<p>starbright, I’ve seen that phrased as something along the lines of “like being born on third base and thinking you hit a homer when you cross home plate.” Some just can’t see the plain dumb luck in their own lives; they take it for granted and think that everyone has the same plain dumb luck.</p>
<p>Starbright, you just described my life story and very many thousands of others who started with zero in their adult life.</p>
<p>The US is indeed the land of opportunity but luck can help a lot. In addition to some amount of character passed on from parents or a parent.</p>
<p>German medical school is begun immediately after leaving high school - that is why I am calling it undergraduate. German medical students do not obtain another degree first. </p>
<p>I’m not sure why the sarcasm, superdrive. Have I offended you? My point is not to question whether the Germans are better or worse - it is to say their system is different. When coming into a different country, you have to meet the standards set by that country, whether or not you think you’re already better than they are.</p>
<p>binx: True, meeting standards is important. But that’s the whole premise of this discussion - what should the standards be? Currently, the standard seems to be “educated here”… and that’s the whole problem in my mind. Why not have a simpler, more open re-certification process, so that the standard isn’t “educated here” but rather “educated as if you were educated here”?</p>
<p>I have no problem with imposing standards. I just think the ones currently imposed don’t make a whole lot of sense.</p>
<p>I would rather have too high of standards than too low. I work with a Russian immigrant who was an MD in Russia and is now a phlebotomist. In talking with him, I am glad we have high standards as he has some very strange medical ideas.</p>
<p>binx, I’m not offended, but you need to realize the situation of medical school in Europe. Yes, they go to medical school straight from high school, and they don’t get a degree before that, but medical school there is not equivalent to a U.S. undergrad. </p>
<p>Here, you go to undergrad first and you can major in anything you want as long as you complete pre-med requirements. In Europe, you take these “pre-med” requirements in the first 2 years of medical school along with medical courses. In fact, students over there start taking biology from 5th grade all the way to 12th grade, physics from 6th grade to 12th grade, and chemistry from 7th grade to 12th grade. They study organic chemistry in grade 11 and 12.</p>
<p>In the U.S. students in grades 5 to 8 take natural sciences, and only take one year of chemistry, biology and physics in high school, so Europeans go straight to med school because they have enough exposure to science classes, unlike here. Plus, they take chemistry, biology, physics, biochemistry courses again in med school.</p>
<p>It’s not like a U.S. undergrad degree is necessary for medicine. It’s not the same as getting an English undergrad degree, and then continue with phD in English as an advanced degree. You’re not getting an undergraduate degree in medicine, so you can continue with graduate medical school. </p>
<p>It’s like comparing apples with oranges. Now if you wanna argue about the curriculum of european medical school with a U.S. one, that’s a totally different story.</p>
<p>I agree that global standards could be helpful, but the idea of setting them up, and getting everyone to agree on them seems enormous. Even within the US, the level of education varies greatly from school to school. We have standard exams for at least some professions - “board certified.” But that begs the question, can we qualify simply by studying for the exam?</p>
<p>States even have individual standards. I have an active RN license in Pennsylvania, but I cannot practice in GA because I don’t meet their standards (The part that requires at least 6 months of full-time-equivalent work in the past 5 years.) I was educated in the US, and have worked in the US, and have passed the boards in the US - but I cannot practice in GA because I don’t meet their standards. </p>
<p>If we move toward global standards, then we will also have to examine state’s rights to tweak those standards.</p>
<p>Cross-posted with you, superdrive. My D attended a German Gymnasium for grades 9 through 11, when we lived in Germany. We are intimately acquainted with the differences. She attended one of the top (#5, I believe) Gymnasiums in Bavaria, and her education was very good. But my two sons were educated completely in the US, and there are strengths and weaknesses on both sides of the creek. I feel like I have a better handle than most on the similarities and differences, having experienced both.</p>
<p>My D’s best friend is currently studying medicine at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. When she was here in June, we had a lot of fun comparing the education systems. </p>
<p>Your comment “comparing apples to oranges” is exactly the point I am trying to make! I was trying to explain why it is unreasonable to expect one country to automatically accept the professionals from another country. It requires the host country to examine the entire educational structure of another country. Within our own country we have all sorts of accreditations, boards, etc set up for checks and balances - to meet our own criteria. We do not have that authority over another country’s educational system.</p>
<p>[Edit: wanted to comment on one specific point - about the amount of science taken in high school. My D took each type of science every year - chemistry, physics, biology. But she only had each one perhaps 2 days a week. (Her school was 8 a.m. till 1 p.m.) She followed a math/science path - other Gymnasium students got less. </p>
<p>In the US, my sons had just as many hours spent on science, but they studied only one branch per year. They did not get less science education than their German counterparts.]</p>
<p>Just because SOME can pull a lot out of nothing doesn’t mean everyone can. That’s the fallacy. If it was just up to individuals, how does that explain varying degrees of intergenerational mobility across societies? We pride ourselves in the US on intergenerational mobility yet fall much behind other countries on that front. </p>
<p>I too came from an impoverished background. My parents held low level jobs, neither of my parents graduated from highschool, nor did my siblings. I was babysat in front of a TV set and didn’t start school until grade one (my parents didn’t know to put me in kindergarten). I ended up getting several degrees, including a PhD from a top 10 and becoming a professor at an Ivy League. </p>
<p>I had tons of LUCK. And am a product of a host of factors beyond myself despite starting with zero. I happen to have an unusual IQ relative to my environment. I had a few excellent teachers that took me under their wing and a few mentors that showed me what was possible. I wasn’t abused and didn’t develop the scars of trauma. I resided in a community that kept kids safe. I lived in a place where an undergraduate education could be had for very little cost. </p>
<p>I could go on and on and on but hell will freeze over before I attribute my success to merely my own determination, desire or pulling up my socks high enough. I had help along the way and a **** load of good fortune. Not everyone does.</p>
<p>I suppose it really depends on your experience. Though I didn’t achieve Starbright’s success, I am light years away from my impoverished upbringing. My mother never got the breaks and I don’t mean big breaks, I mean the little ones that when compounded give you the confidence, drive or interest in going on. You can pull up your socks, grow where you’re planted etc., but the stars have to be aligned! That is just mho.</p>
<p>I think a corollary should be asked: how many other native-borned US college grads are working unskilled jobs ? You can’t ask the question why immigrant US grads are working unskilled jobs until you find out if thats endemic problem.</p>
<p>Also is there a problem for ethiopian civic engineer driving cabs in New York City ? Is that a problem for the cab driver ? Is there a problem for US economy ?</p>
<p>Yes it is, because it implies that there’s human capital being wasted on a large scale across America. Unless of course you think that none of these people are qualified, as seems to be a popular opinion here…</p>
<p>The problem is that there are more than a few third world countries that I know of where you can purchase a college degree, driver’s license etc., How and who would be the authority to judge not only the legitimacy of a person’s degree but how rigorous the program was.
As Binx said, as an RN in PA, she cannot practice in GA, so if one State does not trust another’s program, what chance another country’s?</p>
<p>gdorf, what about native engineers who might also be driving cabs ? Don’t forget in this automated world, there are fewer an fewer jobs. you are saying the US owe all people a living ?</p>
<p>Starbright, you underestimating what you had. You did not start with zero by no means. You did had tons, you had familly and you had luck. I am not talking about people like you at all. You had everything, you will never understand…</p>
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<p>Fun as I’m sure it is to try and put words in my mouth, I said absolutely no such thing and if you read my posts with a mind to what is actually written as opposed to what you presume I might think, you’d realize that.</p>
<p>My point is merely that it is a waste of America’s resources (these immigrants being part of America’s human capital) to have highly skilled professionals doing jobs like manual labor and cab driving. Do they deserve certain jobs? No, nobody deserves any particular job. But it is a waste for society to allow human capital like that to go unused. Economist call the phenomenon “underemployment” in other contexts, though curiously it hasn’t been applied much to studying this particular phenomenon.</p>
<p>The comparison to native engineers, by the way, is an obvious red herring. I’m not concerned with professionals who, by circumstances of the job market or their own lack of drive/whatever else are unable to find a job in their field. That happens. What I’m discussing here are foreign immigrants, often highly skilled, who are essentially stonewalled out of of working in their field due to ridiculous recertification requirements that are not at all based in the objective reality of how skilled these people are.</p>
<p>At the end of the day, my problem isn’t with unemployment or even underemployment. My problem is with un/underemployment for stupid, nonsensical reasons. And while not all recertification requirements are stupid, many of them have gone beyond their usefulness and serve America little purpose other than to keep qualified professionals out of the workforce.</p>
<p>gdorf,
Do you know specific engineering specialty that needs recertification? I know great number of immigrant engineers who work in America without any recertification. They have their friends also with majority being engineers, so I am talking literary about tens of thousands. In addition, IT professionals probably exceed even number of engineers. I have worked at some companies with huge IT departments staffed primarily with non-American born. In addition, I am talking about the most economically depressed part of the county. </p>
<p>The only people that I am aware who need to go thru long licensing process are professionals in Medical field. There are also hairdressers, cosmetologists and so forth, who usually get license without much of effort. </p>
<p>Immigrants who are doing non-professional jobs are the ones who made this decision themselves fo one reason ore another. They might be in transition into their professional field or they might be satisfied with what they are currently doing. This might change as unemployment rate rises and we get into what was during Carter’s era. However, currently, with unemployment around 6%, it has been pretty stable for professional immigrants.</p>
<p>Aren’t there licensing exams for civil engineers? If the guy driving the cab can’t pass it, then he either doesn’t know enough English, or doesn’t know enough engineering. Seems reasonable to me to expect him to beef up his training or language skills before he starts designing bridges.</p>
<p>People get hired even with poor English skills, since there is a shortage of engineers. There is could be some licensing for civil engineers. I do not know. Definately, none for Electrical, Mechanical, Chemical.</p>