Letters to the Editor
-
Amity
While I do agree with your allegations of a systemic problem with science in this country, I don't agree that the academic field has always been the way it is now.
Until WWII, the US as an entity had almost zero interest in scientific and engineering research. Most people don't realize that government entities like NSF, ONR, DARPA, and NIH are in most cases younger than our grandparents.
I seriously considered going the academic route myself as an undergrad engineering student. I finally turned away from that option because of the increasing striation between industry and academia, with most young professors teaching engineering without ever having practiced themselves. This is in some ways indicative of part of the problem: The people willing to toil through school to get into doctoral programs at Ivy League or other similarly-regarded schools are the only ones who had a remote shot at eventually getting tenure-track positions at respected schools, and working in industry is so mind-numbing that advanced degrees are rarely useful except as padding on a resume. The result seems to me a lot like a caste system, at least within engineering. Given that system, most people elect to get their BS and at least earn a few bucks if possible.