The End of the Motorcycle

If all goes according to plan, I will be having surgery in one week (September 30th) to stabilize/repair my right heel bone.  My foot was injured when I was struck by a car while riding to school on the morning of September 11th.  Thankfully, all the protective gear I was wearing prevented any other injuries, despite the fact that I was thrown from my motorcycle and bumped my head when I landed.  I can't express how grateful I am that I was not injured more seriously.

Unfortunately, the path to recovery will be long.  Under doctor's orders, I have been living with my foot suspended above my heart since the accident to help the swelling in my foot to go down. (This is the reason for the late post; I'm typing this all very slowly on the iPad which I find tedious.  Don't expect a lot more out of me until I'm able to use a traditional keyboard.) After the surgery, it will be several more weeks of the same. Once I am permitted to begin living in the traditional, vertical orientation, I will be in physical therapy for several months and won't be putting any weight on the foot until well into the new year. No driving, no walking, and only getting around on crutches.

I don't know the state of my motorcycle as I left the scene in an ambulance but given its age, I suspect the insurance company will declare it totaled; there's a good chance it will never ride again.  It was a good bike and I am sad to see it go.

STEM Crisis

The professional electrical engineering society I'm a member of (IEEE) recently published an article looking into the alleged lack of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) graduates.  I've been suspicious of such claims for some time mainly based on my (and others') experience managing a career in the field. If nothing else, a true lack of STEM workers would result in low unemployment rates and high salaries.  In the dozen years I've been in the field, I have experienced neither.

And now this article gives some research to my intuition and experience.  If you care about such things, I suggest you read the whole article but for those you don't, here are my take-aways.

• Many reports and studies have been done looking into this alleged shortage and each seems to classify STEM differently.  Some include fields like social science, psychologists, and health-care fields.  Some do not.  As you might suspect, this can have a big impact on the results.
• Not all STEM graduates find jobs in STEM fields (mathematicians on Wall Street being a great example) and not all STEM jobs are filled by STEM graduates.  Depending on how each study looks at these details can have a significant impact on determining whether there is a shortage or not.
• Estimating demand in certain fields over many years can be tricky.  The Great Recession has invalidated many studies that assumed more linear growth in the fields over time. As an NSF study says, "Projections of employment growth are plagued by uncertain assumptions and are notoriously difficult to make."
• Immigrant workers (often admitted on the famous H1-B visas) increase the number of STEM workers available for employment.
• Reports from Duke University, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and Rand Corporation all conclude there is no shortage, now or in the near future.
• “If there was really a STEM labor market crisis, you’d be seeing very different behaviors from companies,” notes Ron Hira, an associate professor of public policy at the Rochester Institute of Technology, in New York state. “You wouldn’t see companies cutting their retirement contributions, or hiring new workers and giving them worse benefits packages. Instead you would see signing bonuses, you’d see wage increases. You would see these companies really training their incumbent workers. None of those things are observable,” Hira says. “In fact, they’re operating in the opposite way.”

Nice to know I'm not just making this up.