Real-Life Decision Making -- Solution
You split them apart.
You've consulted with chemical and electronics labs about their personnel's varied backgrounds. All of them seem to work under the same banner of physics. The labs' management make a case for grouping their employees into the same category for the sake of simplified workplace training and salary considerations.
However, you also talk to various university departments and professional physicists. Many of them make strong cases for the differences in approach and education between physics in theory and applied physics. You decide to take their input to heart, classifying physicist and electronics technician as separate jobs.
Samantha Smith is a 17-year-old student from a poor family who is preparing for post-secondary education. Her interest in studying physics is immediately piqued when she reads the SOC job description of electronics technician.
It describes an exciting and viable field, and tells her how she can prepare for a career by taking a three-year degree in applied physics at most community colleges. She finds one near her home and applies right away.
"Our decisions have an impact on how people interpret the way we've presented information on an occupation," says analyst Clara Hamory. "Their own decisions are affected by knowing the skills needed to perform the work, with respect to their own career development.
"With many fields today, a university degree may be required, but many people with college-level or courses related to the actual work would qualify as well," says Hamory. "So we have to find the balance of where we would put a job -- do we put it into a technical group? Do we put it in a professional group? That's our call."