration is lacking. It's that women do not like getting their hands greasy, or using blow torches, grinders, welding, hydraulic work, or rigging. They might be more into electrical work, but I also think that most would avoid a job where a nasty shock is a daily hazard. I get hit with 120v maybe 20 times a year, all by mischance, but it's no big deal and I hardly note it. I got nailed by 480 volts last week. That really hurt, but I took a minute and then got back to work.
I doubt a girl would be coming back to work at all after that.
Dangerous and dirty work is no bueno for any money if you are a woman.