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Thursday, February 24, 2011

What STEM professionals say about their careers: Dan Donahue

A lot of attention is currently being given to encourage more students into science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) courses and careers. I have spent my career in the STEM domain and so have many of my best friends. I asked them, after decades working in STEM fields, what are the best and worst about it?

Dan Donahue
Education:  BS Astrophysics, MS Computer Science
Career:  AI researcher, Healthcare web software architect, Game producer, programmer, Consultant, Enterprise SW designer/developer, Video Producer

Three best things about a STEM education/career
  1)    You usually get a pretty good salary
  2)    You get to work in a safe, healthy (if not boring) environment with flexible hours (if you are lucky)
  3)    Your co-workers are often multi-generational, multi-cultural and open-minded

Three worst things
  1)   You'll never get wealthy - that is for the salesmen or business-savvy entrepreneurs
  2)   You're always at risk for losing your job: tech and marketing professionals are always the first to go
  3)    You will never be able to keep up - the new, inexpensive college grads will always know the latest trends and technologies.

Personally, I tell my kids that if you want to make a tangible contribution to the world study science and math or engineering. But don't expect a rewarding career ("STEM" is not generally valued by our society in the way that personality and image are. Anti-intellectualism is rampant and shows no signs of decreasing) - when you have a job it is usually a fair salary, but don't count on having it forever.
If you want to make "big" money or be your own boss, study business and sales.

If I had to do it all over - I'd get a degree in something I enjoyed.

Posted at 9:05 AM Keywords: STEM 4 Comments

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