[quote=Bostonian]
“We’re losing an alarming proportion of our nation’s science talent once the students get to college,” says Mitchell J. Chang, an education professor at U.C.L.A. who has studied the matter.
[quote=lilswee]At Freshman Engineering Orientation, we were told "look to your right look to your left, only one of you will graduate from the college of engineering". Nice. I am incredibly stubborn.
Seems like a classic case of self fulfilling prophecy to me. If they tell them on the way in that they aren't going to make it, why are they be surprised when so many of them don't?
I would also suggest that at least some may be leaving not because it is "too hard" but perhaps because the environment is unpleasant due to pointless and excessive competition among students and very disinterested faculty. At a certain point perhaps the payoff may no longer seem worth the social and emotional costs.
