Dr_Ken's Journal: On Engineers, Terrorists And Pop Culture Studies Doctorates

There was a news item at /. recently as to why so many Third World terrorists seem to have engineering degrees or backgrounds. The typical posts posited that engineers are educated in how to problem-solve and build things or that engineers are by temperament and training very rigid in their thinking. Well yes both of those explanations are to some degree valid as far as they go and if adjusted for individual circumstances, but they kind of miss an obvious reason, perhaps the main reason; there are so many of them. Third World countries tend not to waste what scarce educational resources they have on students who want to study things like contemporary pop-culture and other pointless shit that doesn't require or even justify college attendance. I mean sure if you want to view each one of Quentin Tarerentino's movies and then write books about them, be my guest. The glory and the student loan payments are all yours. But Third World countries want engineers, school teachers, MBA's, physicians, economists and such who are dedicated to the practical arts. Pop culture scholars and experts are not in such high demand in poorer countries. Nearly every single foreign (i.e., non-U.S. citizen) I've ever met in my academic career was studying the practical arts. The only exceptions being Europeans and Canadians. That IMHO is why Al-Qaeda and their ilk get terror recruits that are doctors, engineers, pharmacists etcetera; because that's the biggest pool of likely candidates available to them.