I read Rob Preston's column "A Foreign Concept" with great interest. I think I can answer somewhat why the children of high-tech professionals aren't going into the same careers as their parents.
I work for a large telecommunications company. I have more than 20 years of IT/engineering experience, with graduate degrees in electrical engineering and business administration. I bought into the fallacy that education is the key to a good job and a good future. What I have found instead is that advancement has more to do with nepotism, paternalism and cronyism.
My situation is hardly unique. I've seen individuals with electrical engineering doctorates and numerous other distinctions passed over for promotions in favor of Billy-Bob's cousin with a BA in art appreciation. I know of one electrical engineering Ph.D. who quit his job after six months because he was fed up with the technical ignorance prevalent at the company.
My employer pays me a significant amount of money to perform tasks that any high school student could accomplish. For the same pay, I would gladly do interesting technology work if it existed within this company. I should point out that the company is a large outsourcer of IT jobs.
As far as I can see, the intellectual infrastructure of this country is being quickly destroyed. And large corporations are the major culprits. The problem isn't that there aren't enough Americans with technology skills-it's that most of us give up and move on to other areas. The vast majority of advanced-degreed individuals I know are biding their time to either start their own enterprises or work for smaller-and, hopefully, more benevolent-companies.
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