Article: Why Science Majors Change Their Minds (It's Just So Darned Hard);br /> New York Times
11/04/11
"Politicians and educators have been wringing their hands for years over test scores showing American students falling behind their counterparts in Slovenia and Singapore. How will the United States stack up against global rivals in innovation? The president and industry groups have called on colleges to graduate 10,000 more engineers a year and 100,000 new teachers with majors in STEM — science, technology, engineering and math. All the Sputnik-like urgency has put classrooms from kindergarten through 12th grade — the pipeline, as they call it — under a microscope. And there are encouraging signs, with surveys showing the number of college freshmen interested in majoring in a STEM field on the rise.
But, it turns out, middle and high school students are having most of the fun, building their erector sets and dropping eggs into water to test the first law of motion. The excitement quickly fades as students brush up against the reality of what David E. Goldberg, an emeritus engineering professor, calls “the math-science death march.” Freshmen in college wade through a blizzard of calculus, physics and chemistry in lecture halls with hundreds of other students. And then many wash out."...
"The bulk of attrition comes in engineering and among pre-med majors, who typically leave STEM fields if their hopes for medical school fade.
Other deterrents are the tough freshman classes, typically followed by two years of fairly abstract courses leading to a senior research or design project. “It’s dry and hard to get through, so if you can create an oasis in there, it would be a good thing,” says Dr. Goldberg, who retired last year as an engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and is now an education consultant. He thinks the president’s chances of getting his 10,000 engineers is “essentially nil.”
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"The latest research also suggests that there could be more subtle problems at work, like the proliferation of grade inflation in the humanities and social sciences, which provides another incentive for students to leave STEM majors."
This is an interesting article and I can't quote the whole thing so go read it. I found the personal stories illustrative and the discussion of grades and their affect on helping push students out interesting.
The discussion of adding more hands on project into the college curriculum and why some colleges continue to offer boring lectures and abstract learning experiences was eye-opening.
This article discusses WPI who has an alternate admissions policy that focues on looking at an applicant's hands on projects (i.e. Boy Scout Eagle project, robotics team, etc.) and in those cases, waives standardized testing.
I also found it interesting to read of my husband's alma mater, University of Notre Dame.
Frankly after reading this I am wondering if my son will enjoy pursuing an engineering degree or if like so many others he'll bail out.