首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
America’s Brain Drain Crisis Losing the Global Edge William Kunz is a self-described computer geek. A more apt description mi
America’s Brain Drain Crisis Losing the Global Edge William Kunz is a self-described computer geek. A more apt description mi
admin
2010-08-21
24
问题
America’s Brain Drain Crisis
Losing the Global Edge
William Kunz is a self-described computer geek. A more apt description might be computer genius. When he was just 11, Kurtz started writing software programs, and by 14 he had created his own video game. As a high school sophomore in Houston, Texas, he won first prize in a local science fair for a data encryption (遍密码) program he wrote. In his senior year, he took top prize in an international science and engineering fair for designing a program to analyze and sort DNA patterns.
Kunz went on to attend Carnegie Mellon, among the nation’s highest-ranked universities in computer science. After college he landed a job with Oracle in Silicon Valley, writing software used by companies around the world.
Kunz looked set to become a star in his field. Then he gave it all up.
Today, three years later, Kunz is in his first year at Harvard Business School. He left software engineering partly because his earning potential paled next to friends who were going into law or business. He also worried about job security, especially as more companies move their programming overseas to lower costs. "Every time you’re asked to train someone in India, you think, ’Am I training my replacement?’" Kunz says.
Things are turning out very differently for another standout in engineering, Qing-Shan Jia. A student at Tsinghua University in Beijing, Jia shines even among his gifted cohorts (一群人) at a school sometimes called "the MIT of China". He considered applying to Harvard for his PhD, but decided it wasn’t worth it.
His university is investing heavily in cutting-edge research facilities, and attracts an impressive roster of international professors. "I can get a world-class education here and study with world-class scholars," Jia says.
These two snapshots (快照) illustrate part of a deeply disturbing picture. In the disciplines underpinning the high-tech economy—math, science and engineering—America is steadily losing its global edge. The depth and breadth of the problem is clear:
-- Several of America’s key agencies for scientific research and development will face a retirement crisis within the next ten years.
-- Less than 6% of America’s high school seniors plan to pursue engineering degrees, down 36% from a decade ago.
-- In 2000, 56% of China’s undergraduate degrees were in the hard sciences; in the United States, the figure was 17%.
-- China will likely produce six times the number of engineers next year than America will graduate, according to Mike
Gibbons of the American Society for Engineering Education. Japan, with half America’s population, has minted (铸造) twice as many in recent years.
"Most Americans are unaware of how much science does for this country and what we stand to lose if we can’t keep up," says Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer polytechnic Institute and chair of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. David Baltimore, president of the California Institute of Technology and a Nobel laureate, puts it bluntly: "We can’t hope to keep intact our standard of living, our national security, our way of life, if Americans aren’t competitive in science."
The Crisis Americans Created
In January 2001, the Hart-Rudman Commission, tasked with finding solutions to America’s major national security threats, concluded that the failures of America’s math and science education and America’s system of research "pose a greater threat... than any potential conventional war."
The roots of this failure lie in primary and secondary education. The nation that produced most of the great technological advances of the last century now scores poorly in international science testing. A 2003 survey of math and science literacy ranked American 15-year-olds against kids from other industrialized nations. In math, American students came in 24th out of 28 countries; in science, Americans were 24th out of 40 countries, tied with Latvia. This test, in conjunction with others, indicates Americans start out with sufficient smarts—their fourth-graders score well—but they begin to slide by eighth grade, and sink almost to the bottom by high school.
Don’t blame school budgets. Americans shell out more than $440 billion each year on public education, and spend more per capita than any nation save Switzerland. The problem is that too many of their high school science and math teachers just aren’t qualified. A survey in 2000 revealed that 38% of math teachers and 28% of science teachers in grades 7~12 lacked a college major or minor in their subject area. In schools with high poverty rates, the figures jumped to 52% of math teachers and 32% of science teachers. "The highest predictor of student performance boils down to teacher knowledge," says Gerald Wheeler, executive director of the National Science Teachers Association. To California Congressman Buck McKeon, a member of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, it comes down to this: "How can you pass on a passion to your students if you don’t know the subject?"
Perhaps it’s no surprise that, according to a 2004 Indiana University survey, 18% of college prep kids weren’t taking math their senior year of high school. "When I Compare our high schools to what I see when I’m traveling abroad, I’m terrified for our workforce of tomorrow," Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told a summit of state governors earlier this year. "Our high schools, even when they’re working exactly as designed, cannot teach our kids what they need to know today."
The Bush Administration has also proposed cutting the fiscal 2006 budget for research and development in such key federal agencies as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the latter of which acts as a liaison (联络) with industry and researchers to apply new technology.
"Funding cuts are job cuts," says Rep. Vernon J. Ehlers, Republican of Michigan and a member of the Science Committee in the House. Reduced funding has put the squeeze on research positions, further smothering incentives (动机) for students to go into hard science.
What Americans Must Do
Americans have done it before: the Manhattan Project, the technology surge that followed Sputnik. They’ve demonstrated. that they can commit themselves to daunting goals and achieve them. But they can’t minimize the challenges they’re facing.
Americans need out-of-the-box thinking, of the sort suggested by experts in a report released in October called "Rising above the Gathering Storm", a study group within the National Academy of Sciences, which included the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine, came up with innovative proposals. Among them are:
-- Four-year scholarships for 25,000 undergraduate students who commit to degrees in math, science or engineering, and who qualify based on a competitive national exam;
-- Four-year scholarships for 10,000 college students who commit to being math or science teachers, and who agree to teach in a public school for five years after graduation;
-- Extended visas for foreign students who earn a math or science PhD in the United States, giving them a year after
graduation to look for employment here. If they find jobs, work permits and permanent residency status would be expedited.
Many experts are also urging that non-credentialed but knowledgeable people with industry experience be allowed to teach. That experiment is already underway at High Tech High in San Diego. Conceived by Gary Jacobs, whose father founded Qualcomm, this charter school stresses a cutting-edge curriculum, whether the classes are on biotechnology or web design. To teach these courses, the school hires industry professionals. High Tech High also arranges internships at robotics labs, Internet start-ups and university research centers.
In just five years, 750 kids have enrolled, three classes have graduated and the vast majority of students have gone on to college. One of the success stories is Jeff Jensen, class of 2005, who was a decidedly apathetic (缺乏兴趣的) student before High Tech High. He is now a freshman at Stanford University on a partial scholarship, planning to study chemistry or medicine.
IBM is one of the companies encouraging its workers to teach. This past September, IBM announced a tuition-assistance plan, pledging to pay for teacher certification as well as a leave of absence for employees who wish to teach in public schools.
The philanthropic (博爱的) arms of corporations are also getting involved. The Siemens Foundation sponsors a yearly math, science and technology competition, considered the Nobel Prize for high school research and a great distiller of American talent. Honeywell spends $2 million each year on science programs geared to middle school students, including a hip-hop touring group that teaches physical science, and a robotics lab program that teaches kids how to design, build and program their own robot. "We’ve found that if we don’t get kids excited about science by middle school, it’s too late," says Michael Holland, a spokesperson for Honeywell.
As important as all these initiatives are, they barely begin to take Americans where they need to go. Americans’ shortcomings are vast, and time, unfortunately, is working against them.
"The whole world is running a race," says Intel’s Howard High, "only we don’t know it." No one knows whether or when the United States will relinquish (放弃) its lead in that race. Or how far back in the pack they could ultimately fall. But the first order of business is to recognize what’s at stake and get in the game.
Kunz gave up software engineering mainly because he earned less than those in law or business field did.
选项
A、Y
B、N
C、NG
答案
B
解析
根据题干中的信息同Kunz和software engineering定位到第一个小标题下的第四段,可知Kunz放弃软件工程部分原因在于自己赚的钱不如法律界和商界的朋友多,但这不是主要原因,故该句表述错误。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/5r7K777K
0
大学英语六级
相关试题推荐
A、Theyhadlivedtoolonginthecity.B、TheywerenotfamiliarwiththeAmericancustoms.C、Theywerequiteparticularaboutfo
"IamgeneralmanageroftherecentlyestablishedBritishdivisionofasmallCanadianwholesalecompany.Mytaskismsetupth
Conventionalwisdomhasitthatmalebirdsareloyalandfaithfulbecausethebusinessoffeedingnestlingissodemandingthat
A、Becausehefilledoutthewrongform.B、Becausetheofficerlaughedathim.C、Becausehedidn’tknowwhatformtoget.D、Becau
PresidentClintonlatertodayjoins【B1】______presidentFord,CarterandBushat"thepresident’ssummitforAmerica’sfuture"【B
Childrenare【C1】______seriousillnessesbecauseoftheirparentssmokingathome,saysthegovernment’schiefmedicalofficer,
_______________________(如果我是你的话),Iwouldhaveacceptedsuchanoffergivenbythemanager.
Informationabouttigersharksisrareinbookssomostofthispaperaboutsharkswillbeingeneral.TheTigerSharks’Latinn
A、She’sgoingtoseethefilmwiththeman.B、She’sgoingtotheGoldenTheatre.C、She’sgoingtothemuseum.D、She’sgoingtov
A、Workwithanoperatroupe.B、Workpart-timeforthedean.C、Performontheradio.D、SubmittheirsuggestionstothedeanA
随机试题
心功能曲线是反映左心室舒张末期容积与下列哪项的关系
A.多为上腹正中或偏右节律性疼痛B.多为剑突下正中或偏左节律性疼痛C.上腹疼痛多在餐后发生,呕吐多见D.右上腹节律性疼痛,夜间痛和背部痛多见且突出以下溃疡的疼痛一般是:球后溃疡
男性,35岁。1周来发热、腹痛、腹泻,大便每日5~6次,有血及黏液。查T37.8℃,下腹有压痛,右下明显。大便镜检RBC20~30/HP,WBC3~5/HP为确诊应查哪一项
属于五行相侮的脏病传变是
35岁已婚女性,因性交后少量出血就诊。妇检发现官颈呈红色,表面呈颗粒状,糜烂面占宫颈面积1/2,下列哪项叙述不正确
商品的价值量由()决定。
甲与乙签订买卖合同,但买卖合同签订后,出现了双方当事人无法预见的情势变更,但甲方并没有将该情势变更事实通知乙方,致使乙方无法将货物按时发运给甲方。则甲方违反了()。
党的十八大报告指出新形势,党面临的考验主要有()
软件开发模型用于指导软件的开发。演化模型是在快速开发一个(1)的基础上,逐步演化成最终的软件。螺旋模型综合了(2)的优点,并增加了(3)。喷泉模型描述的是面向(4)的开发过程,反映了该开发过程的(5)特征。
Howarethesepartsofourbodyheldtogether?Theyareheldtogetherby______.Whatistheskeletonmadeupof?Itismadeup
最新回复
(
0
)