America's young people are stumbling over one another to become lawyers, politicians, entertainers, and investment bankers. There are few indications that society needs more practitioners of any of these professions, and a great many statistics indicating the reverse. Why, then, do young people continue to flock to these occupations, rather than to the more economically productive ones relating to science and engineering?

Partly, this is due to science's reputation for being abstruse. Hopefully, the reader, having come this far, has been disabused of this illusion. Few people develop a dislike for science in adulthood; the story begins, naturally enough, with grade-school education. The American educational system is such that its students receive their first significant exposure to science at the high-school level, by which time they are rarely enthused by new ideas. High-school science and math programs are further impaired by the very utility of what they teach; it is rare to find truly meritorious individuals who are willing to teach these subjects at the high-school level, when far more lucrative opportunities beckon elsewhere. I was fortunate enough to have been educated by some of them, at a public school no less, but most of my peers were not so lucky. They thus complete high school with their interest in science diminished and their backgrounds lacking.

Students' first opportunity to select coursework occurs in college, at which time their professors begin a struggle for their hearts and minds. The odds are stacked heavily in favor of their humanities and social-science professors, for a variety of reasons. First of all, the natural sciences are hard. To be sure, people have varied aptitudes in different fields, and some find solving statistical mechanics problems easier than writing papers about Dickens. Still, on the whole, scientific areas of study demand a great deal of logical rigor, sharp analytical skills, and the ability to work with quantitative as well as qualitative information. An eighteen-year-old is offered a choice between a scientific curriculum, whose workload sometimes borders on the excruciating, and a far less taxing one in the humanities or social sciences. Selecting the more challenging option delivers not reward, but punishment: grades in the sciences are almost universally lower than those in the humanities and social sciences.

The consequences of this decision are distant (four years is an eternity to an adolescent) and unclear. They are further obscured by the fact that at a great many liberal- arts universities, students are told repeatedly that their choice of major is irrelevant to their future plans. As with most fallacies, this has a grain of truth in it; the selection of specific courses and majors rarely restricts a person to a narrow range of post-college opportunities. Still, these decisions go a long way towards opening some doors and closing others.

When there is a greater demand for practitioners of one field rather than another, one usually expects the superior opportunities and wages of the former to draw individuals who will meet that demand. However, there is a market failure in the form of college students lacking information that will influence their decision-making process at a critical stage. By the time they are more fully informed, their academic careers are already irreversibly non- scientific. As a result, a disproportionate number of them enter fields which are already oversaturated, such as law, investment banking, and government, which require few prerequisites in terms of academic experience.

Many of those going to law school, in particular, assert that they do not intend to be practicing lawyers, but only to gain a background in law--that is, they view a law degree as an extension of their liberal-arts educations. It is true that having a knowledge of how our legal system operates can be helpful, but there are many pitfalls with this approach. As a law student, one learns the art of confrontation, which is already too well-practiced in American society. Moreover, most legal situations represent a zero-sum game; i.e., a gain for me is a loss for you and vice-versa. Instead of expanding the economic pie, law students learn to reallocate it, always taking a hefty slice for themselves. A great many law students also cite the desire to "save the world" as a primary reason for choosing law school, though today's social problems are rarely susceptible to legal cures. If anything, the growing morass of litigation, spurred by masses of lawyers hungry for work, is exacerbating many of these problems, both directly and by limiting the rate of economic growth. Excessive litigation hurts all of us by raising our insurance rates, inhibiting our entrepreneurship, and making us more combative toward one another. The much-prized rule of law, the underpinning of both a civilized society and of a system of commerce dependent on the enforcement of contracts, is being undermined; due to the overcrowded state of their profession, lawyers must seek novel approaches and overinterpretations, leaning on the law until it bends and finally breaks. Rule by law is being replaced by rule by lawyers. It is in society's interest for students to find an aspiration other than law school, that they may more effectively contribute to the social and economic betterment of their communities.

Moreover, a disturbing number of recent college graduates view law school as a stepping-stone to achieving their political aspirations. Too many of them believe that they are destined, by virtue of their name-brand educations and oversized egos, to attain high office. The ambition of such individuals is scarcely tempered by knowledge, much less by wisdom.

Other students are, in the absence of good ideas about what to do in the world beyond college, falling upon the default option of pursuing Ph.D. programs in their undergraduate majors. Most of these people expect to be able to find positions in academia, though the statistics argue otherwise: prospects in the academic job market are generally bleak and growing progressively worse. It is hard to imagine that there will ever be a sufficient number of positions in academia available to satisfy the ambitions of the many whose advanced degrees are of limited applicability in the world beyond the ivory tower.

Many of these aspiring academics were inspired by specific courses during their first year or two of college. Generally, the level of interest generated by various classes contributes to students' predilection for the humanities. The most fascinating aspects of science are generally beyond the comprehension of the beginner, and can only be presented in higher-level courses; introductory science courses, like introductory language courses, are often unexciting. This problem is further exacerbated by campus conversations over meals and the like. People want to discuss ideas which are easily comprehensible, such as their professor's view on the American Revolution, rather than the subtleties of scientific issues. To be sure, earlier chapters of this book have demonstrated the importance of scientific ideas in non-scientific areas, but few individuals are aware of such linkages. If there are "cult profs" on campus--individuals whose research generates great interest among the student body as a whole, and even beyond the campus world--one can be sure that nearly all of these are in the humanities and social sciences, for the same reasons.

Nor are scientists without blame in their own difficulties in attracting students. Many have limited interpersonal skills, and some have little interest in teaching. Others see it as their duty to "weed out" students of lesser abilities from their courses, so as to keep the elite small and improve their own sense of self-worth. While introductory textbooks in some scientific fields are well-written, few advanced ones are. There is nothing more disappointing to eager college students than struggling along with a professor and a text which together destroy the allure of a field in which they had previously had some interest.

Yet another factor in discouraging students from pursuing scientific and engineering studies is the frequency of press reports indicating that traditional jobs in these professions are disappearing. It is true that a 1950s engineer might spend days drafting a graph or design which now takes a few minutes to prepare on a computer. Most of the scientific calculations relating to the construction of the first atomic bomb, which took the most brilliant individuals of the century years to complete, could now be performed in seconds. Advanced experimental technology, including machines utilizing new materials and techniques, has made it possible for experiments to be carried out with much greater efficiency than previously.

Many of the semi-skilled aspects of careers in science and engineering have thus been eliminated. However, this does not by any means indicate that career opportunities in these fields are diminishing. Traditional positions are disappearing, but at a time when scientific backgrounds, approaches, and skill sets are in demand as never before. In an increasingly technical world, there is an ever-greater need for leadership in every field by those with technical backgrounds. A growing number of corporate executives, and others whose job responsibilities are not specifically "technical," have scientific or engineering backgrounds. Moreover, scientists and engineers are being ever more eagerly sought after by recruiters for non-technical or only partly technical positions. Somehow, though, reports on these phenomena are not so loudly trumpeted by journalists (how many of whom have scientific degrees?) as scaremongering reports such as those described above. To be sure, there are exceptions; the Philadelphia Inquirer, which recently ran several stories on the lack of job opportunities for scientists, has since argued that "with the proliferation of technology in society, the number of career opportunities in science and technology is ever increasing." Generally speaking, though, the popular media play a great part in discouraging potential engineers and scientists.

One is left with the realization that in order to commence and carry through a major in the sciences, a college student should have a great deal of intellectual courage in the idea that their sacrifice will reap rewards at a later date. Such intellectual courage is rare among adults, much less among people whose experiences, intellectually and in life, have been limited by their youth.

To conclude, college students are persistently misdirected by a great many factors into the humanities and social sciences, against the economic forces of supply and demand. The surprise, in fact, is not that so few American college students focus their studies on engineering and the sciences. Rather, it is that more than a handful do.