For example, I was taking machines apart when I was 7 trying to figure out how they worked. I'd break open resistors to see what was inside - just baffling grey dust. Eventually I took bicycles apart, then engines, then whole cars. It was just foregone that I was going to engineering school.
The notion of substantial motivation or hobby to go into STEM is absolutely ridiculous.
I mean, sure, people can go into any subject, but... if they're to succeed?
Pretty much all the ones I know that are good at it love it. Just like musicians and athletes.
Sure, there are those in it for the money. They're usually the tweeners.
> Nowadays college students are much more practical.
I'm not so sure about that. There's a large number of math avoiders in college, and when they graduate discover their degree is worth a minimum wage job.
The pay isn’t fantastic and your career is basically doing the same thing (with more skill over time) for 30 years. With most of your work a failure.
Even people who liked it often bailed.
Programming is a bit different. You can make a lot of money, have varied jobs and just grin and bear it for the money.
You clearly don't have much exposure to the stem bubble. Overwhelming majority are passionate geeks.
Enjoying your work is not the same thing as obsessing over irrelevant minutia.
When I was a kid I wanted to be a paleontologist. Then I wanted to be a smoke jumper. Now I'm a staff engineer.
Not everyone gets to do what they love. Some of us are just following the money.
The extra cost is just passed on to the consumer, and you gain predictability and managerial prestige.
As an example, Amazon had twice as many people working just on Alexa as there are employees total at JPL. And JPL designs, engineers, builds and operates dozens of groundbreaking spacecraft, including several space telescopes, Mars rovers, and the Voyager programme. JPL needs people with substantial internal motivation, Amazon et al. do not.
I see no purposeful force "shaping" this.
> It is much better for a company to hire 15 people to do one thing, than to hire one brilliant person to do the same.
They would hire the one brilliant person if they could. The trouble is finding them.
Also, brilliant is not the same thing as enjoying the work.
I happen not to agree with them, but leaving that aside they're often that Ok fine, it's a pipeline problem^, but the solution is to address that at every stage, not just the beginning.
(^meaning for example schoolgirls aren't sufficiently interested and encouraged into STEM so university applications are low, so admissions are low, so graduations are low, so job applications are low, so offers are low, so employer gender ratios are low)