From: echeng@phys.psu.edu (Eddie Cheng)
Subject: Re: L.S.U. Professor says Indians Suck !!
Organization: Penn State, Department of Physics
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 20:00:30 GMT

In article <C1DEIL.MLM@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> yawei@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu (~{QG9p~}) writes:
>
>The American undergraduate student body has the right to complain to 
>school administrators about the quality of education they are getting.
>But they have no right to blame their trouble on the foreign TAs. If
>they really want TAs who speak excellent English, they should blame
>their older fellow Americans for not being interested in Math and
>Science but rather crowd into subject areas where they can make quickie
>money like law, business and medicine.

	What you said is of course true.  But we may have to look at 
the other side as well.  Suppose there weren't so many foreign 
"supplies", there would be a shortage and huge demand for 
math/physics graduate students/TAs.  According to market rule, 
this would drive up the salaries and make more Americans interested 
in such careers.

	When I was a graduate student (physics), half of our class 
was Chinese and Koreans.  Many Americans in the class were very
frustrated by the different performance level in class and quite a
few eventually dropped out.  Although we are not to blame for it,
I do feel sympathy to them, after all, it is their own country,
not a United Nation sponsered school.

	There is no question that foreigners contributed dearly on
the over-supply of math/physics Ph.D.'s.  The depression of starting
salaries in these fields are tremendous, espeicially when it is
indirectly reflected in lengthy postdoc years (a tricky way to
depress the starting salary).
	
	While as TA, RA and postdocs, we contributed greatly to the
education and research system of this country.  But at the same time,
we helped to put pressure on our native (would-be) colleagues.
I am not an Internationalist, so I do feel something about it.
 

	 Eddie

>While the American students were busy chasing the quickie cash, the
>Math department is having a lot of recruiting headaches. Even though
>the admission standard is much higher for foreign graduate students
>than for Americans, they still can't find enough qualified Americans 
>who are interested in the area. They have a serious supply problem. 
>What is the Math department to do?  They can either admit foreign 
>students and offer than TAship, or they can close down the graduate 
>programs and cancel the Math classes (they can't find anybody to teach 
>them!).  I suppose the undergraduate student would be more happy not 
>having math classes to take than having to take them from foreign TAs?
>
>The whole business of complaints about immigrants "undercutting
>American salaries" is obscene. It is laughable to think that immigrants
>would not like a little extra cash too. Like native(!) Americans, 
>immigrants would take the highest paying job they can find. They don't 
>purposely solicit several jobs and then choose the lowest paying one 
>just to intentionally drive down American salaries. It is some evil 
>capitalists who would want to drive down the salaries. But hey, this 
>is what capitalism is all about. If you don't like it, try Cuba, or 
>if you're good at time travel, go back a couple decades and try China 
>or the USSR.
>
>
>   Ya-Gui Wei
>
>


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