The University of Arizona Alumnus / Fall 2007
Scientific Competition in a Global Economy by Dan Huff When the pundits in the press discuss the unprecedented threat to America’s century of leadership in science and technology, they often cite some astonishing figures.
Typically, they note that in 2004 the United States graduated only 70,000 undergrads with degrees in science and engineering, while China and India combined graduated 950,000.
But what the editorial doomsayers frequently don’t mention is that subsequent reporting has revealed that the Indian and Chinese aren’t necessarily getting the same quality of education as the American students. Many of those foreign students take two- and three-year programs of study, versus the standard four-year American programs, which are generally considered far superior.
Still, the sheer numbers are alarming. And it’s painfully obvious that in today’s cutthroat global economy, with China in particular eagerly seeking to upgrade its educational system and its work force, the United States will be increasingly hard-pressed to maintain leadership on the cutting edge of scientific research. (Forbes magazine recently reported that hard-science degrees have been stuck at 12 percent of all U.S. college degrees during the last 20 years, and that from 1980 to 2000, advanced degrees in science and engineering in the U.S. grew at 1.5 percent annually, “not coming close to filling the 4.2 percent growth in science jobs during the same period.”)
One answer, certainly, is to boost the quality of education at all levels for America’s future scientists. Long the exclusive province of graduate science students at most U.S. schools, learning by doing increasingly is seen as desirable for undergrads who are being pulled into the nation’s academic-based laboratories — still the finest research facilities in the world — where they’re encouraged to lend their hands and minds to important, ongoing projects.
At the University of Arizona, the nation’s No. 1 research university in terms of federal funding in the physical sciences, undergraduates have long been encouraged to engage in real-world scientific inquiry.
As Dr. Susan Beck, a UA geoscientist says, “Involving undergraduates in research projects with faculty and graduate students benefits both the undergrads and the faculty.
The undergrads gain an amazing hands-on experience doing science, and they bring fresh ideas and energy to our projects. It’s a great synergy that a classroom can never provide.”
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The issue, essentially, is one of quantity versus quality.
Jacob Chinn photos