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APPENDIX C: Vats of Placement Officers Sung: CoDegc Rclabons Discussion Cmup Sleety, April 17, 1986/' 81 "Defense and Nondc~nse Employment The Vow Tom Engincedng Scb-1 Placement O~ces/1 Robed K. Westber~1 (HassachuseMs Institute of Technology), A] 79
SUMMARY: COLLEGE RELATIONS DISCUSSION GROUP MEETING On Apn! 17, 1986, a meeting was held with the College Relations Discussion Group to discuss the NAE project The participants were as follows: Dr. Robert K. Armstrong, E.~. du Font de Nemours & Company, Inc. Mr. George Benymar~, Texas Instruments Mr. Allen G. Bormann, Rockwell International Mr. Edwin A. Butenhof, Eastman Kodak Company Mr. Alan Fechter, National Research Council Mr. Russ Johnson, Digital Equipment Corporation Mr. William J. Kucker, RCA Staff Center Mr. George Lehocky, TRW, Inc. Mr. Walter J. O'Neill, Exxon Corporation Dr. Douglas W. Pelino, Xerox Co~pora~cion Dr. Francine Riley, GTE Mr. Gregory A. VanErt, IBM Corporation Ms. Linda D. Villa, AT&T Ms. Jennifer H. Weixel, 3M Corporation The following points were raised: . . . In general, the firms represented by those attending the meeting had no problems in meeting quantifier and quality goals; potential problems are met by adjusting standards (depending on the position being recruited for)--i.e., difficulties in recruiting in one field are met by recruiting engineers in closely related fields or engineering technologists, or by altenng standards set for GPA. It was generally recognized that these adjustments can involve significant costs, but it was also noted that failure to meet recruiting goals can also have costs, and it is not obvious which type of cost is greater. Problem fields identified included electrical engineering, engineers to work in certain types of combat systems, and certain software engineers. Some of the recnlidng problems were attributed to the "image" of the company. For example, DuPont has problems recruiting electrical engineers because it is not viewed as a prestigious position by these engineers--but DuPont has never had problems recruiting chemical engineers. While these firms may not face major recruiting problems, it was noted that the same conclusions may not apply to smaller firms; it was hypothesized that recruiting problems arising from increases In demand are more likely to be encountered by these firms because they do not possess the image arid the "glamour" (which is presumably valued by graduating engineers) associated with larger firms. In response to a query about sources of supply that are tapped dunug buildup of demand (defense or commercial), they noted Mat they increased their reliance on technologists (a form of quality adjustment) and foreign engineers (although a . 81
. difficulty in utilizing them in defense activity was noted) and then, if that was not enough, they would consider raising the salaries of the positions for which they are recruiting. With respect to defense impact, it was observed that there appeared to be considerably less aversion to work in defense-related activities today than there was in the late 1960s and early 1970s, dunng the height of the Vietnam conflict. It was also observed that the actions of competitors have a more significant impact on the recruiting environment for these firms than does any change in defense-related activity. · In response to a question about possible transfers of employees between defense and nondefense activity when the composition of demand changes, it was noted that it was difficult to affect such shifts of personnel in most fields (the fields of electrical engineering and computer science were identified as notable exceptions to this difficulty). The difficulty was noted especially within firms that engage in both defense and commercial activity. It was stated that engineers who engage in defense work become narrowly specialized in their skills and are therefore not easily shifted to commercial activity when relative demand shifts. To illustrate the lack of mobility, the representative trom Rockwell noted that his company "job-shopped" many of its experienced engineers to other aerospace firms when the Carter administration canceDed the B-1 bomber project; they were therefore able to gear up quickly by recalling these engineers when the project was reinstated. A possible origin of this difficulty is that skill requirements differ significantly between defense and commercial activity, with defense activity more onentect to system/design skins. It was also observed that much of the work in defense activity is undertaken in teams and, as a consequence, recruiters do not fee! as constrained in the types of fields they require for these jobs; specialty field is a much more important qualification for most commercial work. Thus, it is easier to recruit new graduates for defense work. They noted that an alternative to increased recruiting and salanes or adjustments in the requirements for filling their increased quotas would be to alter the utilization of the existing engineering work force. Examples cited of such modifications in utilization policy included keeping m-eve engineers in engineering functions longer, substituting technologists for engineers (in low- level assignments), and increased use of labor-saving technology (e.g., computer aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM), electronic networking, and artificial intelligence (Al). There was also a general expectation that the combination of new technology and the desire to reduce costs to remain competitive could result in reduced work forces (including the engineering work force) in the future (implicit in this expectation is the assumption that the output produced by these firms will probably remain . . . . . . . · at . ,~ · - _ constant or will not grow substantially). · It was also observed that trend increases in the relative costs of relocating experienced workers have been pushing these firms toward greater reliance on new graduates to fd1 their recruiting needs. · In response to a question about whether differences between defense and commercial activity In institutional environments (in particular, the extensive use of cost-plus contracting by DoD) resulted in higher wages paid in defense activity, some participants noted that their experience was quite the opposite-- i.e., that salmes and costs were less controlled in the commercial side of their Walrus. 82
DEFENSE AND NONDEFENSE EMPLOYMENT: THE VIEW FROM ENGINEERING SCHOOL PLACEMENT OFFICES* Robert K. Weatherall Massachusetts Institute of Technology One of the candidates to take Tip O'Neill's place in Congress as representative of the Massachusetts Sth Congressional District, which includes MIT and Harvard in its borders, has chosen as one of her issues the unpact of defense spending on the nondefense engineering labor market. "Every time we buy a Japanese tape recorder or German car," she told MIT students recently, "we're doing it in part because the best of our skilled high- tech people are focusing their attention on weapons systems." Whether her diagnosis is right or wrong, someone calling placement offices at engineering schools around the country quickly finds that what is seen as an issue at MIT is seen as much less of an issue elsewhere, and on some campuses is not seen as an issue at all. Geography greatly affects how an engineering school sees the employment market. Dunng Apn! ~ telephoned ~ ~ placement directors to seek out their views on this subject. In the following sumunary of what they told me, ~ have tned to be as faithful as possible to the emphasis they put on things. If ~ have m~scons~ued them, the blame is entirely mine. Purdue University Richard Stewart reports from Purdue that the biggest recruiter there is General Motors. Many students come from automotive families. Students see GM as high tech. An enormous and highly automated Delco Division plant making chips for automobiles is only 30 miles from Lafayette. Most Purdue students find jobs within a 300 mile radius. Some, who come from what they call "the Region," the area of heavy manufacturing east and south of Chicago, return there. Others interested in electronics go to the electronics firms around Chicago, such firms as Magnavox, Zenith, Northrop, and Motorola. Purdue students refer to them collectively as "Corn Valley." The companies are engaged in defense work and In manufacturing commercial products. To the extent Purdue students are taking jobs with defense firms, it is chiefly with firms in the Midwest. California, with its concentration of aerospace companies, is "pretty far down the list," Stewart says, when it comes to ranking the states where Purdue graduates go to work. Far more students go to work with Northrop In Chicago Can with Northrop In California. Similarly, relatively few Purdue graduates make their way east to Route 128. If there is one company which overcomes the geographic bias, it is IBM: its appeal competes with that of GM. Unfortunately, this year and last, IBM has reduced its recruidug significantly. The placement offices at many other schools commented on IBM's pull as an employer and on the sad fact that its recruiting is down. *I wish to Clank my placement colleagues--Richard Stewart, Chenits Petl:igrew, James Patterson, Kathleen Stanton, Herbert Harmison, Tony van Vliet, Robert Mosberg, James Osborne, Vicki Lynn, Anthony Franzolino, and Linda Gast--for giving me their perspectives on this issue. 83
University of California at Los Angeles In contrast with Purdue, UCLA looks down from its hillside campus on a landscape filled with defense contractors--Hughes, TRW, Aerospace Corporation, McDonnell Douglas, Lockhead, Rockwell, and Northrop, to name a few. According to Dr. Chentis Pettigrew, placement officer for the engineering school, 45 percent of UCLA graduates stay in southern California; and for them He defense sector, and in particular the aerospace industry, is a fact of life. A major portion of every defense doHar (up to 30 or 40 cents, he believes) flows through Los Angeles county. This may be an accurate statistic if it includes the subcontracts performed elsewhere for the prime contractors in Los Angeles. Add or subtract a few percentage points, it is not a business which people in Los\Angeles conceive of going away. As Dr. Pettigrew puts it, "There is no turning away from defense." The two leading recruiters of engineers at UCLA are Hughes and TRW. Then comes IBM, which does not have a major facility in southern California. The next largest recruiters are other defense companies in Los Angeles. Recently, aeronautics and astronautics has gained popularity among the engineering departments at UCLA. The ranking of the departments by size of enrollment used to be (~) EE, (2) mechanical engineering, (3) chemical engineering, and (4) aero and astro. BE is still first, but the subsequent Balking is now (2) aero and astro, (3) mechanical engineering, and (41Nchemical · ~ eng~neermg. Stanford University Move up the coast to Stanford, and the story is different again. There, it is Silicon Valley that beckons, and the exciting companies in the eyes of Stanford students are the entrepreneurial ones, the likes of Intel, Advanced Micro Devices, and Apple--companies venturing their capital and their skills In the civilian market. The most popular large firms are Hewlett-Packard and IBM, both of which are big in the Valley. According to Dr. James Patterson, coordinator of engineering and science advising in the placement office, there is a considerable debate among Stanford students about working in defense. He thinks that the best students seek out the entrepreneurial civilian companies. He says tliat with the defense buildup and softness in the civilian high-tech market, there has probably been an increase in the number of graduates joining defense companies, but he does not think this means that they will stay there. The technologies on the two sides of the line are similar enough so that when things improve on the civilian side, those who want to move win be able to do so. ~ . University of California at Berkeley Across the bay at Berkeley, the issue of defense versus nondefense is seen in much more lively terms; perhaps it is geography again. Silicon Valley and Lawrence Iivermore are roughly an equal distance away--the one an hour's Dive soup over the Bay Bndge, the other an hour east over the Berkeley hills. And Livermore is part of the University of California. Or perhaps it is simply Berkeley being Due to itself. Students have been increasingly concerned about recruiting by the defense sector. Kathleen Stanton, an advisor in the university placement office, told me that there had been recent demon- strations against General Dynamics and the CIA. The placement office has "several huge binders," she says, containing news clippings and other matenal on the social implications of technology to defense. A professor of physics who has been active in collecting data on the percentage of the nation's technical graduates going into defense work has reduced his teaching to give less help to the defense companies. Berkeley students are drawn strongly ~ 634
to Silicon Valley (Kathleen Stanton says the students favor Hewlett-Packard and other civilian high-tech companies there), but the current sIow-down in the semiconductor and computer industnes has led an increasing number to take jobs with the defense companies in southern California. The availability of a job is a more important factor with many engineering students than whether it is In defense or not. Iowa State University Other engineering schools stand at venous points along this spectrum. Iowa State, for example, has been affected by the loss of jobs at such local companies as John Deere and Caterpillar Tractor. At the same time. as Herbert Harrison outs it. Iowa is near the . - , ~ , bottom ot the 11st of states In defense spending. With the lock employment market in poor shape, graduates have been going out of state, some to Illinois but more heading west to Colorado, California, Washington, and Oregon. Harmison thinks that half, or more, of the electrical engineers have been going with defense companies, such firms as Boeing and McDonnell Douglas. There has been very little concern about defense company recruiting. He has no sense that students are "turned off' by defense work. Oregon State University Oregon State has two different industnes in its backyard--forest products and high- tech. The forest products industry is depressed, depressing the Oregon economy in general, while the high-tech sector has been a boon to Oregon during the past decade but just now is in a holding pattern. Dr. Tony vanVIiet, Oregon State's placement director, says that the local high-tech companies--such firms as Intel, Hewlett-Packard, Floating Point Systems, Tektronix, and Mentor Graphics--are highly appealing to Oregon State students. A number of students declare an aversion to working in defense and will steer away from it if they can. Although Dr. vanVIiet has not seen a jump in defense recruiting, he believes Hat opportunities in the defense sector have been providing a counterweight to the reduced opportunities on the civilian side: 30-40 percent of Oregon State's graduates go out of state, and a fair share go to such firms as Hughes and McDonnell Douglas. University of Illinois Acording to Robert Mosberg, assistant dean and placement director at the University of Illinois eng~neenng school, employers in Patois get the largest fraction of the school's graduates, and California receives the next largest group. Individual companies hiring large numbers of graduates include IBM, General Motors, McDonnell Douglas, Motorola, AT&T, Hughes, Commonwealth Edison, Westinghouse, GE, Northrop, Arthur Andersen (in its management information systems consulting division), United Technologies, Harris, and Rockwell. McDonnell Douglas has a major facility In St Louis; Motorola and Commonwealth Edison are outside Chicago, and Northrop, as we have seen, also has a plant near Chicago. Dean Mosberg says that there has been some student concern about working ~ defense. Georgia Institute of Technology Dr. lames Osborne, placement director at Georgia Tech, says that he has seen a 85
definite increase in defense company recruiting. Several of the most active reuniters this year were defense companies from the southeast and from California. IBM, which had been the most prominent recruiter on campus, stepped aside this year. In Dr. Osborne's view, recruiting by the defense sector made up for reduced recruiting by the computer industry. On the other hand, Georgia Tech has a major interest in manufacturing systems R&D, and this was a good year for students in that area. In Osborne's words, "manufactunng is more sexy than it used to be." The most exciting applications of the new manufacturing technology are in high-volume production, which means chiefly civilian industry, of which the automobile industry is a prime example. In contrast with other engineering schools In the South, Georgia Tech draws up to 40 percent of its students from out of state, and 50 percent of the graduates go out of state to work. Dr. Osborne thinks there is a hesitancy about working in the defense sector, but chiefly because students are wary of the defense sector's ups and downs. The bin layoffs in the early '70s are still Hi. . . . . . remem beret .. -tne students favor companies with a record of stability, Dr. Osborne says and mentions such companies as Dow, Proctor & Gamble, DuPont, IBM, and GE. He concedes that GE is on both sides of the line, having both defense and nondefense ~ · · ~ clvlslons. University of Maryland Like UCLA, the University of Maryland is surrounded by organ~zabons involved In defense work. Indeed, the Pentagon itself is only 10 miles away. Dr. Linda Gast, director of the university's career development center, reports that 60-70 percent of the students in engineering take jobs either with defense contractors in the area or with federal agencies. The ratio is up to 35 percent in computer science and mathematics. A very large proportion Of the students come from the Washington area and most want to stay. They can be enticed to Baltimore, but a company like McDonnell Douglas has a devil of a time persuading any to go to St. Louis or to California. Gast says that students at Maryland hold the defense establishment in very high esteem: if anything, they are prejudiced in favor of government agencies and contractors. She wonders how Gra~run-Rubman will affect the picture. She wrote her Ph.D. thesis on the career decisions of graduating engineers, and she agrees with other placement directors ~ caned that their ambitions have been changing: they want broader advancement opportunities, they want work that will involve people interaction, and they want a good and rising income. Many take a look at both technical and nontechnical opportunities. It is less and less easy to find He stereotypical engineer of the past who was happy to be given a project and left alone. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute The companies hiring the most graduates at RPT according to the placement director, Vicki Lynn, are in rough order the following: IBM, GE, Raytheon, Digital Equipment, General Motors, United Technologies, AT&T, Arthur Andersen (for MIS consulting), Procter & Gamble, Boeing, Hughes, McDonnell Douglas, and General Dynamics. A year or two ago, the list would have included Signetics. The list includes many defense contractors; arid Lynn thinks that while some students are unwilling to work for a defense company, many others are excited by state-of-the-art defense technology. She says ROTC is big at RPI, "there is a resurgence of patriotism," and students are "gung-ho." They talk about wanting to work on the design of fighter planes, about the excitement of Star Wars. She thinks they are attracted to the very hugeness of these undertakings. Seventy-five percent of RPI students come from the northeast. Roughly 70 86
percent find jobs in the northeast, another 12 percent take jobs in California, and the southeast attracts the smallest percentage. Massachusetts Institute of Technology As Vicki Lynn often tells me, MIT is very different. MIT sees the defense nondefense issue in much the same terms as Berkeley. However much Berkeley feels the pull between the defense sector and civilian high-tech, MIT certainly does. It is the university receiving the most research support from the Department of Defense and at the same time it has provided much of Be technical insp~rabon and leadership behind Route 128. Preoccupations with defense technology are balanced by intense anxieties about defense policies and the impact of defense spending on civilian needs. The facula includes individuals who have advised the Pentagon at the highest levels and individuals who have been leading critics of the m~litary-~ndustnal nexus; In some cases they are the same people. The Strategic Defense Initiative has sharpened these polarities, and last year the faculty appointed a committee on MIT's military involvement under the chairmanship of Car! Kaysen. I became interested several years ago in the question, "To what extent does a student body that got a training in research funded out of government research grants and contracts go to work with establishments funded in the same way?" In 1981 ~ began sorting out the destinations of students who provided enough information on their graduation questionnaire to let us distinguish between a division of a company doing government-contract work (like IBM at Manassas, Virginian and a division making civilian products (like IBM at Burlington, Vermont). ~ now have results for four years--198 l, 1982, 1984, and 1985. Table ~ includes graduates in all the fields of engineering and science represented at MIT, at all degree levels, who did not take stnctly academic jobs TABLE I: Destination of MIT Science and Engineering Graduates Not Taking Strictly Academic Jobs or Entering the Military (in percent) Employer 1980-81 1982-83 1983-84 1984-85 Private firms* selling primarily to a commercial market 68.0 64.7 62.9 60.5 Private fins* working primarily on government contacts 21.6 25.9 26.4 26.9 Fed~ly-funded laboratories Lincoln, Draper, Sandia, etc.) 5.0 3. 1 4.3 5.5 Government agencies 3.8 4.1 3.7 2.6 Non-prof~t organizations (e.g.,hospitals) 1.6 2.2 3.7 4.5 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 N=504 N=456 N=375 N=506 *Or division of private firms. 87
TABLE 2: Distribution of MIT Science and Engineering Graduates Between Companies Pnmanly in a Commercial Market and Companies* Doing Government Contract Work, 1983-1984 Degree Commercial Government Contract Bachelor's N= 100 35 73.5% 26.5% median salary = $28,000 $28,000 Master's N= 78 47 62.4% 37.6% median salary = $31,400 $31,800 Doctorate N = 35 13 72.9% 27.1% median salary = $40,000 $40,008 * Companies or divisions of companies. NOTE: Data based on graduating students reporting salary. (e.g., as faculty members, academic research staff, or postdocs) and who were not in the military (e.g., ROTC students, military officers sent to HOT for an advanced degree, etc.) The table includes foreign students taking jobs in this country but not foreign students returning abroad. The majority of students take jobs with private Inns selling products or services in the commercial market, but there clearly has been a drift away from the commercial to the gove~nment-con~act side, which for the most part means defense firms. MIT draws its students, undergraduate as well as graduate, from all over the county, and they scatter ah over the country when they get their degrees. In spite of Route 128, only 30 percent of the electrical engineers stay in Massachusetts, and less than a quarter of the graduates in the other S&E disciplines stay in the Bay State. In making my calls ~ asked if the best students sorted themselves differently between the defense and nondefense sectors than the generality of students. Some of the placement directors said quickly that the best go to graduate school. Several commented that the difference between the best and the less-than-best was a fine one in electrical engineenug because enrollment restrictions had raised the standards for entry into Me field. Dr. Pettigrew reported that the verbal aptitude scores of engineering majors at UCLA, as well as their math scores, were the highest among ad the undergraduate schools at UCLA. Many directors thought the best students sorted themselves no differently than the gen- erality. More than one pointed out that the most esteemed place to go in terms of the quality of its R&D was Bell Laboratories. They Nought that the pull of such places as Murray Hill and Yorktown Heights was more than a match for He defense laboratories. James Osborne at Georgia Tech volunteered the thought that students considered IBM more exciting than any of the big aerospace companies. ~ . . ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ . ~ . . . Some rather skimpy data from MIT showing destination by degree level twn~ch perhaps can be taken as a proxy for academic ability) suggests that master's degree graduates may be more inclined than bachelor's to choose the defense sector, but that Ph.D.s sort themselves in the same way as bachelors (see Table 21. 88
Summary Several placement directors clearly saw the current demand for people in the defense sector as a fortunate counterweight to diminished opportunities on the civilian side. Most conscious of all the softness on the civilian side was Anthony Franzolino, placement director at the University of Texas engineering school, who commented on the sad state of the petroleum ~ndus~y. ~ called him the same day Exxon reported that it had sent notices to 40,000 employees inviting them to leave the company. Others remarked on the withdrawal of the chemical industry from campus recruiting. The defense sector has helped to maintain a demand for graduating engineers and scientists. It is not the only sector which has been recruiting actively, but it is an important one. Richard Stewart drew attention to the fundamental vitality of the market for engineers, from whatever source it draws its strength. Out of 650 companies who recruited at Purdue in 1984-85, 130 were there for the fast time. ~ also asked about the motivation of students in choosing engineenng. Several talked about the good staring salanes In engineering, the influence of parents and guidance counselors, and the way In which a student was likely to be nudged towards engineering if he or she enjoyed mathematics and physics in high school. Surpnsingly few talked about students being fascinated with engineering or wanting to study engineering so that they could improve the world. Those who carried the topic further suggested complex motives. Dr. Pettigrew at UCLA, after mentioning the high verbal scores of engineering students, said that students saw an engineering education as a way of gaining "organizational access." They were not passionate about engineering; the choice of engineering was a practical matter with them. They looked beyond the entry-level job to where it could lead them up the organizational ladder. Robert Mosberg at Illinois and James Osborne at Georgia Tech echoed this idea that the organizational ladder was important. Tony vanVIiet at Oregon State and James Patterson at Stanford pointed to students' entrepreneurial ambitions and their desire to manage. Both alluded to students' interest in the opportunities for technically-tra~ned people in the financial community. ~ see many of these Baits among the engineering students at MIT, quite a few of whom come from engineering families. Some have shared with us their observations of their parents' careers: in many cases they see their fathers "stuck" in mid- to late career in jobs which have not evolved significantly over We years, win similarly stagnant salary growth; and they are anxious to find broader, more vaned work and more glamorous, rewarding careers. It is widely agreed that the character of engineering students has been changing. Last year's National Academy of Sciences report, Engineering Education and Practice in the United States, made the following statements: Professors and employers alike refer to the dramatically higher communication and social skills of engineering students and recent graduates as compared to past stereotypes of the engineer. This trend may relate to a long-term shift in student socioeconomic levels overall. In the view of engineering deans and professors on the committee, today's engineenng student (i.e., since the niid-1970s) tends increasingly to come from a niiddie-ciass, professional family background rather than the noncollege background that characterized many young engineers in the period after World War IT. The predominance of such young people in engineering schools is now very song. On balance, they have a richer 89
educational and cultural background and are more confident, more assertive than engineering students of years past. Our m~nd-set is still to think of engineers "unidimensionally," as an MIT student complained to me, as if they are one-track people wholly and solely committed to doing engineering. We perpetuate the image at meetings like these when we construct models of the flow of engineers into and out of the labor market as if they were as undifferentiated as barrels of of} or pork bellies. Engineering faculty perpetuate the image when the only career goal they recognize is being an engineer. If the only thing an engineering graduate wants is to do engineenng, then (assuming salanes are in reasonable equilibrium) the choice between the defense sector and the civilian sector depends entirely on which offers the most exciting, or interesting, engineering. On this basis the defense sector may be the winner, although there is lots of engineering on the civilian side today which is exciting enough--e."., the development of faster and faster integrated circuits, the architecture of parallel processing computers and of local area networks, the introduction of increasingly intelligent automation in manufacturing, other applications of artificial intelligence, bioengineering. It is worth thinking, "What symbolizes high-tech these days?" In the '60s the symbol was Project Apollo, a government project, and the people we wanted to beat in the race to the moon were our military rivals, the Russians. Today the symbol is the m~Uion-gate computer chip, and our rivals are He commercial Japanese. But if the engineer is a more complex person and wants more from his or her career than simply the opportunity to do engineering, thenthe choice between companies is based on multiple cntena. In my expenence, engineering students are increasingly interested in employment In which they win be interacting with other people. They also want to become managers and decision-makers. They are attracted to the fast track and the front office. Many would like to start their own companies. Napoleon used to say that every corporal In the French army carried a field marshal's baton in his knapsack. ~ am persuaded that at least one in two MIT students has a draft of a business plan. Evidence of the interest in management is the large proportion of engineering students who are interested in business school. For the last two years during the mid-winter break, ~ have mn a series of talks on jobs for technical graduates which do not involve hands-on technical work. Up to a hundred students have turned out to hear young technical graduates Elk about their work in investment banking, management consuming, management information systems consulting, and international finance. This spring two recruiters from Wall Street who told of the excitement of using MIT skills to mode! the financial markets were recent Ph.D.s in physics. An engineering student whose ambitions are of this sort is more likely to seek out a commercial company than a defense contractor. It offers a greater variety of challenges, from straight technical work to opportunities in manufacturing, product management, sales and marketing, and business planning. Other factors also tilt the scales against the defense sector. Many of Me best-known defense contractors have the reputation of being overwheLningly large and bureaucratic, of putting hundreds of engineers together in rooms the size of playing fields, of giving the young engineer very little chance of casings any product his own. Few are known for Be quality of their management. A recent book which purports to list the 100 best companies to work for in America includes 19 high-tech fines, but only 3 (GE, Control Data, and Moog) are into defense work in a significant way. 2 Often the product line of one defense National Academy of Sciences, Engineering Education and Practice in the United States: Foundations of Our Techno-Econortuc Future, Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1985, pp. 73,74. 2Robert Levering, Milton Moskovim, and Michael Katz, The 100 Best Companies to Work for in America, New York: Addison-Wesley, 1984, p. 370. 90
contractor is hard to distinguish from that of another. Aerospace firms can point to their planes or satellites, but there is little for an outsider to latch onto when it comes to different systems of vehicle condom, or different radar systems, or different systems for battlefield communication. The names that insiders know them by, consisting so often of acronyms, are gibberish to an outsider. And defense companies, by and large, are not noted in placement offices for being particularly skillful or discnminating in their recruiting. The firms who put the most thought and effort into it are mostly firms competing in the commercial marketplace. For all kinds of reasons, the civilian sector is not a pushover in the contest for good engineers. Contrary to comments in the press and the expectations of many who have not looked at the data, the defense sector does not pay larger salanes. The College Placement Council, which collects information on starting salanes from placement offices, tabulates the offers to bachelor's degree recipients by industry. This year's offers to bachelors in electrical engineering, computer science, and mechanical engineering are shown for selected industries in Table 3. When one looks at data from the professional societies on the salaries of their members (for example, the IEEE's biennial salary surrey), one does not find the defense sector ahead there either. TABLE 3: Monthly Salaries for Bachelor's Degree Recipients, 1986 Field of Bachelor's Degree Electrical Computer Mechanical Industry Engineering Science Engineenng Aerospace $2390 $2262 $2333 Automotive&Mechan~calEquipment $2420 $2214 $2333 Chemicals, Drugs, & Allied Products $2482 $2272 $2448 Computers & Business Machines $2381 $2213 $2326 Electrical & Electronic Machines $2375 $2278 $2323 & Equipment Petroleum & Allied Products Utilides $2468 $2262 $2508 $2367 $2220 $2353 SOURCE: CPC Salary Survey, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania: The College Placement Council, March 1986, pp. 6, 7. 91
