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jfuqua
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Joined: July 26th, 2002, 11:41 am

Next Generation of Quants

May 21st, 2008, 2:40 pm

The New York Times May 17 has an article about how students IN Japan moving away from the sciences to law, business, medicine, etc.. Various TV programs and articles have featured first generation Americans [esp. in science and engineering] who bemoan that their children are already giving up interest in science and engineering for law, business, etc.. I've suspected that the second generation [or even first if either is <25] would fall prey to this. It is a bit surprising to see that it has hit Japan. On the university campus I see Asian and other nationialities and what appear to be Nth generation Americans, spending more time on cell phones and IPods---and constantly having to leave library reading rooms to take phone calls. If Nth generation Americans [as well as other nationalities] can survive getting hit by cars as they walk into traffic and other obstacles while listening to their surgically attached cell phones and IPods, the next generation of scientists, engineers and quants may be much more homogeneous. Unfortunately that will probably be regression to the mean for both immigrant and non-immigrant groups.
 
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KackToodles
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Next Generation of Quants

May 21st, 2008, 4:16 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: jfuqua the next generation of scientists, engineers and quants may be much more homogeneous. that's because everyone knows there will not be another generation of scientists/engineers in US. science and engineers will be outsourced to india and pakistan. US mainly needs office workers to supervise the outsource workers.
 
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jfuqua
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Joined: July 26th, 2002, 11:41 am

Next Generation of Quants

May 21st, 2008, 4:49 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: KackToodlesQuoteOriginally posted by: jfuqua the next generation of scientists, engineers and quants may be much more homogeneous. that's because everyone knows there will not be another generation of scientists/engineers in US. science and engineers will be outsourced to india and pakistan. US mainly needs office workers to supervise the outsource workers.========================I don't know if I believe this news story posted on PBS's "Foreign Exchange"'Brain gain' for India as elite returnTop-range salaries tempt back tens of thousands of highly skilled Indians who had moved to the WestAmelia Gentleman in New Delhi The Observer, Sunday April 20 2008 Article historyAbout this articleClose This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday April 20 2008 on p34 of the World news section. It was last updated at 00:00 on April 20 2008. Ashutosh Gupta's home in Richmond Park has all the lifestyle comforts that many educated Indians of his generation left India to attain - lush and peaceful gardens, a gym, a pool and, most important, unwavering electricity and water supplies.This luxury block in the ultra-modern Delhi suburb of Gurgaon (about 4,000 miles from Richmond, London) houses several hundred Indian families who have recently returned from living in the West, part of a 'reverse brain drain' migration which is gathering speed.Indian politicians are beginning to highlight, approvingly, the emerging phenomenon of 'brain gain', as large numbers of Indian-born executives decide that job opportunities and living conditions are as good, if not better, in India and make their way home.Gupta, 38, moved to this gated enclave after 15 years spent studying and later working as a Goldman Sachs banker in New York and London. 'Ten years ago, if I had considered moving back, people would have questioned my sanity, and assumed I couldn't hack it in the US,' he said. 'Now everyone recognises that India is a very exciting place. There are tens of thousands of people like me making the decision to return.'A survey published last week showed that graduates from India's most prestigious universities, the Indian Institutes of Technology (known as IITs), increasingly see India as the best place in the world to base themselves. Until about five years ago large numbers of these elite graduates would abandon home at the first opportunity to take up well-paid jobs or to continue their education in the US and Europe.Between 1964 and 2001 (when the economy was sluggish), 35 per cent of the nation's most promising graduates moved abroad, according to research conducted by the Delhi-based organisation, Evalueserve, but from 2002 onwards (the period when India's GDP began to soar) only 16 per cent chose to leave. Now, the research suggests, the West no longer seems synonymous with wealth and opportunity. Asked to predict which country would 'hold the most promise for success' in 10 years' time, 72 per cent of the 677 IIT graduates surveyed named India, with only 17 per cent citing the US, 5 per cent Europe, and just 2 per cent China. The number who feel the US offers a better standard of living than India has fallen since 2001 from 13 per cent to almost zero. The study is a clear sign that the lamented flight of India's best students, which has troubled the government for decades, may be reversing, in tandem with the turnaround in economic prospects.The Indian government does not compile figures of the numbers of people emigrating or returning, but Alok Aggarwal, chairman of Evalueserve, who wrote the report, said the trend of returning Indians 'seemed to be very strong'. The pull of the West remained powerful for many Indians, he said, 'but at the very top level of graduates, the smart choice now is to stay'. The flow of reverse migration has been particularly striking in the southern Indian IT city of Bangalore, where research published last year estimated that more than 40,000 Indian technology professionals had arrived back from the US and the UK to take up work.Aggarwal, now 48, left India after graduating from an IIT in the 1980s and moved to the US. 'There was a lot of guilt associated with the decision to leave. We felt like rats leaving a sinking ship. But at the time there were few employment opportunities here,' he said. In the late 1980s Delhi did not seem a very alluring place to return to; even getting a phone line installed involved a wait of about two and a half years.Now the decision to choose India is much easier. Jobs are plentiful and, armed with good salaries, the newly returned can cocoon themselves in gated Western-style ghettoes, which shut out any trace of the ever-present slums, squalor and poverty. The golf clubs of Delhi and neighbouring Gurgaon are full of recently returned Indians. Gupta said his switch to a private equity job in Delhi was partly motivated by a desire to spend more time with his parents, and partly down to his sense that he could do much more with his talents in India, than he could in London. 'I would sit at my desk on Fleet Street, read about what was happening in India and I'd ask myself: What am I doing here? It was an obvious choice to return.' But the transition was painful. 'After so many years away, it was a shock to be back. The traffic, the chaos, it all takes a bit of adjustment.' But living alongside hundreds of other 'like-minded returnees' had helped to dull the culture shock.Yusuf Hatia, India vice-president of the public relations firm Fleishman-Hillard, was conscious that his decision to return to live in Mumbai a year ago, with his wife and young son, was a peculiar mirror of his parents' choice to emigrate to the UK, when he was aged three, in 1975. 'My parents left India for the UK for economic reasons, and because they believed that they could give me a better education there,' he said, adding that the same reasons - the appeal of good schools, better lifestyle, and well-paid and interesting work - had persuaded him to move back. His shift from Hackney to India's business capital has afforded him a full-time nanny, a driver and private education for his son 'without any of it seeming a ridiculous luxury'. The cost of renting an apartment (about £5,000 a month, and rising) was an unexpected shock.'A lot of my family who are of Indian origin, living in Britain, thought I was pretty crazy. They still see India as a place to escape from, a place of poverty, not somewhere to come and do business,' he said. 'Of course, India is still a place of poverty, but in the business world there is an extraordinary sense of optimism. The long term prospects for working here are better.'
 
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DominicConnor
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Next Generation of Quants

May 21st, 2008, 5:50 pm

America has always been a large net importer of talent.In the 17th century this was such a problem that England enacted laws to stop certain important skilled people immigrating.This included the makers of wallpaper.The thing that is going wrong is that creationists have taken control of the US immigration system and is preventing many smart people from moving to the USa, or kicking out those wh orepresent not only a substantial investment in education, but also a strong net present value.The quality of racism in the USA has gone down.Previously they at least screwed over the "right" people. When Christians enacted rules to stop "too many" Jews going to US universities, they at least managed to identify people as Jewish with respectable accuracy. Ditto blacks, etc.Sadly, Creationism and its attendant defects have really fucked with their brains, and now we have a novel form of racism whereby people are screwed for being "perceived Moslerms", and so Sikhs, Buddhists, and fellow born again Christians are booted out because they sound Moslem to the morons who run homeland security.I see a lot of this.
 
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LTrain
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Joined: June 23rd, 2004, 6:42 pm

Next Generation of Quants

May 21st, 2008, 6:04 pm

I agree with the basic premise that science and engineering is becoming de-emphasized. I could write a novel about the changing character (not for the better) of the sciences in the US. I see a strong attitude emerging that science is a lower level skill which should only be used as a stepping stone to something better. How many in these forums are moving from Physics, EE, CS, Math to finance for a better deal?? But.. I'm confused why you think engineering and quant are becoming more homogeneous. I think they are becoming less creative and less in-demand. Anyone who actually succeeds through straight business or by using engineering as a mere stepping stone will necessarily perpetuate the attitude. I do see the proliferation of small businesses and individuals selling stuff, marketing stuff, and the proliferation of support roles for these activities. Less 'real' products and technologies seem to be in the pipeline. (or maybe I'm just exhibiting the usual middle age mistrust of the next generation}
 
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veeruthakur
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Next Generation of Quants

May 21st, 2008, 6:35 pm

QuoteOriginally posted by: KackToodlesQuoteOriginally posted by: jfuqua the next generation of scientists, engineers and quants may be much more homogeneous. that's because everyone knows there will not be another generation of scientists/engineers in US. science and engineers will be outsourced to india and pakistan. US mainly needs office workers to supervise the outsource workers.Pakistan? What are you outsourcing?