Passage 1
Most scientists and engineers find careers in three general
sectors of society: colleges and universities, industries, and federal and stale
agencies. Their work includes an array of activities, from the conduct of basic
and applied research to the design and application of new commercial products to
the operation and maintenance of large engineering systems. You can
make your planning more effective by appreciating the direction in which
professional careers are shifting within that larger picture. (66)
But more than half the students who receive PhDs in science and
engineering obtain work outside academe—a proportion that has increased steadily
for 2 decades. And full-time academic positions in general are more difficult to
find than they were during the 1960s and 1970s, when the research enterprise was
expanding more rapidly. (67) The end of the
Cold War has removed some incentive for the federal government to fund
defense-oriented basic research. Increased national and global competition
has forced many industries to reduce expenses and staff. That means that there
are fewer research and development positions in universities, industries, and
government laboratories than there are qualified scientists and engineers
looking for them. (68) For example, there are
strong public pressures for universities to shift their emphasis toward teaching
and toward undergraduate education; the number of positions for permanent
faculty has decreased; professors are no longer required to retire at a
particular age; and more part-time and temporary faculty are being employed.
(69) In engineering, careers are being
transformed by several intersecting trends. (70) Companies
value multilingual workers with a breadth of competencies—managerial as well as
technical—and the ability to access and apply new scientific and technologic
knowledge. The more flexible and mobile you can be, the more opportunities you
will have and the greater will be your control over the shape of your career.
A. Powerful changes have swept through the universities.
B. All those trends ’affect the universities’ ability to hire scientists
and engineers.
C. For example, increasing numbers of physicists, mathematicians, and
engineers find their skills valued in the financial arena.
D. International companies now draw employees from many nations, seeking
out valued experts from a global pool of labor to work project by project.
E. For example, for many students, a PhD will mean a career as an academic
researcher. F. As our society changes, so too do the opportunities
for careers in science and engineering.