RE: Aerospace industry aims to attract millennial generation
It is a 2-way street. The new recruits should be far more committed to their first jobs in order to build their technical knowledge, experience, people skills, and understanding of the aerospace industry.
This idea of moving jobs every year or 2, as well as gaining new engineering responsibility every year or less shows the desire for instant gratification, lack of patience, lack of commitment, and lack of reality.
In the high technology environment, projects can take up to several years to complete. Similarly, failure analysis can take 2-3 years followed by the time required for implementation of recommendations. Take the example of airplane accidents or even the 2 Space Shuttle accidents (STS-51L/STS-25, STS-107).
As large systems (IT, Telecom, Aircraft, Spacecraft, Chemical Processing Plants, etc) grow in complexity, so does the requirement for problem-solving, good design skills, solid knowledge, patience, perserverance, and the ability to recover from a bad experience. These do not come overnight, or in one or 2 years in a particular job function.
So, who will do this work if all of these millenials are moving around every year ?
What is sad is that millenials have grown up in an age of TV, Internet and handheld gadgets that provide them instant access to their desires, and this directly matches the findings of the survey above. Take these things away, and then see if they can function.
I would rather have 10 engineers with solid experience and commitment to an endeavor, rather than 100 nomads who will pack up and bolt at the first sign of difficulty.
Sorry for the ramblings of a disillusioned "old" engineer.
