About 50% STEM majors drop out:one page article w/links

[Janice H]

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/April10/CHERIConference.html

 

I think they mean changed major, not that 50% do not finish any BS/BA.

 

Nice links to research papers in red typeface "Analyzing the factors..." on the right hand side.

 

"Tougher grading is one reason for high STEM dropout rate."

 

"A substantial grading differential exists between science and nonscience courses," said presenter Ben Ost, a third-year Cornell economics Ph.D. student. "Even students who eventually become science majors receive much higher grades in their nonscience courses than their major field courses. This gap in grading standards discourages students from pursuing and completing a science degree."

 

This has relevance to maintaining merit scholarships and applying to jobs/grad schools, where GPA may not be adjusted for major or grade inflation at a particular school, etc.

 

I have seen Chronicle of Higher Education quoted as a source that gives even lower rates of graduating in a stem major.

[regentrude]

"Tougher grading is one reason for high STEM dropout rate."

 

"A substantial grading differential exists between science and nonscience courses," said presenter Ben Ost, a third-year Cornell economics Ph.D. student. "Even students who eventually become science majors receive much higher grades in their nonscience courses than their major field courses. This gap in grading standards discourages students from pursuing and completing a science degree."

 

 

The reason that grading appears tougher is simple: in math and science, it is clear what is correct and what is wrong. There is no room for interpretation, for personal taste, for presenting a unique original viewpoint - either the integral is calculated correctly, or it is not.

It is also insufficient to "sort of" know how to do the problem, to have a vague conceptual understanding - mastery is measurable.

I find it very dangerous that a call towards grade inflation is seen as a solution to the retention problem.

[April in CA]

Interesting! Thanks for posting this. It makes sense that STEM students would be more likely to stay with the major at schools that focus more on teaching undergraduates. That is one concern I have about ds #2's interest in studying chem eng at Texas A&M. I wonder if he would be better off at a smaller school where he could get more individualized attention. Hmm...Those statistics are sobering!

Blessings,

April

[Janice H]

I find it very dangerous that a call towards grade inflation is seen as a solution to the retention problem.

 

I agree, or else I would fear living under a roof, driving a car, or having any medical procedure performed.

 

To me, this article did not explicitly say "lower the grading standards" although I have seen comments like that elsewhere. So you think that's what the economist grad student is implying? The science departments could have quite a negative reaction to that idea. Cornell is not known for grade inflation in the sciences.

[NicksMama-Zack's Mama Too]

I went to a presentation by the local public high schools on their STEM Academy. There was no minimum gpa or test scores required to apply to the program. All they required was 3 teacher recommendations and an essay (timed and written during class).

 

No room for honors or AP science classes in the STEM Academy schedule either.

:001_huh:

 

The director of the program talked it up as though your child would be welcomed into college STEM programs with completion of their program. "Computers are our future" "21st Century Skills" blah blah blah.

 

No thanks.

[Nan in Mass]

Engineering classes are demanding. You can't just drift through. I think too many students are not willing to work that hard when an easier path is near at hand. They would rather sleep late GRIN. Eight o'clock classes ... endless pages of math word problems...

 

I find the idea of lowering the standards for grading very frightening. That is NOT the answer.

-Nan

[regentrude]

Engineering classes are demanding. You can't just drift through. I think too many students are not willing to work that hard when an easier path is near at hand. They would rather sleep late GRIN. Eight o'clock classes ... endless pages of math word problems...

 

I see students fail in my introductory physics classes every semester. The reasons are always the same- one or more of the following:

1. inadequate preparation in math (algebra 1, NOT calculus)

2. no study skills (often student who breezed through high school with all A's have not the slightest idea how to deal with material that is hard; they have not learned to read textbooks, take notes, work in study groups)

3. a wrong idea of how much work is involved (a student with 16 credit hours in a STEM major has to expect 2 hours out of class for every hour in class, so he needs to approach college as a full time job)

 

Students are not failing because they are lacking intrinsic intelligence - they are failing because they are lacking preparation and/or work attitude.

Interestingly, whether they had calculus or higher science classes in high school plays a very minor role for their success.

[Belacqua]

Engineering classes are demanding. You can't just drift through. I think too many students are not willing to work that hard when an easier path is near at hand. They would rather sleep late GRIN. Eight o'clock classes ... endless pages of math word problems...

 

I find the idea of lowering the standards for grading very frightening. That is NOT the answer.

-Nan

 

Good points. And it's hardly a new thing; we used to joke at my college that Electrical Engineering was abbreviated EE because it stood for "Eventually Economics."

[memphispeg]

I come from a family of scientists. My father, my sister and I, my dh, her dd and ds, etc. all majored in science or engineering. I do not think we did it b/c of the grades....we average about a 3.0-3.5 gpa. It was b/c we thought it was the coolest thing to study, the most interesting, the most engaging. It was not b/c of possible future employment either. We just love(d) the subjects. We were all curious tinkerers and designers as well. Go figure!!!

Suffice it to say, there are kids out there today who truly do love the sciences. Maybe more support and tutoring should be available to those who struggle but still want to major in the subjects. I am hoping that my dd will be able to pursue her passion for science without getting too discouraged or turned off.

[regentrude]

Maybe more support and tutoring should be available to those who struggle but still want to major in the subjects..

 

That is one of the curious things I notice every semester: there are learning centers, free tutoring sessions etc - but the students who need them most are not attending. For the introductory physics courses in our department, 20 hours of free learning assistance are offered every week. We run help sessions for the homework, and there are four nights of walk-in tutoring. The students who use those resources are the B and C students. The A students do fine without. The D and F students, however, usually are not taking advantage of the offered opportunities. (This is not just my own opinion, but a consistant observation of all my faculty colleagues involved in those courses, over several years.)

 

If you want to prepare your children for a major in STEM fields, make sure they know that it is OK to seek out help. With the pressure for retention, I would assume all universities have math labs, help sessions, tutoring or other forms of academic assistance available for their students. Those don't do any good, however, if the students don't show up.

[JennyD]

That is one of the curious things I notice every semester: there are learning centers, free tutoring sessions etc - but the students who need them most are not attending. For the introductory physics courses in our department, 20 hours of free learning assistance are offered every week. We run help sessions for the homework, and there are four nights of walk-in tutoring. The students who use those resources are the B and C students. The A students do fine without. The D and F students, however, usually are not taking advantage of the offered opportunities. (This is not just my own opinion, but a consistant observation of all my faculty colleagues involved in those courses, over several years.)

 

If you want to prepare your children for a major in STEM fields, make sure they know that it is OK to seek out help. With the pressure for retention, I would assume all universities have math labs, help sessions, tutoring or other forms of academic assistance available for their students. Those don't do any good, however, if the students don't show up.

 

I'd say that this is true elsewhere in the university, too. I've taught a lot of writing-heavy classes and for reasons that I do not understand, the struggling writers in the classes just will.not.go to the Writing Center, no matter how much I urge them to do so.

[MomsintheGarden]

If you want to prepare your children for a major in STEM fields, make sure they know that it is OK to seek out help.

This.

 

Dh and I have STEM degrees (EE). Our two oldest are in STEM majors at universities, and both have high A averages. I attribute their success in part to their willingness to get help when they need it. When they were going away, we stressed that they don't let problems go until they become bigger problems, that if they didn't understand something - ask questions, seek out help, etc. It is ok to not comprehend something at first, but not ok to let it go.

 

One of the biggest issues students have with STEM classes is that they are sequential and require constant work. You cannot put off work in those courses until the last minute. The chapters must be read, the problem sets worked, etc., every day or at least several times a week starting from day one. Many students make their biggest mistake by not engaging themselves the very first week of the semester. They spend the rest of the term trying to play catch up.

 

I also agree that it is very important to enjoy your major, at least most of the time.

 

GardenMom

[Nan in Mass]

Yup. We are battling this at the moment. Oldest is grabbing every bit of help offered in engineering school and is baffled about why struggling middle one is not doing this. Middle one, who is good at honest assessments, says that at the end of the day, when the help is offered, he is tired and completely unmotivated to go and avail himself of it. He does ok on the problems. But then when he goes to take the tests, he does poorly. He says going to get help would probably help him, but because he can figure out how to do most of the problems himself, at the time it doesn't seem worthwhile to go to the tutoring center. He does much of his work in the morning and between classes because he knows he is flagging at the end of the day. Take a break at the rock wall and get some supper and gather strength for a bit more work before going to sleep, or go to tutoring... hmmm... I'm starving and going crazy from holding still all day... rockwall it is. Sigh.

-Nan

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

what does STEM stand for? Is it Sciences/Technologies/Engineering/Medical?

I have never seen the abbreviation before.

 

I too have a degree in engineering (Industrical Engineering), after doing 1 year in Physics. The year in Physics was 20 times tougher than the 4 years in Engineering.

[regentrude]

what does STEM stand for? Is it Sciences/Technologies/Engineering/Medical?

I have never seen the abbreviation before.

 

 

Science/ technology, Engineering/ Math

[kiana]

At my university, we have a mathematics lab staffed by math graduate students, which is open approximately 40 hours a week. The chemistry and physics departments also have help rooms open the same times. Out of all the enrollment in these classes, there are usually only a few students in the rooms.

 

I have students struggling (and failing) in my math class now. They don't come to my office hours, or the TA's office hours. Some of them do go to tutoring sessions run by undergraduates in the evenings, which they claim are far more helpful (this is because the undergraduates will give them the answer as opposed to trying to work through it), and some of them just refuse to seek help altogether.

 

There is no-one who has even submitted (disregarding quality) 90% of the homework who is getting lower than a C. Yet half the class is failing. Many of the failing ones, when asked, have told me that they're going to buckle down before the exam and learn it all. They don't believe me that it doesn't work.

 

This is different from a humanities class, where you could blow off half the semester and still manage to learn the work from the second half of the semester. The cumulative and sequential nature of the work renders it impossible to do so in STEM classes, yet they don't believe it.

 

Even at very good universities, students still struggle, help rooms are available, office hours are available, and tutoring is available. Most (not all!) of the reasons for flunking out are unwillingness or inability to appreciate the difference in studying to learn a *skill* rather than studying to learn *content*.

 

This got a little long, sorry about that.

[Nan in Mass]

Long is good. As a mother about to send a third child into STEM, I LIKE long. We tell ours that if you don't do the homework and don't go to every class, you will flunk. You might anyway, but those two things will definately do you in. When you see other students skipping classes and not appearing to have much daily homework, it seems like you, too, ought to be able to get away with such things, but they aren't STEM majors.

-Nan

[Jane in NC]

There is another reason that some STEM majors, particularly those in engineering, may jump ship. Having taught Calculus at an engineering university, I have met a number of students who really did not know why they were studying engineering. It seems that there are lots of parents who see kids playing with Legos and then decide that Johnny is a future engineer. Engineering programs see students who are great tinkerers, but not necessarily engineering material. Some of these kids would be better off at a tech school studying car mechanics or computer repair.

 

Computer Science is another misunderstood discipline. Many high schoolers think they want a computer career but have no idea what is involved. Programming blows them out of the water.

 

Amen to the comments concerning students not seeking on-campus resources for help! As an instructor, it was usually the A students who came to office hours. My best students would ask questions on minutia. They wanted to understand everything. Whereas students who are failing may knock at the door on the day before a test. Later, they claim they sought help. Thus their failure was my fault--not theirs!

 

One thing that students who wish to go into law or have a writing career, etc., should consider. People who understand science can go places in legal or technical writing fields. My son is interested in archaeology which was once more of a cultural/historical field. Modern archaeology is scientific. So many fields now embrace technology of some form or operate under the scientific method. I think it is hard to divorce science from everyday life.

[kiana]

There is another reason that some STEM majors, particularly those in engineering, may jump ship. Having taught Calculus at an engineering university, I have met a number of students who really did not know why they were studying engineering. It seems that there are lots of parents who see kids playing with Legos and then decide that Johnny is a future engineer. Engineering programs see students who are great tinkerers, but not necessarily engineering material. Some of these kids would be better off at a tech school studying car mechanics or computer repair.

 

 

Yesss, this too. I had a student who was struggling in my math class, but was a great kid and I liked him. At the end of the semester (after we'd developed a rapport), I said 'so ... you hate physics, you hate math, but you're acing english and history. Why on earth did you sign up for engineering anyway?' and he said 'well, I did okay in math in high school, and engineers have a high salary.'

 

Last I heard, he was majoring in theatre and doing excellently.

 

Sometimes, changing a major simply signifies a poor choice of major to begin with.

[kiana]

Long is good. As a mother about to send a third child into STEM, I LIKE long. We tell ours that if you don't do the homework and don't go to every class, you will flunk. You might anyway, but those two things will definately do you in. When you see other students skipping classes and not appearing to have much daily homework, it seems like you, too, ought to be able to get away with such things, but they aren't STEM majors.

-Nan

 

The STEM majors who do are usually (a) lying (they wake up at six to study, but the 'smart kids don't need to study' is so ingrained they feel the need to hide it), (b) flunking or scraping by with Cs, © relying on knowledge from high school classes which are being repeated, which will come to a screeching halt after freshman year, or (d) just plain brilliant anyway.

 

ps. A lot of non-STEM majors are overrating their performance in other classes as well, according to my friends in the humanities.

[Janice H]

There is nothing like the view from the troops on the ground.

 

STEM major dd will definitely read this. (Followed by a refresher reading around Aug. 12th too, right before orientation.)

[FaithManor]

Well, I certainly hope that grade inflation does not become the order of the day. Public safety would be in peril.

 

In our area, I have known several high school grads, good grades, etc. looked good on paper, managed to get themselves accepted to engineering schools, and promptly dropped out. Our local high schools do practice grade inflation, they routinely do not make it through more than half or 2/3 of the text, etc. So kids are getting credit for algebra 1, which isn't completed, so the geometry teacher covers algebra and doesn't make it all the way through the geometry text, so the algebra 2 teacher - finding that kids are still struggling with algebra 1 even if they got "A's", ends up spending a portion of the year in review and makes it about 2/3 of the way through the algebra 2 text, which causes the trig teacher to cover everything that was missed in geometry and algebra 2 as rapidly as he/she can, thus not getting all the way through the trig-pre calc book, and on it goes. The first year physics students (same school) do not complete the text, they get a high school credit, they sign up for advanced physics where the class ends up covering at least the last quarter/third of the first year physics book, sometimes up to a semester, so the advanced physics book isn't covered in it's entirety. Everything gets called honors and because the school spends a rather large amount of time "teaching to the test" these kids are good a guessing the right answer out of four, they score well on the ACT and SAT.

 

They received but did not earn A's in math and science not realizing how under-served they were by this credit and grade inflation (oh yeah, the geometry teacher even gives 100% of daily participation and homework points for NOT falling asleep in class, which means he gets rave reviews from the high school principal and parents because everyone is getting A's and B's since he weights homework and participation above tests). The students think, "Hey, I'm great at math and science. Engineering, chemistry, physics, medicine, whatever.... is cool and it pays well. I'll go into that." They encounter their first college level math or physics class and HIT THE WALL AT HIGH SPEED! Many of them are so discouraged they don't know what to do, do not know if getting tutoring would help, etc. so they drop. They never sought out help before. They were always told what great students they were. So, as Regentrude said, they don't know that it's okay to say, "I need help; I need to take some other pre-reqs in order to refresh my skills. I need a study partner, etc." They don't talk to the professors, they just drop!

 

My brother was one of these. He loved and adored chemistry. He wasn't the hottest mathematician in the world and the school was already practicing grade inflation/credit falsification. Additionally, the school guidance counselor, who acted like he was omniscient, erroneously told my brother that though he'd struggled just for his B- in trigonometry, he would be a successful chemical engineering major. Yep, that's what he told him. Not, hey D you could do it if you took college trig and not calculus, applied yourself, got some tutoring, and then studied heavily through your calculus classes and such. Just, "Eh, don't sweat it. You don't have to be THAT could at math." Really, on what planet ding-dong?

 

So, he left for college with a declared chemical engineering major. Dropped it after three days of calculus class.

 

He could have pursued it, but he wasn't given the skills; He wasn't properly prepared. He'd been lied to by someone who did not know what he was talking about and didn't have the gumption to find out the truth and properly advise his student, and he felt so overwhelmed he didn't feel like he could be helped through university tutoring services.

 

I think that these kinds of factors are behind the statistics.

 

Faith

[Ester Maria]

Amazing what grade inflation can do and how much incompetence it can cover up, is it not? Makes you think these figures are not normal... but they are exactly what things should be like, I am afraid.

 

In an old Italian system without grade inflation there were such rates for not finishing HIGH SCHOOL, let alone university. Welcoming speeches at universites opening with: "30% of you will not be with us here next year, and the additional 20% will flunk on the rest of the road". Passing rates of 30% on the first try for some university exams even in humanities (trust me, you CAN grade well and without fluffing about "personal opinions" in literature too - you can certain test concrete knowledge and understanding, albeit it is more subtle than in many fields). Aaaaah... good ol' days before the destruction of the school system, awarding degrees to the incompetent, high school turning from an academic institution into a semi-joke, crazy modern pedagogy about fragmented "engaging" education rather than expert formation (on a tertiary level).

 

Glad to see at least some fields - and important ones! - have not given in. My field has almost completely lost the battle and almost completely turned into a "subjective" joke. Humanities are in atrocious state from 20th century, with extremely diminishing literacy rates in the basics and classics, the mass education and the lowering of standards destroyed them almost completely.

 

Off this thread before I contribute with too much. :tongue_smilie:

But these numbers warm my heart, since I despise with passion grade inflation. I have always fancied my middle daughter being a STEM major in the US, with the best STEM education in the world. Glad to see the standards are there, firm and clear, and the education she will probably receive one day will be substantial. A strong selection MUST occur in every field and I welcome getting rid of the incompetent, ill-prepared, those without a potential to succeed in the field and/or unmotivated as early as possible along the road for the good of all (including their own - choosing other paths in life which are more suited for them or interest them more). Exactly how things should be in a system that cares about quality.

Edited March 31, 2011 by Ester Maria

[FrogMom5]

My oldest wants to major in physics and math. He's only in Alg. I but sometimes doesn't want to watch the video instructor. Currently, he's averaging a high B (87%-89%). I've told him repeatedly he needs to make use of every available bit of info. to understand his math. If he were getting a high A, I might let him skip the video. But he's not getting a high A (and no, I don't give extra credit or inflate grades - you get what you get).

 

I'll show him this thread. Maybe it will motivate him to make complete use of study material.

 

Thank you very much for this guidance.

Denise

[memphispeg]

Actually one of the criteria for the dd's college search is to find a school where she would feel comfortable asking for help and a place where group study is common. She does v. well in STEM if these are available. She does not mind the work, she just does not enjoy not understanding material.

[creekland]

Well, I certainly hope that grade inflation does not become the order of the day. Public safety would be in peril.

 

In our area, I have known several high school grads, good grades, etc. looked good on paper, managed to get themselves accepted to engineering schools, and promptly dropped out. Our local high schools do practice grade inflation, they routinely do not make it through more than half or 2/3 of the text, etc. So kids are getting credit for algebra 1, which isn't completed, so the geometry teacher covers algebra and doesn't make it all the way through the geometry text, so the algebra 2 teacher - finding that kids are still struggling with algebra 1 even if they got "A's", ends up spending a portion of the year in review and makes it about 2/3 of the way through the algebra 2 text, which causes the trig teacher to cover everything that was missed in geometry and algebra 2 as rapidly as he/she can, thus not getting all the way through the trig-pre calc book, and on it goes. The first year physics students (same school) do not complete the text, they get a high school credit, they sign up for advanced physics where the class ends up covering at least the last quarter/third of the first year physics book, sometimes up to a semester, so the advanced physics book isn't covered in it's entirety. Everything gets called honors and because the school spends a rather large amount of time "teaching to the test" these kids are good a guessing the right answer out of four, they score well on the ACT and SAT.

 

They received but did not earn A's in math and science not realizing how under-served they were by this credit and grade inflation (oh yeah, the geometry teacher even gives 100% of daily participation and homework points for NOT falling asleep in class, which means he gets rave reviews from the high school principal and parents because everyone is getting A's and B's since he weights homework and participation above tests). The students think, "Hey, I'm great at math and science. Engineering, chemistry, physics, medicine, whatever.... is cool and it pays well. I'll go into that." They encounter their first college level math or physics class and HIT THE WALL AT HIGH SPEED! Many of them are so discouraged they don't know what to do, do not know if getting tutoring would help, etc. so they drop. They never sought out help before. They were always told what great students they were. So, as Regentrude said, they don't know that it's okay to say, "I need help; I need to take some other pre-reqs in order to refresh my skills. I need a study partner, etc." They don't talk to the professors, they just drop!

 

Faith

 

Sometimes I think you and I are in the same school district. I asked one of our "top" juniors this year where they wanted to go to college, then I asked what he got on the PSAT. He told me an SAT score. I was floored. It was 1560 (for ALL three sections). He was surprised as he's had mostly all A's in his classes, but like your school, ours covers about 1/2 a class and calls it a whole credit on a regular basis. That doesn't happen on the SAT/ACT.

 

I was also in a College Alg class and had kids who had trouble doing 36/9 without their calculator.

 

We often have top kids from our school get accepted into colleges, then test into remedial classes. It's really tough for them if they try STEM. They aren't used to actually working and are mystified when it happens.

 

I wish it were different as they COULD do better if our high school prepared them better. The talent is there, it just is never developed. A few will "get it" in college and put the effort in, but many don't.

[Nan in Mass]

We know someone who went to a 2-year state tech college last year. He said that orientation, the dean told the students, "Look to your left. Look to your right. Only one of you will graduate." This is a college that will let almost anyone try, so I would say that they are actually doing well to graduate as many as they do, but it was a sobering moment. The dean also emphasized taking advantage of all the available help.

-Nan

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

He said that orientation, the dean told the students, "Look to your left. Look to your right. Only one of you will graduate." -Nan

 

I had that exact speech said to me. I graduated ;-)

[FaithManor]

Cleo and Nan, do you want to know what they said during freshman orientation to the music performance majors when I was in college?

 

"Most of you aren't all that talented. Most of you will not have the drive to survive this year. Most of you will declare an easy major after only one semester. 90% of you will be so beaten down that you do not graduate. The 10% of you that survive may actually amount to something."

 

We lost 50% at the end of the first semester and another 10% of the original number at the end of the year - couldn't pass freshman jury. So, they retained 40% as performance majors for the sophomore year. I'd say, of those, half did not graduate with a performance degree. Pretty brutal! It's because, again, musicians, no matter how high the level of virtuosity, are still not prepared for the brutality of the competition within music conservatories or top tier LAC's, the incredible pressure placed on the students- if we had been coal, they could have made diamonds out of us in a couple of years - and the fact that performance majors are always more than fulltime students, is never talked about before the student declares the major. It takes 18 credit hours of regular classes plus 4 credits of performance classes each semester in order to graduate on time. Add to that, if you aren't spending 6 hours a day practicing, you aren't going to make it. An awful lot of truly spectacular players are going to decide that life is too short to never sleep and seriously consider embracing stimulants such as ritalin (illegally gotten) in order to succeed. I had friends in Med school who thought they had it easy compared to piano and violin majors. Of course, they hadn't started their internships or residencies yet, so they would soon understand.

 

I really wish that schools did a better job of preparing kids for the rigor of some majors and yet, also not squash their dreams. They need to help them gain the skills and coping mechanisms necessary to endure those majors. Sigh....don't ask me what I think of the average high school guidance counselor. Uninformed, would be the kindest adjective I can conjure. Parents are far, far more clueless than my parents' generation so I feel like students today graduate high school and are very easily overcome by the tsunami of things they weren't prepared for no matter how bright and motivated they are.

 

Faith

[Nan in Mass]

Faith, the part of the story that I left out was that this friend is a talented musician. He wanted to go to school for music. His father had been a musician for awhile and knew how competative it was and was sure his son wouldn't be able to make a living that way, especially with school loans, so the guidance counselor suggested electrical engineering. This is where Jane's post comes in - there is no way this boy was up for the math and science needed to succeed even at the more affordable two-year technical degree. He even tried twice, at two different colleges. It was very sad.

 

A BFA degree has a reduced number general ed requirements to make room for all the other requirements just like an engineering degree AND you need to submit a portfolio with the application AND "starving artist" and "starving musician" are clichés. You would think that would be a clue to the guidance counselors that perhaps this was a hard thing at which to succeed. Sigh. And also (in the father's defense) that perhaps $50 000 a year's worth of debt was not an especially good idea.

 

-Nan

[FaithManor]

Nan,

 

You and I think alike. It's not rocket science to find this information. Good grief, with the internet, you'd think that guidance counselors would at least make an effort. The one we have at our local high school is, hate to say it, an imbecile and that comes from both the principal who can't stand him but can't fire him, and several teachers. Given what I've seen and the number of kids from our area that have all been counseled into foolishness that has cost them and their parents lots of money and student wasted effort, I don't think the principal is far off the mark. Sad to say, my tax dollars fund this man's incompetance!

 

I went to a top tier LAC back in the day when they didn't loosen up the gen-ed requirements for music and art majors. Most majors required 124 credits to graduate. Piano Performance was 136. I double majored with Philosophy. It was a ridiculous credit count. I took every extra term and 18-21 credits every semester when I could get into the classes. I'm not certain if I slept at all during that four years or if I was kind of in a zombie mode. The good news was that since I graduated from high school at 16 and my parents weren't thrilled to send me to the dorms so young, I'd knocked out a few gen-eds and Clep-ed a few before I arrived. No problems transferring those credits in - whew!

 

I just weep for high school grads these days. I've tried to counsel a few but because what I tell them is so vastly different from their school guidance counselor tells them, and for that matter, many of the teachers themselves, they look at me like I have crazy oozing from my ears.

 

I'm not against the BFA at all. Kids need to find a way to do the thing they are naturally talented at and have a passion for if possible. But, given the state of things, they need to do it without all of the debt attached even if it means working for eight years for minimum wage, living at home, and going part time. But, you'd be surprised how many parents have absolutely no intention of housing an adult child so they can take "the road less traveled" towards their career!

 

Plus something has to be done about the assumption of college savings. So many investments have tanked. Home Equity as tanked and finding a home equity loan is a joke, well it is in Michigan for sure. Our 529 plan, when we had to cash it out for dd, was worth less than half what we had invested and it was in some supposedly very safe funds. I should have just taken the money outside and buried it in the backyard!

 

No easy answers. But, there sure are some stupid ones and many of them seem to be provided by those doing career counseling!

 

Faith

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

Cleo and Nan, do you want to know what they said during freshman orientation to the music performance majors when I was in college? Faith

My cousin attempted to have a degree in music. She did all the courses, she put in all the work, and they still didn't let her graduate. They didn't think she was talented enough to have a degree from that specific university. So they failed her on the last class.. repeatedly. Until she was no longer allowed to continue for having failed the same class three times.

[Laura in CA]

what does STEM stand for? Is it Sciences/Technologies/Engineering/Medical?

I have never seen the abbreviation before.

 

Sorry, a total rabbit trail, but the article I link to is interesting! :001_smile:

 

Cleo, good guess -- apparently some people want to add an additional "M" for medicine (as in, STEMM) :D This new acronym makes my skin crawl (sorry; don't want to start a flame war!) -- partly because "stem" sounds like biology only, and partly because I see nothing wrong with the traditional phrase "science & engineering" ("STEM" is too cumbersome, trying to mash too many obviously interrelated disciplines together). See this amusing article in NYT. Sally Ride doesn't use "STEM" either :D

Edited April 2, 2011 by Laura in CA

[Teachin'Mine]

Interesting article and thread. I'm curious why no one has addressed the issue brought up in the article that the drop out rate is highest among females and minorities.

 

I guess this aspect is of particular interest to me as my dd is interested in pursuing a STEM major. I wonder why it's only the top female students who seem to benefit from having female professors and not the average female students. I think it would definitely make an impression on my daughter to have female mentors and role models in the STEM fields.

 

Would be interested to hear any thoughts on this especially from the moms who graduated with STEM majors. Does this article ring true from what you saw? What advice would you give to my daughter and others?

 

Thanks!

[asta]

Students are not failing because they are lacking intrinsic intelligence - they are failing because they are lacking preparation and/or work attitude.

Interestingly, whether they had calculus or higher science classes in high school plays a very minor role for their success.

 

Please tell my long term friend how is now the chair of a high school bio dept this.

 

When I tell her that, from everything I have read, it is much more important for a child to have a solid, solid, SOLID understanding of mathematics up through pre-calc prior to going to uni than it is for them to whiz through high school maths to MAKE SURE they include calc, she looks at me as though I've lost my mind. Even though she admits (like Faith commented) that they never finish ANY of the books!

 

I actually got into a discussion with her just last month about this because of what I've read from all of you -- that so many science and engineering programs want to make sure students are "grounded" in subjects, that the programs want to make sure all students are on the same level (so to speak) so that the rocket sled on wheels can progress... they can't really AFFORD to assume that everyone's high school calc course was sufficient.

 

Sigh.

 

Here is one that will make you all sick. I'm an econ/poli sci/ french major. Yeah, not STEM, but the example will work anyway. My niece is in her freshman year at a major uni. She wrote on her FaceBook page the other day "I'm ready to kill whoever invented economics!" Her "friend" wrote "that would be Adam Smith".

 

Erm... no. Let's face it, no one "invented" economics - you have to look for written records.

 

So, I wrote a note that said that while most people viewed Aristotle and Xenophon as the "inventors" of econ, the earliest writings were actually from China, by a guy named Fan Li.

 

So the same writer came back (this is an 18 year old) and informs me that no, I am incorrect, it is Adam Smith.

 

There's some critical thinkin' for ya.

 

Adam Smith is considered the father of modern economic thought - completely different question.

 

No one THINKS anymore. Well, our kids do... :lol:

 

 

a

[G5052]

Interesting article and thread. I'm curious why no one has addressed the issue brought up in the article that the drop out rate is highest among females and minorities.

 

I guess this aspect is of particular interest to me as my dd is interested in pursuing a STEM major. I wonder why it's only the top female students who seem to benefit from having female professors and not the average female students. I think it would definitely make an impression on my daughter to have female mentors and role models in the STEM fields.

 

Would be interested to hear any thoughts on this especially from the moms who graduated with STEM majors. Does this article ring true from what you saw? What advice would you give to my daughter and others?

 

Thanks!

 

I found this interesting as a female STEM major. I worked for 15 years before children, and have been an adjunct professor since the arrival of my firstborn.

 

Frankly I really didn't have role models, so it is hard for me to comment on how that would have changed things. I never had a female professor in my major field, and really didn't encounter other women in my field until I switched from university research to government.

 

I would agree though that being a woman in STEM requires that she relate well to how men learn and interact, and perhaps that is where the mentoring would help. Having been around almost all men in college and work for years, and now being with women in homeschooling circles, I can tell you that it is VERY different. It is hard to describe, but competing and working with men is a more "in your face" experience. I soon learned that I had to aggressively stick up for myself, ask a lot of questions, and deal with conflict differently than when I was with my women friends. At the college where I work now, I am again the only woman in my department, and our meetings are very different than the meetings I have with the women of the homeschool group where I also teach. It is hard to describe, but I personally think that part of the STEM issue for women is being able to function in a male-dominated environment, which of course begins in college.

 

A lot to think about...

[creekland]

 

I would agree though that being a woman in STEM requires that she relate well to how men learn and interact, and perhaps that is where the mentoring would help. Having been around almost all men in college and work for years, and now being with women in homeschooling circles, I can tell you that it is VERY different. It is hard to describe, but competing and working with men is a more "in your face" experience. I soon learned that I had to aggressively stick up for myself, ask a lot of questions, and deal with conflict differently than when I was with my women friends. At the college where I work now, I am again the only woman in my department, and our meetings are very different than the meetings I have with the women of the homeschool group where I also teach. It is hard to describe, but I personally think that part of the STEM issue for women is being able to function in a male-dominated environment, which of course begins in college.

 

A lot to think about...

 

:iagree: I was a Physics major and by junior and senior years I was generally the only female in my classes. It never bugged me, but thinking back on it all based on your post, I agree that it's because I felt comfortable being part of the "men's club." My parents divorced when I was 11 and I lived with my dad. I think that is a huge reason why I've never had difficulty relating to men in a work or school situation. Actually, I tend to relate to them better than I do with women as I've never been interested in crafts or cooking or other traditional "women talk" things, but that's a different story.

 

I was military as well (ROTC in college). That was another "men's club" that I loved.

 

I don't suggest parents of future female STEM majors get divorced, but I definitely recommend the students spend a bit of time with the guys (in safe situations) - rocket clubs, science clubs, chess clubs or other places that tend to be dominated by Y chromosomes and get a feel for how life will be. It wouldn't be good to be thrown into the water in college IMO.

[regentrude]

I would agree though that being a woman in STEM requires that she relate well to how men learn and interact, and perhaps that is where the mentoring would help. Having been around almost all men in college and work for years, and now being with women in homeschooling circles, I can tell you that it is VERY different.

 

 

Yes, it IS very different. I much prefer to deal with groups of men than with groups of women. (Based on the girl interactions in Middle school, around 6th grade I firmly resolved to choose a career where I would not have to work with groups of women). Guys interact more directly, tell you facts to your face - no popularity contests and no behind the back talk.

OTOH, I do not think that this is the deciding factor for college success. (And I'd like to add that I have never encountered any discrimination in the scientific community.)

 

I did have one female professor in an upper level class whom I greatly admired, but I don't think it made a different for my performance- I was very motivated by my male professors too.

 

When I started studying physics, our class had 7 girls and 46 guys, one of the girls dropped out due to pregnancy, all others graduated.

Interestingly, the ratio of female to male students back then, in a communist country where almost all women worked and where women working in technical fields was greatly pushed, was not any different than what I see in the US these days.

Edited April 2, 2011 by regentrude

[Nan in Mass]

At my university, we have a mathematics lab staffed by math graduate students, which is open approximately 40 hours a week. The chemistry and physics departments also have help rooms open the same times. Out of all the enrollment in these classes, there are usually only a few students in the rooms.

 

I have students struggling (and failing) in my math class now. They don't come to my office hours, or the TA's office hours. Some of them do go to tutoring sessions run by undergraduates in the evenings, which they claim are far more helpful (this is because the undergraduates will give them the answer as opposed to trying to work through it), and some of them just refuse to seek help altogether.

 

There is no-one who has even submitted (disregarding quality) 90% of the homework who is getting lower than a C. Yet half the class is failing. Many of the failing ones, when asked, have told me that they're going to buckle down before the exam and learn it all. They don't believe me that it doesn't work.

 

This is different from a humanities class, where you could blow off half the semester and still manage to learn the work from the second half of the semester. The cumulative and sequential nature of the work renders it impossible to do so in STEM classes, yet they don't believe it.

 

Even at very good universities, students still struggle, help rooms are available, office hours are available, and tutoring is available. Most (not all!) of the reasons for flunking out are unwillingness or inability to appreciate the difference in studying to learn a *skill* rather than studying to learn *content*.

 

This got a little long, sorry about that.

(I changed the text to bold.)

 

Maybe this is a stupid question, but I have been thinking about why going to the help sessions is helpful because I want to be able to convince my youngest to go to tutoring. Can you help me think this through? Why do you think it helps?

 

I think it has to do with different levels of knowing? I am thinking of those grading rubrics that run something like:

 

Can do task independently

Can do task with some guidance

Understands while watching someone else but cannot do

Does not understand

 

A student who can't distinguish #2 or #3 from #4 doesn't go get help.

Tutoring helps because some students need to watch or to solve with a bit of guidance more problems before they are at #4 than just the few demonstrated in class and in the textbook. Sometimes STEM students aren't the best at reading, either, so the textbook isn't very useful. In that case, tutoring can demonstrate more problems for them.

 

Does that sound right?

 

-Nan

[regentrude]

Maybe this is a stupid question, but I have been thinking about why going to the help sessions is helpful because I want to be able to convince my youngest to go to tutoring. Can you help me think this through? Why do you think it helps?

I think it has to do with different levels of knowing? I am thinking of those grading rubrics that run something like:

 

Can do task independently

Can do task with some guidance

Understands while watching someone else but cannot do

Does not understand

 

A student who can't distinguish #2 or #3 from #4 doesn't go get help.

Tutoring helps because some students need to watch or to solve with a bit of guidance more problems before they are at #4 than just the few demonstrated in class and in the textbook. Sometimes STEM students aren't the best at reading, either, so the textbook isn't very useful. In that case, tutoring can demonstrate more problems for them.

 

 

Not quite.

In our courses, help sessions are not intended to do more problems, but to assist students in completing their homework. In a well designed course,

the homework is such, in amount and selection, that a student who learns how to work the problem has mastered the subject.

I sometimes encounter students who prepare for exams by wanting MORE problems- but actually, understanding how and why to do each step in the assigned problems is completely sufficient for mastery. The issue is understanding - because then you see how other problems lead to the same ideas and concepts.

What we do in our help sessions is a socratic approach. We do not SHOW the students how to do the problems, we guide them through and only step in if needed. In addition, we encourage students to work together and teach each other - which, perhaps, is the most valuable tool: when the student has to explain to somebody else what to do, he sees whether he truly understood the procedure, and often the explaining itself brings about the understanding in the student who does the explaining.

 

There is also straight out tutoring which is a chance for students to ask questions and have concepts explained, and problems worked out. I find this less effective. I often have students who want to meet with me "because they understand nothing about the chapter" - I ask them to come prepared with specific questions. THAT is the effort many won't put in: to read the text and lecture notes and bother finding out exactly WHAT it is they do not understand. So for tutoring to be effective, some preparation from the student is necessary because listening to the tutor narrate the content of the lecture is not helpful.

 

The least helpful "help", btw, is watching somebody else (tutor, professor, another student) solve problems. Typically, the student who sees a problem worked out beautifully will copy it down and be convinced that he understood it. When asked to reproduce the solution the next day, he can't. That is one of the dangers of study groups where the strongest student shows the others. It is necessary for the WEAK student to make the attempt himself and get help as needed in muddling through, that is how he learns.

[FaithManor]

The least helpful "help", btw, is watching somebody else (tutor, professor, another student) solve problems. Typically, the student who sees a problem worked out beautifully will copy it down and be convinced that he understood it. When asked to reproduce the solution the next day, he can't. That is one of the dangers of study groups where the strongest student shows the others. It is necessary for the WEAK student to make the attempt himself and get help as needed in muddling through, that is how he learns.

 

 

Regentrude, I completely agree with you. This was born out time and again in music theory. Some musicians were very talented players, but quite weak in the mechanics of music. They would watch the group leader (me, until I realized is was a serious waste of my time, not helping anyone, and quit) walk through the steps of harmonic analysis (much like a geometric proof) and think, "No problem, I can do this." But, they didn't take the time to do several right away while someone was there to point out the flaws in their thinking. When called upon in class the next day to analyze a sample thrown out by the theory prof, they would fall flat on their face. This usually ended in about 50% of the music majors declaring a music minor at the end of the first semester. Some dropped music in it's entirety.

 

By the way, we mentor a group of middle school students for the Team America Rocketry Challenge. Since mentors are only to teach the basics of model rocketry and then make sure the students' designs are safe and meet the regulations, we use the Socratic Method. Since the team is so young, they always want to ask direct questions...solve my problems for me type guestions. This would be against regulations because the concept is that the students learn the engineering through their own problem solving. But, again, we have to make sure the design is safe and recoverable. Therefore, the Socratic Method works well.

 

DD is on a STEM career path. She's two years into her pre-med along with paramedic school. She'll be finishing her second two years of pre-med as a part-time student while working as a medic in order to save money for med-school/physician's assistant program. It helps greatly that she had a deep relationship with her dad, grandfather, and uncle (spent a lot of time with them on all kinds of projects) and works very well with men. Most medics and E.M.T.'s are men and most Trauma Departments and EMS's are managed by men. They do think differently. She says her EMS company loses a lot of female students during clinicals, not due to inability or incompetancy, but the emotional element. "Your I.V. technic stunk today!" or "Are you trying to kill your patient?" These are examples of how men talk. They do not spare your feelings and as a general rule, it seems like the men take this kind of thing in stride and get over brutal honesty quickly. It is very "in your face" and only the females with thick skins survive.

 

Faith

[Laura in CA]

Students are not failing because they are lacking intrinsic intelligence - they are failing because they are lacking preparation and/or work attitude.

Interestingly, whether they had calculus or higher science classes in high school plays a very minor role for their success.

 

 

Please tell my long term friend how is now the chair of a high school bio dept this.

 

When I tell her that, from everything I have read, it is much more important for a child to have a solid, solid, SOLID understanding of mathematics up through pre-calc prior to going to uni than it is for them to whiz through high school maths to MAKE SURE they include calc, she looks at me as though I've lost my mind. Even though she admits (like Faith commented) that they never finish ANY of the books!

 

I actually got into a discussion with her just last month about this because of what I've read from all of you -- that so many science and engineering programs want to make sure students are "grounded" in subjects, that the programs want to make sure all students are on the same level (so to speak) so that the rocket sled on wheels can progress... they can't really AFFORD to assume that everyone's high school calc course was sufficient.

 

 

Here's a quote from Harvard's excellent Preparing for College essay (which I first heard about on these forums, of course!):

 

Mathematics

 

No matter what your field of interest, mathematics will be essential for your higher education. It is the language, as Galileo put it, in which the book of nature is written. Today it is the common language describing new discoveries at the frontiers of science, of economic prediction, and of models of climate change.

 

To acquire the mathematical background you need at Harvard, you should study mathematics every year in secondary school. But simply taking mathematics is not enough. You should acquire the habit of puzzling over mathematical relationships. When you are given a formula, ask yourself why it is true and if you know how to use it. When you learn a definition, ask yourself why the definition was made that way. It is the habit of questioning that will lead you to understand mathematics rather than merely to remember it, and it is this understanding that your college courses require. In particular, you should select mathematics courses that ask you to solve hard problems and that contain applications ("word problems"). The ability to wrestle with difficult problems is far more important than the knowledge of many formulae or relationships.

 

By the time you get to college, the concept of a function, and its representation by a formula, a graph, or a table, should be second nature to you. For example, you should be able to sketch a graph of the time required to drive from Boston to New York as a function of average speed; or of the number of bacteria in a colony as a function of time given that each one divides in two every twenty minutes. A qualitative understanding of graphs – the ability to sketch and interpret graphs without plotting or reading specific points – is as important as the ability to draw graphs point by point. For example, does a given graph indicate that the concentration of a pollutant in a lake is leveling off, or increasing steadily?

 

In particular, you should be thoroughly familiar with the graphs and behavior of exponential and logarithmic functions, including doubling times and percentage growth rates. The trigonometric functions, and the ideas of amplitude, period, and phase, are important. Scientific notation and the ability to estimate orders of magnitude are frequently used. An increasing number of fields use the basic ideas of probability and statistics, such as mean, median, mode, and standard deviation.

 

If you are well-versed in algebra, functions, and graphing, secondary school calculus will enable you to take more advanced introductory courses in mathematics, physics, and chemistry in college. But do not rush into calculus. It may surprise you to know that success in first-year quantitative courses at college is determined more by the strength of your proficiency in algebra, functions, and graphing than by whether or not you have studied calculus in secondary school. Courses in the natural and social sciences often depend more on a real understanding of the behavior of different kinds of functions than on the ability to use calculus.

 

In the last analysis, however, it is not what courses you have taken, but how much you have thought about mathematics, that counts. More important than the knowledge of a specific mathematical topic, is the willingness to tackle new problems.

[Teachin'Mine]

Wow, the responses have been great! Thank you everyone for sharing!!!

 

So hanging out with the guys is a good thing ... dd will be thrilled to hear this. :lol: I remember in my high school physics class I was one of only two girls. While I think the balance has shifted somewhat since those days when the dinosaurs roamed, it's still a field with many more men than women.

 

I agree with those who said that for them it didn't matter what gender their professors were as long as they were good. Dd hasn't had a lot of exposure to different teachers, so it's hard to know if it would impact her or not, but I'm thinking it might.

 

Heigh Ho your advice was interesting regarding developing visual spatial skills. I used to do more with this when she was younger - tangrams, tetris, and things like this - but I guess it's something to work on more now. Any suggestions?

[Nan in Mass]

Thank you, Regentrude, for explaining. : )

-Nan

[Teachin'Mine]

anything she'd like that's real life and lets her notice and see orientations and relationships

 

art, carpentry (set building for plays perhaps), sewing (costumes for plays, dolls, or personal clothing), knit/crochet, model building, small engine rebuild, board games are the common ones

 

She might consider joining sea scouts or venturing and learning the knots etc

 

use a molecule kit for chemistry too, so she can get used to rotating and seeing the different views of the same thing

 

Thank you!!! :)

[Nan in Mass]

I agree. I spent lots of time with my father, working on projects with him, since I was fairly technically minded. It didn't mean I didn't spend lots of time sewing doll clothes and playing girly pretend games also, but in middle school, I pretty much gave up on all girls, who were being unbearably stupid and remained so until college. Well, all girls other than my sisters, who were and are my best friends. I thought the boys were pretty stupid, too, until I discovered the geeky ones. They were interesting, sensible, and fun. I didn't really have friends who were girls until I had children. (Then we had something in common and I discovered that if I hunted around a bit, I could find some wonderful ones.) So yes, I was comfortable working with men and it didn't bother me that there were more boys than girls in my college classes. It never occurred to me that it was a bit strange that my high-science and high-math classes in high school were more girls than boys but that suddenly, as soon as we switched to college, the classes were the other way around.

 

My parents went out of their way to point out women in technical fields, and my father arranged for me to babysit for a wonderful young woman who had grown up on a farm with a million sisters (more or less grin) and missed them. We brushed each other's hair and exchanged recipes and did other girl-type things. I don't feel like she made any difference in my ability to survive a STEM degree, but I could be wrong. I had female professors, too, and don't feel like they made any difference, either.

 

I think the biggest difference was that I disliked studying literature and history because of the emotional trauma, but I liked solving puzzles and making things, and I found science interesting (as long as I didn't have to hurt anything living). Learning early on as a young child that my biologist mother had had to dissect a kitty in college, and even worse, had had to supply her own live cat, ruined me for biology for life. Math was much nicer. You don't have to kill anything or read about anything being killed or listen to a teacher ruin a favourite book talking about it too much or try to figure out what that blue bowl in chapter six represents (I was actually pretty good at that but much of the time I thought the teacher was wrong). Put that together with 12 year old girls pretending to giggle over boys just because they thought that was the thing to do and trying to talk me into not talking to this or that girl because wasn't she so weird, bringing avacados to lunch and wearing her hair like that, and you had the makings of a happy SaelsTEM major GRIN.

 

-Nan

 

aels - all except life science

[C_l_e_0..Q_c]

I'm an engineer, but as a youth, never really tinkered with anything. Once, I opened up a phone to figure out how it was working (I was maybe 15) and got such a talking to that I never did it again. (yes, I put it back together and it worked). On the other hand, I never played with dolls.

 

In university, I quickly noticed that female teachers that appeared feminine were often not taken seriously, and most of them were not very good. Those women who were not feminine (hair in ponytail, little or no makeup, pants and no skirts) were good at what they were doing. So there went my last opportunity to take an interest in 'girly things'. :D

[Nan in Mass]

LOL - You must not have had my French teacher. She was taken very, very seriously, and she definately saw no reason at all to hide her femininity. I think perhaps if she had been "cheap" feminine she would not have been taken seriously, but she was "lady" feminine (using my mother's terminology for the two types).

-Nan

[regentrude]

I'm an engineer, but as a youth, never really tinkered with anything.

 

I am a physicist, and as a child I never built anything or took anything apart; I was not in the slightest interested in the workings of any kind of contraption. I never liked puzzles. (OTOH, I was extremely verbal and loved writing stories.)

Nevertheless I managed to be pretty good at physics, because it is possible to develop some kind of abstract understanding that does not rely on actual visualization. I have no interest in constructing an apparatus for an experiment, but I can look at equations and "see" how quantities behave. (Does it surprise you that I specialized in theoretical physics?)

 

So, if a child does not show strong visual-spatial abilities, that does not mean she can not be a scientist.

[creekland]

I'm an engineer, but as a youth, never really tinkered with anything. Once, I opened up a phone to figure out how it was working (I was maybe 15) and got such a talking to that I never did it again. (yes, I put it back together and it worked). On the other hand, I never played with dolls.

 

In university, I quickly noticed that female teachers that appeared feminine were often not taken seriously, and most of them were not very good. Those women who were not feminine (hair in ponytail, little or no makeup, pants and no skirts) were good at what they were doing. So there went my last opportunity to take an interest in 'girly things'. :D

 

I majored in Physics, but can otherwise totally agree with you. I've never been interested in girly things ever since I was little. My mom and dad had to beg me to play with the dolls grandma gave me for Christmas so she'd feel appreciated. Once we left her house those dolls never saw the light of day again.

 

I also don't act feminine now (no make up and no dresses, etc) and make no apologies for it. Hubby doesn't mind. He says he loves it. We go hiking and other sorts of things together. ;)