2. Tilting the System: 1.265 Million New Businessmen

      So how do we exactly explain motives of those occupying the Wall Street?  Mr. Kristof’scontention is that “the political/economic system is tilted against the 99%”.  I think Mr. Kristof owes us an explanation as of who tilted “the political/economic system.” The 1%? The top 1% of the 1%? Bushes? Rothschilds? Free Masons? Bankers? Elitists?  Who is the culprit responsible for the fact that a newly graduated student with B.A. in history, arts, film, dance, sociology, and (yes!) political science, can’t find a job?  Is it Wall Street, Investment Bankers, evil CEOs, the super-wealthy 1%?  Or is it rather the Invisible Hand performing an overdue reality check on the occupational and career choices of young Americans?

We have been warned about the changing career trends for years.   

The Wall Street Journal, December 13, 2004 : “AsMath Skills Slip, U.S. Schools Seek Answers From Asia”. 

USA Today, January 29, 2006: “Lack of math, science teachers prompts U.S. alarm”. 

USA Today, September 19, 2008:  “States hire foreign teachers to ease shortages" How did we react to the career alarm? Instead of answering the call to action and rushing en masse to get math and science degrees, we ‘hired foreign teachers to ease shortages especially in courses as math and science’.  Article quoted National Education Association's estimates that "up to 10,000 foreigners already were teaching US students in primary and secondary education"      

New York Times, September 14, 2009 “Schools Look Abroad to Hire Teachers” :“Baltimore hired 108 teachers from the Philippines in 2005, but four years later has more than 600 Filipino teachers, where they make up more than 10% of the teaching force” 

     While we feverishly celebrated the Cold War victory throughout the 1990s and even some announced “The End of History”,  the rest of the world was working hard to catch up.  But don’t take my word for it.  Ask former counselor to the Secretary of Commerce Mr. Clyde Prestowitz.  In his 2005 book “Three Billion New Capitalists: the Great Shift of Wealth and Power tothe East” Mr. Prestowitz warned us that China and India combined graduate 950,000 engineers per year, compared with 70,000 in America. (If you don't have time to read the entire book, check out this review by Mr. Fareed Zakaria). 950,000 of engineering degrees compares with the total of 1.6 million Bachelor’s degrees and total of 656,784 Master's degrees awarded in 2009 in the U.S.   

    On July 2010, five years after the book was released, CNN Money article made Mr. Prestowitz’s predictions seem prophetic: “Desperately SeekingMath and Science Majors”.  This article by Mr. Geoff Colvin was titled like a desperate job add (could the hint be any clearer?).  Mr. Colvin presented some very disconcerting data: “undergraduate engineering majors are a shrinking proportion of the total, down from 6.8% to about 4.5% over past 20 years”.  Hence, while China’s and India’s numbers are on the rise, our numbers are on decline (“Chinese with 10,000 Ph.D. graduates vs. U.S with 8,000 Ph.D. engineers”). (You can find more on this specific topic in "Seeing Through Preconceptions: a Deeper Look at China and India" in Issues in Science and Technology) 

       Mr. Colvin listed one especially interesting statistic that should spark some interest.  The “fastest – growing majors in America as of 2007, says the U.S. Education Department, were parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies, as well as security and protective services.”  Curious I decided to check out this statistics myself.  Parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies indeed had the largest proportional gains in the numbers of Bachelor’s degrees awarded – from 1,621 in 1970-71 to 31,667 in 2008-2009 – with the numbers almost doubling between 1999 and 2009.  However, there are other somewhat disturbing trends.  

       In 2009 we awarded/received, 89,140 Bachelor's degrees  in Visual and Performing Arts, 168,500 in Social Sciences, 94,271 in Psychology, 8,940 in Theology, 12,444 in Philosophy and Religious Studies, 78,009 in Communication, Journalism, and Related Programs, 8,772 in Area, Ethnic, Cultural, and Gender Studies, and 347,985 in Business.  The same year we awarded/ received 37,994 Bachelor's degrees in Computer and Information Sciences, 5,100 in Communications Technologies, and 69,133 in Engineering.  

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/figures/fig_15.asp?referrer=figures

     Therefore, cumulatively within last ten years we graduated (I did the math myself, so you are more than welcome to double check) over 1.37 million Social Scientists, 761,813 Psychologists, 75,255 Theologists, 88,725 Philosophers and Religious Students, 61,073 students of Area, Ethnic, Cultural and Gender Studies, 635,511 Communicators and Journalists, and whopping 1.265 million Businessmen.  The last number reflects that many of us went to school to eventually join or work for the “dark side” (the Corporate/ the 1%).  That compares with 112,545 mathematicians, 158,428 Physical Scientists, and 522,692 Engineers.  The last number here looks pretty impressive, right? Unfortunately, National Science Foundation reports that in 2009 there were 258,950 foreign students enrolled in science and engineering in the U.S. higher education institutions - 86,790 of which were studying science and engineering as undergraduates.                  

     Hence, I ask Mr. Kristof, who are the ones who tilted the political/economic system?  In this dark hour maybe it is finally the time for an honest examination of Conscience.  Maybe, just maybe, we bear responsibility for our occupational fates, for the shortage of scientists, science teachers, and out-flow of capital and jobs where the numbers are more favorable.  Jobs that are desperately hard to fill and that are increasingly leaving the country are not the jobs that Americans traditionally just won’t do.  The U.S. excelled in science (NASA, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, list goes on and on) but the problem today is that a lot of majors in demand are not ... sexy enough.  Sitting behind the desk and crunching numbers does not promise a lot of opportunities for self-fulfillment and self-actualization.  However, I will side with Mr. Abraham Maslow on this one. The path to esteem and self-actualization starts with meeting physiological and safety need (aka jobs), and not the other way around.    

                So Mr. and Ms. history, dance, and film majors occupying the Wall Street, whose  interviews I read, heard, and watched.  Don’t blame the Wall Street or the government exclusively for not getting a job.  Not too long ago we set out to create a service based economy and it hasn’t served us well.  Now, let’s not try to establish art and liberal science based economy.  I think it will be easier and more beneficial if you just take several science and engineering classes while the jobs that are about to leave the country are still here.