Six percent of the world’s engineering degrees
April 11, 2005
Information Week reports: ”…in 2000, the United States awarded only 6% of the world’s engineering degrees, behind China, the European Union, Japan, Russia, and India…”
Categories: Education
Well, you might be surprised to know that my home town, Indore has five engineering colleges and three medical colleges. Over 900 IT professionals pass out every year from twelve different science and technology colleges in the city.
Remember quality vs. quantity. I know from (indirect) experience that an engineering degree from the University of Illinois isn’t worth all that much, but most engineers don’t go on to be significant at all. They don’t drive technological change, exceptional engineers do. While certainly India, Germany and Britain have some very good schools (probably China, etc, but I only know something about these countries) in terms of opportunities for exceptional students, American universities shine in this regard. An extremely bright student has access to the best researchers in the world, and can go work for some of the best companies in the world. Certainly other countries are catching up, but a 6% figure doesn’t mean much at all. It’s only those .1% of engineers who are truly brilliant who cause companies to lead or fall behind. The rest are just filler who are doing menial fix-up work.