<p>It’s ok, cobrat–the salary question actually doesn’t bother me. I have made peace long since with the fact that my career choice is not among the most remunerative. It has its compensations. </p>
<p>At one time, I thought about the law, when I realized that my brother-in-law made 20 times what I did (and probably more, these days); and I was might annoyed with potential Clinton nominees for various positions who did not pay the nanny tax (since I did, on appreciably lower income). But that’s quite a while ago now.</p>
<p>It only touches on the point of the thread when it comes to the salaries of women in STEM fields relative to the salaries of men in STEM fields. The last I looked, the salaries start out roughly equal, and perhaps with women slightly ahead, but stratified across years since B.S. or Ph.D. women are further behind as the number of years since the degree increases. </p>
<p>But of course, that’s sampling people from different age cohorts. Now, the differential may be eliminated as women progress in these fields–or the differential may remain, as women’s salaries do tend to take some hit during the child-rearing years. Any individual’s mileage may vary.</p>
I have to chuckle. cobrat, I was just messing with you, I don’t really care about what you do, how much money you make, or about Oberlin.</p>
<p>I asked QM how much STEM researchers got paid because salary is a pretty good indicator on how many people are capable or willing to do a particular job. In the US for most jobs employers will try to pay the least amount they have to in order to get “good enough” people to do the job. As QM has repeatedly claimed how difficult STEM research jobs are and how important they are then those jobs must be in high demand. Therefore based on supply and demand, those employers must be willing to pay a lot of money to hire the right people. But of course, if people are willing to work for nothing then there is no real benchmark.</p>
<p>I gather from previous posts that you are a consultant. Being a consultant is one of those jobs where a big portion of the job is thinking. </p>
<p>However, while creativity certainly can help in many jobs, I think many senior level positions don’t absolutely require a lot of intellectual creativity, certainly not as much as positions where that is the whole job. There are certainly some people that advance up the corporate ladder largely through their organizational ability, resourcefulness, and people skills. </p>
<p>Even in many STEM positions or even fields, their isn’t as much of a premium on the thinking part. Even when starting up a new STEM project, a big part of it is just asking around and seeing how things are done. And then after that one has to actually perform the experiments; this requires one to be meticulous, but not really creative.</p>
<p>^Well once you get up in the field, it’s the grad students and post docs who do most of the experiments. The primary investigator is coming up with the ideas and making sure they aren’t doing anything stupid (like the wrong controls or interpretations of the data), and of course writing grants, reading grants and trying to get published…</p>
<p>The “how much money you make” type questions remind me of </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Stock nouveau riche characters who grubs about other folks’ incomes the way stereotypical obnoxious pre-meds grade grub Profs, TAs, and classmates in his/her courses to puff up his/her own ego and for the former two…suck up/complain for better grades. </p></li>
<li><p>Stereotypes of “gold-diggers” or from Downton Abbey “fortune-hunters”. </p></li>
<li><p>Stock characters of the high salaried professional so devoid of personality or anything else that all s(he) can/feels s(he) can offer is his/her high income and/or net worth. A.K.A. “Walking wallet”.</p></li>
</ul>
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</p>
<p>What? No accidentally blowing stuff up like Alfred Nobel?</p>
<p>I have clearly stepped into a time warp, because 25 years ago I went to a university where plenty of women, some of them my friends, were in the engineering school, became engineers, went on to do that in their professional lives, and then balanced their work and family lives as they individually saw fit. Even back then, the idea that they were being discouraged from engineering was laughable. </p>
<p>When I was a little girl, it was rare to see a female doctor, lawyer, business executive, etc. now they are a dime a dozen. The gnashing of teeth over this is long gone. Women aren’t being denied entry because “they’ll take a job away from a man.” </p>
<p>Maybe women don’t go into STEM because fewer of them like it. Shrug. I don’t see anyone moaning that more men don’t go into elementary education.</p>
<p>Cobrat - it’s irrelevant that oldfort’s question “reminds” you of things, because I know oldfort, and she is, in fact, none of those things. That’s not an effective way of arguing a point.</p>
<p>Making an observation of how stereotypes relates to one’s comments or a given topic of discussion does not necessarily mean the observer believes them or uses them to “reduce the world”. </p>
<p>You also seem to feel the need to view many remarks I or others with whom you’ve had ongoing disagreement in the most negative light. Interesting…</p>
<p>chashaobao - A well educated Chinese also wouldn’t tell others that their jobs are the most important and difficult ones, humble and modesty come to my mind. For people who grew up in the US know how much a job pays is a benchmark of how important and how difficult a job is (why would an employer pay you X, if another competent person is willing to do it for .5X?). I live/work in the US, not in China. Part of my job depends on me able to figure out what makes people tick and inspire them to excel - Chinese ideology just wouldn’t work as well in the US. The post you quoted was what I wrote about Chinese in general, it was to correct what someone wrote in the previous post about Chinese. I don’t think I ever represented that’s what I believed. I was raised in the US, and more to the point, not every Chinese believes/behaves the same. Sorry if I disappointed you.</p>
<p>Several elements of the quotation are noteworthy. In 1970, 4% of the engineering students at Northwestern were women. That was my era, generally speaking. Pizzagirl is of a more recent vintage, and I think that the percentage of women in engineering has been rising steadily over time. Now the engineering school is up to “nearly one-third” women. However, the statement also says that Northwestern is at the head of the Big Ten (12? 14?) in this regard. Incidentally, Northwestern has slightly more female undergrads than male undergrads, overall. </p>
<p>I don’t think that there is a reason to push women into engineering beyond the natural level of interest of women in engineering. If gender truly had no impact on opportunities, and about 32% of engineers were women, I would have no objection at all–or even if it were only 20%.</p>
<p>However, my feeling is that one doesn’t know the natural level of interest in engineering among young women yet. I am pretty sure that it is not 4%. In 1970, some would have argued that young women just weren’t that interested in engineering, and that there was nothing really wrong with having only 4% women among the engineering students. In fact, I have heard such arguments, with the percent bumped up only a bit.</p>
<p>The data are from 2011, but this is about how long it typically takes for the professional societies to compile demographic data. The survey covered 348 American universities and 11 Canadian universities.</p>
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<p>Northwestern students are strong academically, so it is possible that the level of interest in engineering on the part of Northwestern women students is higher than for women undergrads in general. However, I’d suspect that the natural proportion is higher than 18.4%.</p>
<p>Even the rise from 4% (Northwestern, 1970) to 18% (overall, 2011) changes the situation for women in their undergrad courses significantly–it greatly reduces the likelihood that a female student in engineering will be the only woman in a given class. I think that does matter.</p>
<p>OK…I’ll put this out there. In general, I find women in engineering to be far more socially capable (some posters on this thread excluded…as they seem NOT to be able to see anyone else’s perspective but their own!) than men. They not only have the knowledge, but also the ability to actually interact in a meaningful and thoughtful way with others.</p>
<p>I just have to comment about Niquii77s posts … I thought when I read your first post early in this thread that you were another adult (parent) making an observation about the working world, when in fact it looks like you are a young college-age student who worries about what to pack to go back to school.</p>
<p>I would tell my young self this, and I would also tell my D this. My advice to you is to practice having your educated opinion in your college classroom so your debate style is more polished by the time you graduate. A college summer job or co-op or internship is not the real world; you are not experiencing promotions work/life balance, and international travel to the same extent as an adult that is running a company or managing 100 professionals, so your views on this are limited unless you study the topic through papers, articles, and even research. You have a strong opinion for your age, and I applaud that, but you don’t appear to have researched or experienced the topic, which is why you deliver such snide, and what I would consider immature, remarks in this forum. If you have to move to that level of debate style, it shows your cards of youth, and only pretends to hide your inexperience in life.</p>
<p>Use these forums to learn, and have a few debates along the way, but don’t make it personal or rude.</p>