How This Program Worked


So the great public-relations campaign began. The unofficial message to the parents of America's youth ran something like this: "Science and engineering are a priority for the country." It was especially important for the campaign not to leave out the engineering part. This had (and still has) to do with the popular culture's beliefs about science and engineering. Science is hard; engineering is routine. Science is glamorous; engineering is grungy. Science is performed by aristocratic philosopher kings; engineers are closer to blue-collar people. Only brilliant people can aspire to science, whereas, with enough application, almost anyone can become an engineer. Stereotypes, each and every one. But think about it. If you were the nation's internal PR machine trying to recruit the largest technological pool of young people you could, what would you do? Pitch just to the scientists? No, to catch as many fish as possible, you cast the net as widely as you can, and point out that scientists and engineers are both needed. That way, if a potential scientist washes out along the way, you perhaps recapture an engineer.[2] And for every parent who worries that perhaps his son is not quite M.D. material, the notion that dentistry is an honorable (and lucrative) profession is a great source of comfort.

[2] The careful reader will note that this reinforces the previously mentioned stereotypes. However, it was more common for physics students, for example, to migrate into engineering than the other way around. As you will see below, I was a curious exception to this general rule.

Now, the people who were being pitched to had lived through the Great Depression of the 1930s. Because of the subsequent intervention of WWII, and the fact that at this point in time (1957) they had school-aged children, we can infer that they had not gotten a lot of education themselves. (They couldn't go to college because of the Depression, they were taken out of action for the five war years in the early to mid-forties, and then got married and had kids as soon as the war was over. Many of them never benefited from their G.I. Bill of Rights.) So now they were lower-middle-class blue-collar workers, their kids were getting ready for high school, and they were struggling economically. The pitch was brilliant: Get your kid to be a scientist or an engineer, and he will be set for life.[3] "Economically, this is the ticket. Don't miss the boat. Make sure your kid doesn't wind up in the same bind you're in!"

[3] The masculine pronoun is used advisedly. We hadn't yet figured out that women could be scientists and engineers. That would take 10 more years and another revolution.

The rest of the pitch was even more persuasive: "We are going to make it easy on you. We are going to pump an incredible amount of money into educating these kids for free. Scholarships and fellowships will be abundant. Don't worry about the costs. If your kid has talent, the country will educate him, and he'll never have to worry about anything again."

Let me tell you: This was a great campaign, and it worked.

What was the reality? Well, as usual, good news and bad news. The country did pour a lot of money into many science and engineering programs. There was a lot of pump priming. Sputnik went up when I was 12 years old, and I came out of the other end of this process in 1972 (oh yeah, it takes a long time if you get serious about it) with a Ph.D. in physics. My entire undergraduate and graduate studies were financed through a combination of summer and weekend earnings, scholarships, and fellowships. Aside from the opportunity cost of foregone wages during that time, I can honestly say that my entire education did not cost me (or my parents) a dime. I entered the job market entirely debt-free: Look, ma, no student loans to pay off!

The bad news is that the lifetime meal ticket, as is true of all lifetime meal tickets, was an illusion at best. It may be hard to imagine that anyone could believe getting a bachelor's degree in engineering would secure economic well-being for a lifetime. But at the time, it seemed much more plausible and practical than any of the alternatives, and a lot of young men (and later, young women) were pushed in this direction. And in one sense it worked. For example, by the early seventies, we had physicists coming out of our ears and a legitimate job crisis, because supply had outstripped demand (at least in academia).[4] We forgot to stop priming the pump; as usual when the government is involved, fine-tuning is not remotely close to possible.

[4] Ironically, it was this job crisis that helped me continue my progression into software development.

Of course, in 1960 we had no clue that this could possibly happen. It was as improbable as putting a man on the moon.




The Software Development Edge(c) Essays on Managing Successful Projects
The Software Development Edge(c) Essays on Managing Successful Projects
ISBN: N/A
EAN: N/A
Year: 2006
Pages: 269

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