Memo+25


 * Shifting in Sign Systems**

The “knowledge economy” is not immune from the problems of capitalist economy. In the recent round of global crisis, engineers also suffering from unemployment or salary cut.

The US has been losing its comparative edge because of its failure in education. American students spent too little time studying science and maths, which makes them fall behind the Chinese and Indian students. China and India are challenging the US in a number of areas with their high quality human resource. In the US, people have been calling for strengthening the education in STEM, whereas in China, the reform of engineering education is toward application orientation and industry/business orientation. Noticing the enormous harmful effects of technological innovation, the discussion of engineers social responsibilities has emerged in the US, universities start to add engineering ethics into their curriculum. In China, people are concerned about the loss of humanism in college students and suggest increase humanity and social science classes for engineering students. In the US, the myth of engineering life has faded. According to ASEE (American Society of Engineering Education), over 85% of students are not considering engineering careers now. In China, there is an implicit connection between engineering major and political life as most of the Party leaders graduated from engineering major, now more and more engineering graduates choose governmental officers as their jobs.