What the heck is wrong with people these days? Studying these Mickey-mouse majors?
Taiwan’s tertiary education institutions have seen a staggering 21.9 percent drop in the number of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) students over the past decade as vocational colleges enroll more students in tourism and design departments than IT-related ones.
Young Taiwanese want to run their own BnB or get into marketing design (for whatever product, maybe instagram influencer design, ha ha).
Boy they’re stupid.
I guess Taiwan could benefit from a more diverse population. We already dominate in STEM as a tiny island.
IT job boring; surfing more fun?
When I was in college I came back to Taiwan visit my childhood friend. I told him my major was international politics. He said, whoa, you’re just doing that for fun? I have a friend who took a year off just to surf.
Studying the liberal arts is like taking a year off.
Taiwan really needs to increase salaries.
Having a more diverse economy could help.
How?
MS, Google, and Amazon won’t keep coming if we don’t have the IT talent.
By the way, this is something that violates supply and demand.
According to the NDC, 136,000 STEM jobs are expected to open in Taiwan each year, but local universities can only produce 97,000 graduates in relevant fields.
If demand is much higher than supply, incomes are supposed to rise. Taiwan is whacky.
The IT talent is established. Don’t see why we can’t build other sectors.
Right now it is, but with the low birthrate, there’s going to be a big shortage.
Well what are going to do? Can’t force people to be in IT.
Have more kids. Tell people majoring in travel and tourism is dumb.
To be fair, Taiwan has a lot going for it as a holiday destination as we all know, but it is god damn terrible at marketing that as an asset. All you see is cheesy pictures of feckin Taipei 101 on a good day , but more often than not its a news article about some conflict with Mainland China, and the journalist turfs out some stock photo of a Eurofighter or some military testing from god knows where. (e.g. Taiwan | World | The Guardian)
I mean, jesus, just go a google image search for “Taiwan”
There’s no foreign tourists now so this is an academic question.
Sounds like we need a visa for foreign sperm donors.
But are they. Who would want to work in a field they don’t enjoy.
It’s not just that. It’s the salaries here. On average, STEM workers are vastly underpaid in Taiwan compared to their peers in other countries.
Also, many young people can live with their parents here, so their living expenses are minimized, and a good number stand to receive nice inheritances when their parents die. Why would you pursue years of difficult studies to be overworked and underpaid when you can just bide your time?
Exactly that.
Many people depend on inheritance to live quite well in Taiwan. A LOT of people and NOT only young people but middle aged people too. They don’t have much financial preasure. Just ‘guo ri zi’.
So you get this weird situation where you still have large numbers of people striving and working hard for every penny and also a large number of people who just are just kind of cruising through life on their grandparents or parents assets and donations and still living at home or in the apartment that was gifted to them. There’s also a lot of grey area in the middle.