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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Jul 31, 2014 - 12:56pm PT
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All the H1Bs I've had the displeasure of working with were definitely not high-end scientists and physicists. They were nasty little mid-level managers who made about $120K and were sending all their earnings back to their Third Word relatives overseas while living here like pigs in ugly little basement apartments. They were not driving the scientific revolution in the US, they were feeding off it and sending the money elsewhere. Perhaps in high-end think tanks, there are H1Bs with brains and talent and big degrees who are contributing immeasurably to the high tech revolution, but I for one have never encountered them. Lots of mid-level people with the equivalent of an AA in the US who work for way less than their American counterparts. Very attractive to management as filler employee who turn out a lot of messy busy work for consultants to clean up later on. I just don't foresee them going back home and creating another Silicon Valley in Bolivia or Peru. They certainly don't contribute to the ski industry in California or Colorado. All their money went into child support payments.
I look out for the ones who claim to have Harvard MBAs or an MSEE from MIT but don't know a thing about Boston or Massachusetts. Always report them to the INS or, better, the FBI. Always a good day at work when an INS agent shows up in the Vice President's office asking for proof of credentials.
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TradEddie
Trad climber
Philadelphia, PA
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Jul 31, 2014 - 01:18pm PT
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All the H1Bs I've had the displeasure of working with were definitely not high-end scientists and physicists. They were nasty little mid-level managers who made about $120K
Few scientists will ever earn much over $100K working as scientists, the only way to higher salaries is to move out of the lab and into management or private consultancy. That's one reason why so many American students shy away from science as a career, and why foreign scientists are more than willing to take their place, if immigration policy would let them, instead of prioritizing for family members of existing immigrants.
I say this as a former H1B1, now US citizen, who pays more in taxes each year than the median US family income and has never sent one penny back.
TE
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jstan
climber
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Jul 31, 2014 - 01:23pm PT
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The 45th Physics Olympiad, a physics competition between high school students from 86 countries was held a week ago.
China, Taiwan, and Korea tied for first place with five gold medals, All the members of these three teams fell in the top 8%. Thailand came in second place with four gold medals and one silver medal. India got 2 gold medals and 2 silver.
The US got 3 gold medals and 2 silver. The five students from the US gaining medals were:
Kevin Fei, Carmel High School, Carmel, IN – Gold
Calvin Huang, Gunn High School, Palo Alto, CA – Gold
Vikram Sundar, The Harker School, San Jose, CA – Gold
Alexander Bourzutschky, Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, MD – Silver
Michael Winer, Montgomery Blair High School, Silver Spring, MD – Silver
Gold is awarded to the top 8%
Silver is awarded to the top 25%
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jul 31, 2014 - 02:17pm PT
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Interesting indeed! Thanks for the link, rockermike, and for the statistics on the latest Physics Olympiad, Jstan.
My family circumstances make me very partial to immigration generally, since my mother is an immigrant, my father was a first generation American, and I have two first cousins with Ph.D.'s (one in physics, one in molecular biology) who emigrated to North America.
Perhaps because my partiality blinds me, I don't get the idea that this discussion is as much about HIB's as it is about American science education. I was particularly attuned to the flunk-out allegation of American university introductory science sequences.
My Berkeley experience was from 1969-1973. David Altman and I were classmates in Chemistry 4A-4B-4C our freshman year. That was supposed to be a course for the best-prepared freshmen, but its grading curve was a weak B-minus. Similar classes in the liberal arts, with the same brain power among the students, probably would have a curve with a weak A-minus.
That obviously isn't a flunk-out scale for science, but it doubtless helped persaude those who took classes for grades rather than for intellectual curiosity to major in other subjects. Before you accuse me of doing the same, though, let me defend myself. The opportunities for intellectual "first ascents" in economics were just too much greater than in, say, chemistry, for me to pass up. Besides, I added a math major so I didn't abandon rigor completely.
;>)
John
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Bruce Morris
Social climber
Belmont, California
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Jul 31, 2014 - 02:45pm PT
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$120 per annum is chump change. That's why H1Bs do it.
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