Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Why Science Majors Change Their Mind (too hard)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/e...ge-their-mind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
New York Times
November 4, 2011

...

Studies have found that roughly 40 percent of students planning engineering and science majors end up switching to other subjects or failing to get any degree. That increases to as much as 60 percent when pre-medical students, who typically have the strongest SAT scores and high school science preparation, are included, according to new data from the University of California at Los Angeles. That is twice the combined attrition rate of all other majors.

For educators, the big question is how to keep the momentum being built in the lower grades from dissipating once the students get to college.

�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. �It�s not just a K-12 preparation issue.�

Professor Chang says that rather than losing mainly students from disadvantaged backgrounds or with lackluster records, the attrition rate can be higher at the most selective schools, where he believes the competition overwhelms even well-qualified students.

�You�d like to think that since these institutions are getting the best students, the students who go there would have the best chances to succeed,� he says. �But if you take two students who have the same high school grade-point average and SAT scores, and you put one in a highly selective school like Berkeley and the other in a school with lower average scores like Cal State, that Berkeley student is at least 13 percent less likely than the one at Cal State to finish a STEM degree.�

The bulk of attrition comes in engineering and among pre-med majors, who typically leave STEM fields if their hopes for medical school fade. There is no doubt that the main majors are difficult and growing more complex. Some students still lack math preparation or aren�t willing to work hard enough.

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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Its the first two years.

Well, if you can't make it through the "weed-out" classes for pre-med, why would you be able to make it through P-Chem, which is significantly harder?

Also, speaking as a physician, it never occured to me that I might want to get a PhD in biology or something instead of going into medicine. I'm not a doctor because I like science, I'm a doctor because I like people. I think a good percentage of us who become physicians never considered ourselves "science people" to begin with, so if these people can't do organic chemistry, they leave the STEM fields that they otherwise had no interest in to begin with. At least, that's what I would have done.

P-Chem is easier than biology.

Biology requires memorization.

I'm absolutely positive I passed P-chem by glancing at the stuff before the test and winging it. I may have attended 1/10 of the P-chem classes.

You can't do that with freshman biology.

And I thought freshman physics was the hardest thing I ever had to do. Biology came easily to me, and even organic chem was a snap compared to physics.

The labs were a different story. I was always setting something on fire. I wouldn't have made a very good biologist :-)

The first two years were the easiest years of my college experience. The weed out classes were just the easy theoretical classes, physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc.

It was the practical engineering classes that destroyed me. Mostly because I had never put effort into trying to understand anything before. Plus, I had zero interest in engineering.

You can't make much money in STEM fields unless you go to med school, so why would people want to get a Ph.D. in chemistry, when there are few jobs that pay six figures?

The first 2 years were absolutely boring with instructors who muttered and looked bored with the subject themselves. To make you show up for their droning lectures, they tell you they will test book knowledge and lecture notes. Ha.

If you can get past the "weeding out" of boredom tolerance levels, then 3rd and 4th year is definitely more interesting. Sigh.

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.

Weedout classes weren't hard but extremely boring and over crowded. I also found the last two years way more interesting.

There was some type of nerdy equation, "the limit of GPA(engineering) goes to 0 = Business".........

I did not mean the weed out classes, rather it was just the first two years.

Some people cannot handle the freedom and will not buckle down. Others never had to work hard and just stop pushing. Others get into personal dramas. Or drugs. Or never wanted to be there. Or work too much. Or have the wrong friends. Or thought professors were your friends. A few cannot do the work and they don't seek help.

Day by day, distraction by distraction, they make the decision to do something other than focus.

The Tier 1 schools have a ferocious pace. You really have to do 2-5 hours a night of homework to do well. It has to be your focus. Once you commit to working that hard, the rest follows.

The nerdy thing - "The limit of the major goes to Business as the GPA goes to zero."

But then you get done, look at your engineering diploma, and say to yourself: "This is of absolutely no value to me. That's five years of my life I'm never getting back. I should have majored in business."