I found the Leading Edge column “Over the Hill at 40” in the September 2011 Prism to be extremely offensive. Although the author claims to not share the age bias mind-set of Mark Zuckerberg, the following quotes from the article make me wonder:
Why would anyone want to work in an industry that treats its workers this way? I doubt that his views accurately describe engineering in general but perhaps his corner of it. It is a shame the column appears in the same issue as “Seeing and Doing,” which describes the efforts of engineering faculty to keep their students in engineering.
I wonder if the author would fly in an airplane designed by entry-level engineers.
— Allen Plotkin
Professor of Aerospace Engineering
San Diego State University
Allen, I am sorry that I offended you, but this is the harsh reality that your students will face when they graduate. This is why we have so many middle-aged engineers in the ranks of the unemployed. Sadly, this is not a small corner of engineering, but the tech industry as a whole. Most engineering professors don’t understand the dynamics of the real world and they don’t prepare their students adequately. That is why I felt compelled to bring this issue to the surface. And to answer your question, I wouldn’t want to fly in a plane designed by entry-level engineers, but if I were developing a new social media app, I would prefer to hire a fresh engineering graduate.