Dream Differently by Dr. Vince M. Bertram

Author:Dr. Vince M. Bertram
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781621576938
Publisher: Regnery Publishing
Published: 2017-07-03T00:00:00+00:00

STATES INVESTING IN STEM CAREERS

Almost as important as understanding what fields of work provide the greatest opportunity is understanding where—literally—those jobs are. That, along with a host of other factors, should play a role in whether you move to Albuquerque or Austin after college (or for college).

Albuquerque, as it so happens, ranks seventy-seventh in number of ads for job openings with about 2,500 in a given quarter, according to the Brookings Institution. About 40 percent of those ads require STEM skills, placing it about forty-fifth in rankings for jobs requiring STEM skills. It also boasts average salaries of just over $57,000 in STEM fields.17

By contrast, Austin ranks twenty-seventh in total number of ads for job openings with almost 11,000 in a given quarter. About 48 percent of those ads require STEM skills, placing it ninth in jobs requiring STEM skills. It boasts average salaries of just over $62,000 in these STEM jobs—and you can find that almost three thousand of those job openings are in computer and mathematical sciences.18

Of course this is not the end of your set of considerations. As we saw earlier, you will want to look at such things as average rental prices or home prices, state taxes, and other factors such as proximity to family and friends. But you should know that a lot of states are taking new and active roles in attracting certain professions, skill sets, and career choices—and tailoring their educational institutions to foster them. States see the value in promoting their STEM industries because it’s a great investment. Take Mississippi as just one example. As Chevron wrote in an advertisement in the Atlantic Monthly magazine:

At Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College (MGCCC), the need for employees has pushed the administration to build new facilities to teach STEM skills. In the near future, the school will have 35,000 square feet of labs and other space dedicated solely to training welders, machinists and instrumentation control technicians, among other tech-driven occupations. Carmen Walters, the vice president of one of MGCCC’s campuses, points to studies that show there will be some 46,000 available STEM jobs in the state by 2018. “We feel confident that STEM jobs are growing in Mississippi,” she says. “Engineering and support jobs are well paid, and we want to train our students to get them.”19

Whether you end up pursuing a STEM education in college or beyond is your choice. Plenty of students forgo a STEM education and find happiness and success in their preferred field and professions. But you shouldn’t ignore the promise STEM education holds for most students, or deny the growing importance STEM fields will have in our new economy—one that is racing forward at a staggering pace. I cannot put it better than a STEM teacher who wrote the following in the Washington Post:

STEM education is the opposite of specific, technical skills. Like a liberal arts education, it teaches thinking that promotes creativity, collaboration, skepticism and effective communication. . . . Science and math are more than facts that reflect our understanding of our natural world.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.