Nam Suh’s comment in your issue of July 25 that “Uncle Sam Needs More Good Scientists” is hogwash. It was Suh himself who claimed (while he was with the NSF Engineering Directorate) that “American engineers are overpaid.”
The fact is that this nation has a glut of engineers and scientists. Newly graduated technical professionals are unable to find jobs. Older engineers who have been laid off are told that they are “overqualified.”
As Robert White (who heads the National Academy of Engineering) has stated, “When manufacturing moves offshore, R&D and engineering follow.” This nation is in a deepening high-tech depression. College students are well advised to enter the fields of undertaking or public school teaching. Engineering and science are dead ends.
It is time we face reality and stop trying to seduce the young.
IRWIN FEERST
Committee of Concerned E.E.s
P0. Box 19
Massapequa Park, NY 11762
