Lack of educational programs limits optoelectronics industry growth
C. BRECK HITZ
Colleges and universities in the United States grant more baccalaureate degrees in playground management than they do in electrical engineering.1 Why is this the biggest single challenge to the long-term growth of the optoelectronics industry? A glance at the graph suggests the answer. Without a growing work force to invent, develop, and manufacture photonics devices in the future, industry growth will become self-limited.
Data in the graph, provided by the US Department of Education (DoE), indicate that there are 22% fewer engineers graduating from US colleges and universities now than there were a dozen years ago. A similar trend exists in physics and other "hard" sciences.
What does the future hold? If the trend is not reversed, 20 years from now a quarter of the senior technology work force will have disappeared. A quarter of the men and women who might conceive and design tomorrow's optical telecommunication components and laser surgical devices won't be there.
Where will they be? Department of Education data show that overall baccalaureate degrees have increased by 20% during the past dozen years, but the growth has been in psychology, law, English, parks and recreation administration, and other nontechnical fields. It looks like there will be a surplus of "shrinks," lawyers, and park rangers in 2020, but far too few engineers and scientists to maintain US technological competitiveness.
At this point a good question to ask is, What does the trend look like for an increase in photonics engineers? Could some types of engineering, such as optical engineering, actually be growing, or at least breaking even? Unfortunately, DoE statistics do not lend themselves to answering this question. The study includes electrical engineers (down a startling 42% over the period covered in the graph) and mechanical engineers (down 12%), but data are not collected on "photonics" or "optics" engineers. Although many American universities and colleges offer a variety of optics and photonics courses, few award degrees in these fields of study. We must realize that the widespread failure to recognize optics and photonics as legitimate curricula—and as legitimate careers—is part of the overall problem.
Multidimensional problem
Like all tough problems, this one is multidimensional and will require an extended effort on the part of many, many people. More effort needs to be made to persuade young people to choose careers in photonics and other technical disciplines. The optoelectronics technology courses offered at American colleges and universities need to be more numerous and more attractive. These are massive institutional and cultural issues that defy quick and easy solutions.
Still, they are not insurmountable. For example, the Laser and Electro-Optics Manufacturers' Association (LEOMA) has successfully implemented an optics-technician program at Yuba College in California. Its first graduates will enter the work force this spring.* LEOMA is also working with the Optical Society of America to place a wealth of information about optics careers on the Coalition for Photonics and Optics Web site.** In addition, the community's professional societies offer short courses across the country throughout the year and frequently provide financial and other aid to students.
Industry challenge
But greater effort is needed. We need to better understand the magnitude of the problem and the enormous variety of solutions. We need to agree on which solutions offer the greatest promise and to work to implement those solutions. With this in mind, LEOMA has teamed with the optoelectronics professional societies and trade associations—IEEE Laser and Electro-Optics Society, Laser Institute of America, Optical Society of America, Optoelectronics Industry Association, and SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering—to organize an Executive Seminar in Washington, DC, June 19-20, 2000. At the seminar, we will examine the problem from different perspectives and will evaluate remedies that have proven successful, as well as those that have been proposed by educators and politicians.***
I urge you to consider attending this important seminar. The problem will not go away by itself. Only if those of us in the technology community, those of us with the foresight to see the implications, tackle this problem together will it even diminish.
REFERENCE
- In 1996, the latest year for which data are available, there were 13,900 BS degrees awarded in electrical engineering and 13,983 awarded in parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies. See US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Higher Education General Information Survey, "Degrees and Other Formal Awards Conferred" surveys and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System "Completions" surveys; http://nces.ed.gov/pubs99/digest98/d98t284.html.
C. Breck Hitz is executive director, LEOMA, Pacifica, CA 94044; e-mail: [email protected].
*Prospective employers of optics technicians can contact LEOMA at [email protected].
**For information on the Coalition for Photonics and Optics Web site, contact LEOMA president Bob Phillippy at [email protected].
***For information on the Executive Seminar on optoelectronics educational programs, visit the LEOMA Web site: www.leoma.com.