Digging Deep

Although this dataset is now a few years old, the results are striking and are still applicable.

John Sargent, Senior Policy Analyst at the Department of Commerce, presented at the CRA Computing Research Summit, February 23, 2004, some statistics on U.S. degree production and annual employment projections for a variety of science and engineering disciplines. Some of this data is summarized in the following table:

The table shows the number of Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD degrees in Engineering, Physical Sciences, Mathematical/Computer Sciences (Statistics and Operations Research!), and Biological/Agricultural Sciences, along with projected demand for people with those degrees.

For example, the estimated annual demand for Engineering degrees is about 3/4 the number of Bachelor's degrees produced each year. Similarly for the Physical Sciences, though the number of degrees produced and the number of job openings in the Physical Sciences is comparatively small.

However - note the large discrepancy between the number of Bachelor's degrees produced and the job demand in the Biological and Agriculatural Sciences! From this data, there seems to be a vast oversupply of Biology degrees being generated. Compare this with the huge shortfall in degrees generated in the Mathematical and Computer Sciences versus the number of jobs available - there are more than four times the number of jobs available in this field than the number of Bachelor's degrees being generated!

So based on this data, it is puzzling why there is not more demand by students for Mathematical Science and Computer Science (and Statistics and Operations Research) degrees.

Corey Doctorow recently gave a talk a couple of weeks ago in Cambridge, UK, as part of the Cambridge Business Lectures. The title of the talk is "Life in the Information Economy", and it's worth a watch.

There are a number of tools that have become available recently that overlay population features on top of geographic maps (thanks NumbersGuy). The data is from government surveys, crime logs, census logs, etc., and have been available for a very long time. However, by adding the geographic component and a web interface, the data is suddenly much more accessible and useful, especially to the individual.

For example, are you going to buy a new home and want to check out neighborhoods for various factors, such as crime, income, education opportunities, neighborhood walkability, etc.? Or are you interested in checking out your current neighborhood? Do you want to open a business and so want to target specific markets?

Below are a number of online tools that you may help you answer these questions:

• SpotCrime: shows crime statistics for a given address
• PolicyMap: shows census, real estate analysis, crime, mortgage origination, education, income, demographic, job, energy, and other statistics
• Walk Score: rates a given address on its walkability - a measure of the quality of life around a given address when walking
• Criminal Searches: search a given neighborhood or even people for crimes and offences.

As the first of several examples, here is an image of the distribution of household incomes around VCU in the year 2000, using the PolicyMap service. The free version unfortunately only gives access to old data (e.g., year 2000 for incomes), and the resolution is a little course (does not give block-by-block resolution), but you still can see overall trends. In the figure, the regions shaded with the darker colors indicate higher median household incomes.

The image below, from SpotCrime, shows the various crimes that were reported and logged by police from March 4, 2008 to May 4, 2008 around VCU. The different icons indicate different types of crimes, such as assaults, thefts, arson, arrests, robbery, burglary, vandalism, etc. While the number of crimes over just a two month period might seem high, VCU is an urban university in the middle of a low-income part of town (see previous median income image) with a dense population, so some amount of crime is unfortunately probably to be expected without better enforcement and more security.

Finally, on the bright side, VCU does appear to be a neighborhood that is quite walkable, as seen in the following graphic, where WalkScore gives VCU a walkability score of 88 out of 100, where 100 is the best walkability score you can get. Each icon represents a grocery store, restaurant, coffee shop, bar, movie theatre, school, park, library, bookstore, fitness center, drug store, etc., that are good to have within walking distance - the more of these establishments there are, the higher the walkability score.

From How Our Culture Keeps Students Out of Science, by Peter Wood:

In March, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, testified before the House Committee on Science and Technology about the abject failure of American schools, colleges, and universities to prepare students for advanced study in the sciences.