You know that most STEM graduates don't end up working in STEM fields? It's true and it's not due to a lack of demand.

We hear constantly about the burning hair on fire crisis level shortage of of of STEM grads.

Tech companies dominate our landscape, ranging from everything from artificial intelligence to smart phones, searching the web, blockchain and beyond. Despite the fact that these tech companies dominate the environment, the economy, and the looming global cries for scientific solutions from STEM fields, they're not losing STEM graduates due to a lack of funding. We've in fact poured 1,000,000,000 into STEM programs. Yet despite this, up to 70% of STEM graduates choose not to pursue careers in their fields.

Some studies show about 50% of engineering grads leave before they've even gotten their first job.

So why is that? I had the incredible opportunity to communicate to share these ideas with my UCSD colleague who's a world renowned sociologist, John Scrantney, who recently explored these issues in his wonderful new book, Wasted Education. I know it's not going to be a waste for you to tune in, So let's go. Into the Impossible, John Scranton.

Welcome to the Into the Impossible podcast where we feature for the very first time a a sociologist who is joining us all the way from the other side of campus. John Scranton. Did I pronounce it correctly, John? Close enough?

It's good enough. It's good enough. And that was a long walk.

It was. Yeah. And I'm I'm proud to introduce you to this building. We've never had we've had some socialists on. We've never had a sociologist on the podcast. And so I wanna start with a semi prerogative question, which is you make the case in the in in this wonderful book, Wasted Education. We'll describe the the cover art in the book title and the subtitle in just a bit. But you make the convincing case that, you know, we kind of have this, very ambivalent, very ambiguous message that we send to STEM grad.

I'm a STEM graduate, and yet I claim

that, you know, graduate, and yet I claim that, you know, STEM is sort of our best hope. And I think you agree with it. Do we need more STEM graduates, or do we have enough and we need more sociologist graduates? I mean, where is the lacuna? Where is the gap in what America is churning out versus what we actually need? Is it in the soft sciences, humanities, or really in the step sciences?

That's a great question. And I would say we need more educated people across the board. But I'm with you. We need more scientists and engineers. But the book is about how we need to treat them better. And too many are getting this great education and they're leaving and they're going to do other things. And so the book is really it's kind of a mystery book, really. It starts with a puzzle.

Why is that the majority of STEM grads don't work in STEM jobs when, we hear constantly about the burning hair on fire crisis level shortage of of STEM grads. So that's the puzzle. More than 2 thirds leave. It depends on the data, but it's always a majority leave. And I wanted to figure out why. And the big story is they are just not treated that well. And I do think, and I'm with you, even though I'm a sociologist, it's the scientists and engineers who are going to save the world. Mhmm.

And it's the policymakers who have to develop the right policies to allow them to do that. So that's why I say across the board. Social scientists, humanities, anyone who can communicate well will help develop the policies to, you know, unchain the scientists and engineers or keep them using their skills so that they can save us.

Mhmm. How do you react to this statement? I've I've noticed and, actually, tonight, I'm going to see the world famous San Diego Padres play at the stadium, down at Petco Parkway and, watch them, you know, flail and struggle to beat the Milwaukee, Brewers. Odds are under 50%.

I can't wait for this question because this was quite a segue. Okay.

I claim, we are doing the following. We in academia have set up a system Mhmm. Where to get, from graduate student to post doc Mhmm. Is easier than, you know, me getting on a peewee, you know, football team or a peewee baseball team. Mhmm. Continue the analogy. And it seems actually very easy to even get a postdoc. There's such a dirt.

There's such a hot market. And then immediately, it flips around to go from postdoc, which I'm gonna use in the analogy of this, into the baseball, of triple a baseball. So imagine, like, you could get into play triple a, which is almost literally it's it's almost a major league level caliber. In fact, a lot of major league players get bumped down to get rehabbed and work off their drug addict habits or whatever. I don't know what they do. But but up in up in Escondido, they have a team up there. But to get from postdoc to faculty, we had a job search not long ago, 400 applicants, one position. Are we not doing a tremendous disservice just within academia by setting up this false narrative that you're gonna it's just gonna be the same as making a jump from triple a to the majors, when in fact, it's more like making the jump from Pee wee to the majors.

It's almost impossible.

Yeah. That's a great question. So just to be clear, the book is mostly about the private sector.

Mhmm.