8 ms·

Why Science Majors Change Their Minds

73 points by gopi 15y ago

spacemanaki 15y ago
Previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3196377 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3196377
zeteo 15y ago
The article sounds as though there's a lot of pressure on colleges to lower their standards in order to produce the required number of engineers. I was a math/CS TA for several years, and I don't think the problem is with tough freshman classes, low grades or a focus on theory. Fundamentally, the main problem with students that come from the US educational system is a lack of background in math. The prospective science major who's having trouble with fractions and basic algebra is, unfortunately, a disturbingly common presence on college campuses these days. It's hard to fix K-12 in this regard (especially as everyone wants to fix it in a different way). But if colleges really want to solve the problem, they should put more effort into remedial math classes, instead of lowering the standards (and reducing the theoretical content) for those classes they already have.
- kevinskii 15y ago
  I think the remedial math courses that presently exist at the college level are probably sufficient. The problem is that there's a perceived stigma among young people in taking them. I retook pre-calculus and trigonometry when I started college after the military, and I doubt I would have graduated as an engineer if I hadn't.
  - starwed 15y ago
    Make them mandatory if you can't pass a screening test.
    - tgrass 15y ago
      I think the issue is the stigma; when one fails out of Calculus and the alternatives are taking College Algebra or switching majors, the stigma has the influence of shifting preference to a different major. My first degree was History. I went back for engineering and failed Vector Calc and Electro-Mag both twice before finally understanding the material and getting an A in each. I was 30 when I took those, and was too proud to take the remedial.
      - estevez 15y ago
        I'm living through this right now. I'm struggling through pre-calculus, attempting to learn material I was never exposed to in high school, and the main emotion I'm feeling is profound shame. Luckily, I've had some amazing research experiences so I know I can do the science; that said, I can easily imagine how differently things could have gone if that wasn't the case.
        always_finish 15y ago
        I lived through that myself and I want to encourage you to keep at it. It can be extremely frustrating and depressing especially if you have talented colleagues. Here is my example in case you can benefit from it. I was studying EE and I had classmates who were able to skip Calc I, Calc II and one guy even clepped out of Differential Equations! Me? I was failing Pre-calc and I had to drop down to College Algebra. I was even failing that, unfortunately. I went to talk to the teacher, who unhelpfully stated, "In my 12 years of teaching I have only had a single student manage to pass considering where you are starting from." That seriously pissed me off. Fortunately, the next test was on exponentials and logorithms, which I just "grok". I got a high A on it. From there I dedicated even more time to the materials and I scoured the library for better math reference books. I found some books that took a practical approach to problem solving and used them to understand the process correctly. In the end I ended up with an 89 for the class. Considering that I had a 60 when I talked with the teacher, I was very proud of it. I ended up having to add a year to my University studies and therefore added an extra major but it worked out well. I graduated with my EE degree and ironically some of the people that were exempted from the Calc series dropped out since the program was "too hard". Change the way you are studying if your struggling. Look for other reference materials, try out a few different tutors. There are different ways to learn things, and you just need to find out how you learn and then you push it for all it's worth.
- aiscott 15y ago
  I was lacking in math background going into college, though it wasn't the fault of my schooling. I just wasn't ready for it yet. I struggled with algebra, which may or may not have been teacher related. I hadn't taken trig at all, and I ended up taking calculus my first semester in college. I didn't quite fail, but came pretty close. I took until late in my sophomore year before things started to click for me. I can't point to any one specific thing that did it, other than I had matured a bit and my brain was now ready to learn the more difficult subjects. I went from C's and D's to mostly A's and a few B's and double majored in Computer and Electrical Engineering with a Math minor of all things. I don't think everyone is ready for college the minute they graduate from high-school. I suspect if I had taken a couple years off and did some blue collar work for a while before heading off to college, I would have done better and gotten even more out of it than I did. Now I never switched majors, but the thought did cross my mind those first two years. I wonder if slightly delayed college entry would be helpful to others.
- ivan_ah 15y ago
  > educational system is a lack of background in math > I think the whole "math is tough" point of view is not defensible, yet a large percentage of the non-technical population believe it. Yes, math is tough if you are 8 years old, but when you are 20+? Really? Rather than standardized aptitude tests, I think we need good math textbooks for adults. Not for dummies, just regular explanations focusing on the applications. On that note, I want to shamelessly add a plug to my upcoming book, in which I explain //all// the high-school math in 50 pages. I decided to add this section, after I saw many of my students struggling to find t in equations like: 3(t+4) = 4(t+3). Email me if you want to see, and be a test reader. Oh yeah, the book also covers university-level Calculus and Mechanics in 150 pages.
- jseliger 15y ago
  The prospective science major who's having trouble with fractions and basic algebra is, unfortunately, a disturbingly common presence on college campuses these days. I'm a grad student in English lit, and, if it makes you feel any better, the prospective humanities major who's having trouble with comma rules and simple grammar is also distressingly high. More of them than you might imagine end up thinking humanities classes are too hard, which leads them to business or comm, which leads to problems like the ones discussed here: http://jseliger.com/2011/10/07/student-choice-employment-skills-and-grade-inflation http://jseliger.com/2011/10/07/student-choice-employment-ski... . And I've talked to a lot of my peers who say they simply won't teach basic grammar and writing principles, even briefly, because students should "already know them." Which seems rather unfair if the students have already been fouled by the K - 12 system.
- rayiner 15y ago
  > I was a math/CS TA for several years, and I don't think the problem is with tough freshman classes, low grades or a focus on theory. Eh. Math illiteracy is a problem, but I came into college having taken calc/physics/quantum mechanics, had nearly perfect math SAT's/SAT II's, etc, and I still hated engineering school. I think engineering is just plain taught the wrong way. I'd say 80% of my classes were literally just the professor deriving some formula in some tortured fashion, doing a token problem, then going onto the next formula. This might be an adequate pedagogical style for a PhD candidate, but at the undergraduate level this just rewards the kids who have the longest attention span. As a practicing engineer, you need to understand some of the origins of the formulas, sure, but more than that you need to see how the formulas work in practice, how they interact with each other, how they fit into the big picture. Professors give barely token attention to any of that. In fact it even goes beyond the theory/practice distinction. Playing with concepts and seeing how they interact, rather than laboriously grinding out every mathematical detail, is a great way to teach theory too! The basic components of good communication are universal: you tell your audience what you're going to tell them, you tell them, and then you tell them what you told them. Engineering professors can be ridiculously inept at doing this, and it's no surprise people tune out and leave the programs.
  - giardini 15y ago
    Some students might do better to take physics instead of engineering. There is a broader perspective in physics and the origins of concepts and formulae are usually considered relevant topics for discussion.
bedris 15y ago
“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.” This is interesting. Could it be that at more selective schools, when students encounter difficulty in STEM courses, they are less hesitant to switch to an easier major because they figure that their degree will still have value due to the name recognition of their university, while their counterparts at less selective schools don't have that luxury? That's one hypothesis...
- ak217 15y ago
  No, it's just that Berkeley STEM courses are harder.
  - ricefield 15y ago
    Not just material-wise, but also in terms of competitiveness
    - grammr 15y ago
      This is a valid point. The EECS department at Berkeley essentially sets the distribution of letter grades that will be assigned at the end of each course[0], so there will always be many damned smart students who end up getting really low (or failing) grades because of their performance relative to their peers. I majored in CS at Berkeley, and there were only one or two professors that I can recall who strayed even slightly from these departmental guidelines. For me, the harsh curves essentially ruined what would have been an amazing educational experience. It was basically a perpetual preparation for the next exam, because you were always competing for your spot on the grade scale. This is a very real deterrent for not only students who need a decent GPA (e.g. for grad school), but also for those who want to actually enjoy their time at university. [0] http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Policies/ugrad.grading.shtml http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Policies/ugrad.grading.shtml
jgon 15y ago
This article is trying to figure out the solution to a problem that was solved over a decade ago. See: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science Science majors change their minds once they find out that they will be required to take challenging courses, yes, but it is not this challenge, in and of itself, that causes them to "change their minds". It is that people who are smart enough to be in a position to take these courses, people who the article talks about as having great scores on the SAT etc, people like these are also smart enough to do a quick ROI calculation and realize that a comparatively easier (don't take this as a rip on people with these degrees, many of them are my friends, are very, very smart, and have made this very decision themselves) degree in econ, business, or law will yield vastly greater material dividends. If you want people to stop changing their minds about science, you have to do something to change the ROI calculation that goes "I can work 2x as hard as my peers, graduate and receive 1/2 the monetary compensation or I can....not do that".
- geebee 15y ago
  I completely agree that PhD programs in STEM fields have become extremely uncompetitive with the professions (a RAND study on the supposed shortage of scientists and engineers that reached the same conclusion Greenspun reaches, though with a more data driven, less anecdotal approach.) But keep in mind, we're talking about undergraduate degrees here, which is a different beast entirely. Engineering and physical science majors really do have considerably better employment prospects on average than humanities or social science majors. That said, I suppose you still have to analyze it from the perspective of a student who is sure to attend professional school. If you know you're law-school bound, you're at a reputable university, and you have high grades in humanities and the ability to ace standardized tests, you can still have a high paying career in law without ever taking a serious math class. Engineering/Sci majors are often more desirable on the way out - a law school graduate with an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering has more options than one with an undergrad major in English. Considering how much harder these degrees are, it could still be rational for a student to avoid these fields even at the undergraduate level - and if they harm your GPA, it might be best to avoid them (though some admissions officials do say they discount high GPAs in "easier" majors). And even if you can hack it, you'll work a hell of a lot harder in college. But if you're willing to put in the effort and have the ability, you do improve your job prospects with an rigorous Math/Sci/Eng major over a humanities major in almost every career scenario. So on the balance, I think you can make a very strong ROI case for engineering in eng/sci/math at the undergrad level. MS, less so, but it's a short program. PhD? Well, the RAND institute already crunched the numbers better than I ever could, it's pretty hard to justify a PhD in STEM relative to the professions if you're going off career ROI.
spodek 15y ago
I went the other direction. After finding math and science easy before college, I avoided science classes in college to avoid being too nerdy. By junior year I realized I loved science too much, overcame being bothered by what other people thought, majored in physics, and got a PhD. My last two years of the PhD I ended up starting a company and became a successful entrepreneur in media, which is, I guess, the payoff to the economy of someone going into math and science. Check out this irony. I've come to create art with my medium and taught a couple art courses at art schools to MFA and BFA candidates. The art students learn programming, circuits, entrepreneurship, design, and such. I'm talking about programs like NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Project and Parsons' Arts, Media, and Technology program. We created these displays, which is pretty techy and beautiful. - http://joshuaspodek.com/tag/unionsquareinmotion http://joshuaspodek.com/tag/unionsquareinmotion - http://joshuaspodek.com/new_bryant_park_in_motion_videos http://joshuaspodek.com/new_bryant_park_in_motion_videos
- BadCookie 15y ago
  I'm surprised that you were able to decide to major in physics your junior year. At my school, if you didn't take physics your first year, you simply could not graduate as a physics major in four years (at least without getting a special exception to double up on courses, which would require you to be nearly super-human). Perhaps this phenomenon contributes to the low numbers of science majors, as well. Lots of people don't figure out what to major in until they are a year or two into college, which rules out a lot of STEM possibilities if you happened not to take the correct courses in your first year.
  - spodek 15y ago
    Exactly. I had to double up on classes and take some subjects on my own over the summer. Two classes one semester literally overlapped by about fifteen minutes and I had to get special permission to show up late for it. I got a passing grade for it, but finished it afterward. It wasn't a matter of being super-human, just loving the subject. I agree, though, that if your passion isn't overwhelming, you can't do it. You can with many non-STEM majors. The first couple years of graduate school were brutal. I had taken twenty math and science classes undergrad. Typical Russian and Chinese classmates had taken thirty to fifty and they blew me out of the water. The one guy in the program who took nineteen courses dropped out, so I was right on the border.
cantbecool 15y ago
I don't think it,the curriculum, is too difficult, but the professors that teach the lower level general curriculum freshman year in most universities. I mean I had professors that were literally out in left field, and don't get me started on the foreign TAs. There was always major communication barriers during my first two quarters in EE. Enthusiasm coming from professors is contagious, but so is boredom.
civilian 15y ago
I thought this was posted a week ago. Don't upvote this!
rayiner 15y ago
I sometimes regret not switching out of my aerospace engineering major. I went to a good undergraduate engineering school (Georgia Tech), and frankly the educational experience was terrible. Professors who weren't engaged, TA's who couldn't speak English well enough to easily convey the material, exams that were unrelated to what was taught in class, etc. I had a few great professors, but they were few and far between. When I left engineering to go to a smallish private law school, I had a totally different experience. Classes taught entirely by professors. Maximum of ~60 students per class and more typically 20-30 in upper-level courses. Professors who would engage the class in hypotheticals rather than just dryly recount the rules. Exams that actually tested the material we learned. The fundamental problem is that engineering schools, especially the big state ones like Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, and Georgia Tech, are research factories. They crank out certain amount of BS's to meet industry demand for engineers, but their investment in those graduates seems minimal at best. Now, don't get me wrong. I think an undergraduate degree in engineering is still the best way to go (as long as you can hack the math and it won't kill your GPA). Even if you ultimately want to do law, finance, or consulting, people really do take you more seriously. But at the same time, I really can't blame people when they stay away from STEM majors, especially ones that test well and know they will be able to go to a top graduate school with their liberal arts degree.
- PotatoEngineer 15y ago
  You're also seeing a difference between undergraduate education and graduate education. The class sizes and professor interest are night and day.
bmahmood 15y ago
The article certainly identifies an important issue, but seems simplistic in it's assessment of the root causes. As a a bio major, who wavered between pre-med and business aspirations, my main gripe with science education was the theoretical framework it was taught in. It's mostly complete rote memorization of thousands of inane details, without any practical context to understand the relevance or application (no, labs do not fulfill this purpose). If the implications of bio/chem theory were taught in a more practical, problem-solving approach, (a la computer science), I feel people would develop a better passion for science (as they did in High School with science fairs as the article describes), and stick with it longer.
pnathan 15y ago
I didn't change my mind. I started as a CS major, ended as a CS major, and am finishing up a CS Master's degree. Possibly one day a CS PhD. I have TA'd students and have long had an abiding interest in educational curricula, stemming from my experienced being homeschooled, where as I grew older, I was able to select elective materials to study in cooperation with my parents. There are a few highlighter reasons I believe STEM education has issues, and please remember that these are interlinked, and other issues are present, which also interlink into these issues. I've picked these because I think they are standout. * ROI on engineering vs. ROI on the MBA course. Non-founder engineers cap their salary potential in their career, in general, and spend gruelling hours in classes. MBA's salary cap is higher to non-existent, and can apparently skiv off pretty easy in undergraduate years. * Math education is generally broken in the US. That means that students are not ready for the rigourous thinking and numeracy demanded in STEM. They struggle understanding the basics of mathematics and computational thinking because they never have had it before, so the 'elite' students who do know what they are doing stand out. * Hacker/elite snobs pissing on other classmates. This has happened to a few friends of mine, but not really to me. Some of the freshmen/sophomores really brag on their ability (i.e., they were coder geeks in high school) and this discourages other people. It's toxic. * Gender imbalance and lousy social environment. A bunch of stinky guys geeking out over computers and video games which are outdated in a few years is not... primo. * Young software engineers are expected to spend nearly every waking minute coding, just to have a chance to get a job. They need to get internships, contribute to open source, maybe build a mobile app, etc... and do well in class. This, as near as I can tell, is very rare. Only perhaps musicians have similar expectations. Spending this much time on your field is corrosive to your character and personality (see above two points). * Culture heroes are entertainers and sports stars. Not makers of useful things. * Focus on application instead of theory. Everyone wants to do something real cool right now, preferably yesterday, without any training. This is not realistic when laying the foundations for a solid career. Short-term thinking says, "pleasure now, pay later", which does not work well in STEM.
- partition 15y ago
  Completely agree. The fact is that most people in STEM aren't so much encouraged to go into STEM as deceived into it by a combination of science documentaries, science types bragging that STEM-like subjects are of Superior Intrinsic Value and Lead You To The Meaning Of Life, and parents selling the field to their children as an easy way to make money. And a very good point about the hacker/elite snobs pissing on other classmates + gender imbalance and lousy social environment, it's not just limited to CS undergrads but is widespread in Ph. D programs as well, you'd expect that these Head Nerd types would have gotten with the program of life by then. Combine the shitty social elements with a shitty ROI plus an increased awareness of other kinds of worth than being a coding rockstar, and you've got a bunch of disillusioned, not-very-young people who feel they have been deceived into making their life choices. The last point is also what's making me reconsider being involved in computer science. It seems like even research universities are increasingly doing work that are more low-quality first-startup style grabs at attention, using machine learning (itself a balkanized field devoid of theory) as a semantic stopsign-marker of objective quality, and less of "classical" computer science results that were very mathematically informed.
brudgers 15y ago
I think the analysis is a little superficial. K-12 education in the US channels a lot of really bright kids onto a highly time consuming and sequential STEM track, and the idea that anything other than a STEM major is for wimps is not uncommon. In addition, STEM majors is where such students are directed by guidance counselors. I went off to college to major in EE. I had a 3 minute conversation with my academic adviser which consisted entirely of him telling me exactly which 15 hours to take. I walked out and changed majors to CHM, where the academic councilor explained the various degree options and discussed electives over the course of about an hour. But it turns out, though I loved the theory, I really fucking hated laboratory sessions. Organic synthesis on paper was an interesting problem - I just didn't care for going through the motions, cleaning glassware and pretending I was conducting a meaningful experiment. It took me several years to decide that there are lots of worthy intellectual endeavors and challenging problems outside of STEM [YMMV]. I believe my choice to pursue a liberal arts degree is among the best decisions I ever made. Personally, I think the problem is that the US educational system narrows the funnel toward the STEM field too early - for all practical purposes it's already narrowing way down into the primary grades...even though the it is obvious that people can find their way into the more "open" STEM areas (such as programming) without being channeled academically toward a STEM career. In other words, the primary reason that a person first exposed to algebra at Junior College is less likely to become a mathematician is lower expectations, both on the part of the academy and on the part of the student.
- pnathan 15y ago
  FYI, there is a whole branch of chemistry that exists outside the lab and dealing with the abstract concepts and mechanics.
  - brudgers 15y ago
    Yep. Unfortunately, you can't get there without cleaning a lot of glassware.
- cageface 15y ago
  Organic synthesis on paper was an interesting problem - I just didn't care for going through the motions, cleaning glassware and pretending I was conducting a meaningful experiment. You don't learn enough in four years to do meaningful lab work in OChem, but you still have to learn the basic techniques somewhere. Personally I really miss bench chemistry. If the professional culture weren't so conservative and hierarchical I'd probably still be doing it.
devindotcom 15y ago
Personally I stepped away from pre-med because I couldn't stand the idea of my major determining my life for the next ten years - graduate programs, internships, residence, all that stuff, it's daunting when you're 21 and all you want to do is STUFF. Going premed would mean what I'd done was just the beginning not an accomplishment in and of itself. That was daunting and a bit demoralizing. The fact is it's not for everyone, and not just because of the difficulty (I never excelled in math or organic chemistry), and people like me who get in because it's interesting often find that the career paths that present themselves are strictly defined and entail a lot of drudgery. I remember perceiving this very clearly in my 3rd year after doing a lot of prep work and it was an easy decision. I ended up majoring in Psych with minors in Neuroscience and Cog Sci, for the record, which was hard as hell anyway, but technically a BA and not applicable to STEM-type employment.
rflrob 15y ago
The bulk of attrition comes in engineering and among pre-med majors, who typically leave STEM fields if their hopes for medical school fade. I don't know that including pre-meds in the analysis is worthwhile. While medicine is certainly quite technical, I don't really consider it a STEM field. The economic multipliers from improved medicine (increasing productivity for each of a doctor's patients) is qualitatively different from those for "real" STEM fields (increasing productivity for potentially anyone who can get the discovered knowledge).
alexholehouse 15y ago
I think this in an interesting problem you don't really have in a lot of tertiary education systems else wear (that said, I still think the ability to pick and chose a diverse set of classes is a great model, and better than most). I studied in the UK, so you apply from high school to do, "Computer Science" or, "Physics" or, "English". And that's what you do. You have some choice in terms of the classes and courses you take, but (generally) they're all totally within that sphere. I think having some options to do other courses would be really valuable, but equally it means people don't typically chose to switch from an STEM based degree to something else, and people stick it out (or just drop out).
ewanmcteagle 15y ago
I think this is a valuable alternate perspective. Students will become discouraged from time to time and this will vary by field. Frankly, most professors don't care about undergraduate education. I know this from direct experience. They will typically list their priorities as: research and grants, graduate students, and only then, undergraduate teaching. And teaching is hard enough even when it's a top priority. You always lose some students without dedicated effort put into teaching and that will be worse in harder classes. High school doesn't prepare students for a rigorous college experience and if we don't bridge that gap somehow that will be one more reason someone will get out of a tough curriculum.
ewanmcteagle 15y ago
Why are the students afraid of lower grades? If you don't go to a PhD program, does it matter all that much? I think this emphasis on grades is something we should work to undo. You can learn, you can relearn and get extra help, but if the grades cause you to quit too early then grades are not having the effect we want.
- astar 15y ago
  because they've been raised to be that way since preschool? the few friends I have that are on faculty seem to feel that its just more trouble than it's worth to give students low grades, and then face the evals.
- Kuiper 15y ago
  A significant portion of the undergraduate population at my school receive scholarships that are recurring on the condition of maintaining a 3.0 GPA. We're talking non-trivial amounts, on the scale of $18-22k scholarship money per year for a school that costs ~$45k/year. For students receiving these scholarships, grades matter significantly, and it can become an economic question of whether they'd rather continue pursuing the engineering degree and graduate tens of thousands more in debt, or switch to an easier set of courses that will allow them to retain the scholarship. I think a lot of it also has to do with expectations from parents. For a lot of students, graduating with an engineering degree and a 2.5 GPA will leave mom and dad less happy than an English degree with a 3.5 GPA, even though the former is more likely to be useful in the job hunt.
- pnathan 15y ago
  I applied for a job where the cutoff for applicants was 3.8 gpa out of a 4.0 school. I was a 3.1 something, iirc. If your future employers are looking for that, you do your living best to pad your transcript to stuff your GPA up.

73 points by gopi 15y ago

Previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3196377 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3196377

zeteo 15y ago

The article sounds as though there's a lot of pressure on colleges to lower their standards in order to produce the required number of engineers. I was a math/CS TA for several years, and I don't think the problem is with tough freshman classes, low grades or a focus on theory. Fundamentally, the main problem with students that come from the US educational system is a lack of background in math. The prospective science major who's having trouble with fractions and basic algebra is, unfortunately, a disturbingly common presence on college campuses these days. It's hard to fix K-12 in this regard (especially as everyone wants to fix it in a different way). But if colleges really want to solve the problem, they should put more effort into remedial math classes, instead of lowering the standards (and reducing the theoretical content) for those classes they already have.

kevinskii 15y ago
I think the remedial math courses that presently exist at the college level are probably sufficient. The problem is that there's a perceived stigma among young people in taking them. I retook pre-calculus and trigonometry when I started college after the military, and I doubt I would have graduated as an engineer if I hadn't.
- starwed 15y ago
  Make them mandatory if you can't pass a screening test.
  - tgrass 15y ago
    I think the issue is the stigma; when one fails out of Calculus and the alternatives are taking College Algebra or switching majors, the stigma has the influence of shifting preference to a different major. My first degree was History. I went back for engineering and failed Vector Calc and Electro-Mag both twice before finally understanding the material and getting an A in each. I was 30 when I took those, and was too proud to take the remedial.
    - estevez 15y ago
      I'm living through this right now. I'm struggling through pre-calculus, attempting to learn material I was never exposed to in high school, and the main emotion I'm feeling is profound shame. Luckily, I've had some amazing research experiences so I know I can do the science; that said, I can easily imagine how differently things could have gone if that wasn't the case.
      - always_finish 15y ago
        I lived through that myself and I want to encourage you to keep at it. It can be extremely frustrating and depressing especially if you have talented colleagues. Here is my example in case you can benefit from it. I was studying EE and I had classmates who were able to skip Calc I, Calc II and one guy even clepped out of Differential Equations! Me? I was failing Pre-calc and I had to drop down to College Algebra. I was even failing that, unfortunately. I went to talk to the teacher, who unhelpfully stated, "In my 12 years of teaching I have only had a single student manage to pass considering where you are starting from." That seriously pissed me off. Fortunately, the next test was on exponentials and logorithms, which I just "grok". I got a high A on it. From there I dedicated even more time to the materials and I scoured the library for better math reference books. I found some books that took a practical approach to problem solving and used them to understand the process correctly. In the end I ended up with an 89 for the class. Considering that I had a 60 when I talked with the teacher, I was very proud of it. I ended up having to add a year to my University studies and therefore added an extra major but it worked out well. I graduated with my EE degree and ironically some of the people that were exempted from the Calc series dropped out since the program was "too hard". Change the way you are studying if your struggling. Look for other reference materials, try out a few different tutors. There are different ways to learn things, and you just need to find out how you learn and then you push it for all it's worth.
aiscott 15y ago
I was lacking in math background going into college, though it wasn't the fault of my schooling. I just wasn't ready for it yet. I struggled with algebra, which may or may not have been teacher related. I hadn't taken trig at all, and I ended up taking calculus my first semester in college. I didn't quite fail, but came pretty close. I took until late in my sophomore year before things started to click for me. I can't point to any one specific thing that did it, other than I had matured a bit and my brain was now ready to learn the more difficult subjects. I went from C's and D's to mostly A's and a few B's and double majored in Computer and Electrical Engineering with a Math minor of all things. I don't think everyone is ready for college the minute they graduate from high-school. I suspect if I had taken a couple years off and did some blue collar work for a while before heading off to college, I would have done better and gotten even more out of it than I did. Now I never switched majors, but the thought did cross my mind those first two years. I wonder if slightly delayed college entry would be helpful to others.
ivan_ah 15y ago
> educational system is a lack of background in math > I think the whole "math is tough" point of view is not defensible, yet a large percentage of the non-technical population believe it. Yes, math is tough if you are 8 years old, but when you are 20+? Really? Rather than standardized aptitude tests, I think we need good math textbooks for adults. Not for dummies, just regular explanations focusing on the applications. On that note, I want to shamelessly add a plug to my upcoming book, in which I explain //all// the high-school math in 50 pages. I decided to add this section, after I saw many of my students struggling to find t in equations like: 3(t+4) = 4(t+3). Email me if you want to see, and be a test reader. Oh yeah, the book also covers university-level Calculus and Mechanics in 150 pages.
jseliger 15y ago
The prospective science major who's having trouble with fractions and basic algebra is, unfortunately, a disturbingly common presence on college campuses these days. I'm a grad student in English lit, and, if it makes you feel any better, the prospective humanities major who's having trouble with comma rules and simple grammar is also distressingly high. More of them than you might imagine end up thinking humanities classes are too hard, which leads them to business or comm, which leads to problems like the ones discussed here: http://jseliger.com/2011/10/07/student-choice-employment-skills-and-grade-inflation http://jseliger.com/2011/10/07/student-choice-employment-ski... . And I've talked to a lot of my peers who say they simply won't teach basic grammar and writing principles, even briefly, because students should "already know them." Which seems rather unfair if the students have already been fouled by the K - 12 system.
rayiner 15y ago
> I was a math/CS TA for several years, and I don't think the problem is with tough freshman classes, low grades or a focus on theory. Eh. Math illiteracy is a problem, but I came into college having taken calc/physics/quantum mechanics, had nearly perfect math SAT's/SAT II's, etc, and I still hated engineering school. I think engineering is just plain taught the wrong way. I'd say 80% of my classes were literally just the professor deriving some formula in some tortured fashion, doing a token problem, then going onto the next formula. This might be an adequate pedagogical style for a PhD candidate, but at the undergraduate level this just rewards the kids who have the longest attention span. As a practicing engineer, you need to understand some of the origins of the formulas, sure, but more than that you need to see how the formulas work in practice, how they interact with each other, how they fit into the big picture. Professors give barely token attention to any of that. In fact it even goes beyond the theory/practice distinction. Playing with concepts and seeing how they interact, rather than laboriously grinding out every mathematical detail, is a great way to teach theory too! The basic components of good communication are universal: you tell your audience what you're going to tell them, you tell them, and then you tell them what you told them. Engineering professors can be ridiculously inept at doing this, and it's no surprise people tune out and leave the programs.
- giardini 15y ago
  Some students might do better to take physics instead of engineering. There is a broader perspective in physics and the origins of concepts and formulae are usually considered relevant topics for discussion.

bedris 15y ago

“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.” This is interesting. Could it be that at more selective schools, when students encounter difficulty in STEM courses, they are less hesitant to switch to an easier major because they figure that their degree will still have value due to the name recognition of their university, while their counterparts at less selective schools don't have that luxury? That's one hypothesis...

ak217 15y ago
No, it's just that Berkeley STEM courses are harder.
- ricefield 15y ago
  Not just material-wise, but also in terms of competitiveness
  - grammr 15y ago
    This is a valid point. The EECS department at Berkeley essentially sets the distribution of letter grades that will be assigned at the end of each course[0], so there will always be many damned smart students who end up getting really low (or failing) grades because of their performance relative to their peers. I majored in CS at Berkeley, and there were only one or two professors that I can recall who strayed even slightly from these departmental guidelines. For me, the harsh curves essentially ruined what would have been an amazing educational experience. It was basically a perpetual preparation for the next exam, because you were always competing for your spot on the grade scale. This is a very real deterrent for not only students who need a decent GPA (e.g. for grad school), but also for those who want to actually enjoy their time at university. [0] http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Policies/ugrad.grading.shtml http://www.eecs.berkeley.edu/Policies/ugrad.grading.shtml

jgon 15y ago

This article is trying to figure out the solution to a problem that was solved over a decade ago. See: http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science Science majors change their minds once they find out that they will be required to take challenging courses, yes, but it is not this challenge, in and of itself, that causes them to "change their minds". It is that people who are smart enough to be in a position to take these courses, people who the article talks about as having great scores on the SAT etc, people like these are also smart enough to do a quick ROI calculation and realize that a comparatively easier (don't take this as a rip on people with these degrees, many of them are my friends, are very, very smart, and have made this very decision themselves) degree in econ, business, or law will yield vastly greater material dividends. If you want people to stop changing their minds about science, you have to do something to change the ROI calculation that goes "I can work 2x as hard as my peers, graduate and receive 1/2 the monetary compensation or I can....not do that".

geebee 15y ago
I completely agree that PhD programs in STEM fields have become extremely uncompetitive with the professions (a RAND study on the supposed shortage of scientists and engineers that reached the same conclusion Greenspun reaches, though with a more data driven, less anecdotal approach.) But keep in mind, we're talking about undergraduate degrees here, which is a different beast entirely. Engineering and physical science majors really do have considerably better employment prospects on average than humanities or social science majors. That said, I suppose you still have to analyze it from the perspective of a student who is sure to attend professional school. If you know you're law-school bound, you're at a reputable university, and you have high grades in humanities and the ability to ace standardized tests, you can still have a high paying career in law without ever taking a serious math class. Engineering/Sci majors are often more desirable on the way out - a law school graduate with an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering has more options than one with an undergrad major in English. Considering how much harder these degrees are, it could still be rational for a student to avoid these fields even at the undergraduate level - and if they harm your GPA, it might be best to avoid them (though some admissions officials do say they discount high GPAs in "easier" majors). And even if you can hack it, you'll work a hell of a lot harder in college. But if you're willing to put in the effort and have the ability, you do improve your job prospects with an rigorous Math/Sci/Eng major over a humanities major in almost every career scenario. So on the balance, I think you can make a very strong ROI case for engineering in eng/sci/math at the undergrad level. MS, less so, but it's a short program. PhD? Well, the RAND institute already crunched the numbers better than I ever could, it's pretty hard to justify a PhD in STEM relative to the professions if you're going off career ROI.

spodek 15y ago

I went the other direction. After finding math and science easy before college, I avoided science classes in college to avoid being too nerdy. By junior year I realized I loved science too much, overcame being bothered by what other people thought, majored in physics, and got a PhD. My last two years of the PhD I ended up starting a company and became a successful entrepreneur in media, which is, I guess, the payoff to the economy of someone going into math and science. Check out this irony. I've come to create art with my medium and taught a couple art courses at art schools to MFA and BFA candidates. The art students learn programming, circuits, entrepreneurship, design, and such. I'm talking about programs like NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Project and Parsons' Arts, Media, and Technology program. We created these displays, which is pretty techy and beautiful. - http://joshuaspodek.com/tag/unionsquareinmotion http://joshuaspodek.com/tag/unionsquareinmotion - http://joshuaspodek.com/new_bryant_park_in_motion_videos http://joshuaspodek.com/new_bryant_park_in_motion_videos

BadCookie 15y ago
I'm surprised that you were able to decide to major in physics your junior year. At my school, if you didn't take physics your first year, you simply could not graduate as a physics major in four years (at least without getting a special exception to double up on courses, which would require you to be nearly super-human). Perhaps this phenomenon contributes to the low numbers of science majors, as well. Lots of people don't figure out what to major in until they are a year or two into college, which rules out a lot of STEM possibilities if you happened not to take the correct courses in your first year.
- spodek 15y ago
  Exactly. I had to double up on classes and take some subjects on my own over the summer. Two classes one semester literally overlapped by about fifteen minutes and I had to get special permission to show up late for it. I got a passing grade for it, but finished it afterward. It wasn't a matter of being super-human, just loving the subject. I agree, though, that if your passion isn't overwhelming, you can't do it. You can with many non-STEM majors. The first couple years of graduate school were brutal. I had taken twenty math and science classes undergrad. Typical Russian and Chinese classmates had taken thirty to fifty and they blew me out of the water. The one guy in the program who took nineteen courses dropped out, so I was right on the border.

cantbecool 15y ago

I don't think it,the curriculum, is too difficult, but the professors that teach the lower level general curriculum freshman year in most universities. I mean I had professors that were literally out in left field, and don't get me started on the foreign TAs. There was always major communication barriers during my first two quarters in EE. Enthusiasm coming from professors is contagious, but so is boredom.

civilian 15y ago

I thought this was posted a week ago. Don't upvote this!

rayiner 15y ago

I sometimes regret not switching out of my aerospace engineering major. I went to a good undergraduate engineering school (Georgia Tech), and frankly the educational experience was terrible. Professors who weren't engaged, TA's who couldn't speak English well enough to easily convey the material, exams that were unrelated to what was taught in class, etc. I had a few great professors, but they were few and far between. When I left engineering to go to a smallish private law school, I had a totally different experience. Classes taught entirely by professors. Maximum of ~60 students per class and more typically 20-30 in upper-level courses. Professors who would engage the class in hypotheticals rather than just dryly recount the rules. Exams that actually tested the material we learned. The fundamental problem is that engineering schools, especially the big state ones like Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, and Georgia Tech, are research factories. They crank out certain amount of BS's to meet industry demand for engineers, but their investment in those graduates seems minimal at best. Now, don't get me wrong. I think an undergraduate degree in engineering is still the best way to go (as long as you can hack the math and it won't kill your GPA). Even if you ultimately want to do law, finance, or consulting, people really do take you more seriously. But at the same time, I really can't blame people when they stay away from STEM majors, especially ones that test well and know they will be able to go to a top graduate school with their liberal arts degree.

PotatoEngineer 15y ago
You're also seeing a difference between undergraduate education and graduate education. The class sizes and professor interest are night and day.

bmahmood 15y ago

The article certainly identifies an important issue, but seems simplistic in it's assessment of the root causes. As a a bio major, who wavered between pre-med and business aspirations, my main gripe with science education was the theoretical framework it was taught in. It's mostly complete rote memorization of thousands of inane details, without any practical context to understand the relevance or application (no, labs do not fulfill this purpose). If the implications of bio/chem theory were taught in a more practical, problem-solving approach, (a la computer science), I feel people would develop a better passion for science (as they did in High School with science fairs as the article describes), and stick with it longer.

pnathan 15y ago

I didn't change my mind. I started as a CS major, ended as a CS major, and am finishing up a CS Master's degree. Possibly one day a CS PhD. I have TA'd students and have long had an abiding interest in educational curricula, stemming from my experienced being homeschooled, where as I grew older, I was able to select elective materials to study in cooperation with my parents. There are a few highlighter reasons I believe STEM education has issues, and please remember that these are interlinked, and other issues are present, which also interlink into these issues. I've picked these because I think they are standout. * ROI on engineering vs. ROI on the MBA course. Non-founder engineers cap their salary potential in their career, in general, and spend gruelling hours in classes. MBA's salary cap is higher to non-existent, and can apparently skiv off pretty easy in undergraduate years. * Math education is generally broken in the US. That means that students are not ready for the rigourous thinking and numeracy demanded in STEM. They struggle understanding the basics of mathematics and computational thinking because they never have had it before, so the 'elite' students who do know what they are doing stand out. * Hacker/elite snobs pissing on other classmates. This has happened to a few friends of mine, but not really to me. Some of the freshmen/sophomores really brag on their ability (i.e., they were coder geeks in high school) and this discourages other people. It's toxic. * Gender imbalance and lousy social environment. A bunch of stinky guys geeking out over computers and video games which are outdated in a few years is not... primo. * Young software engineers are expected to spend nearly every waking minute coding, just to have a chance to get a job. They need to get internships, contribute to open source, maybe build a mobile app, etc... and do well in class. This, as near as I can tell, is very rare. Only perhaps musicians have similar expectations. Spending this much time on your field is corrosive to your character and personality (see above two points). * Culture heroes are entertainers and sports stars. Not makers of useful things. * Focus on application instead of theory. Everyone wants to do something real cool right now, preferably yesterday, without any training. This is not realistic when laying the foundations for a solid career. Short-term thinking says, "pleasure now, pay later", which does not work well in STEM.

partition 15y ago
Completely agree. The fact is that most people in STEM aren't so much encouraged to go into STEM as deceived into it by a combination of science documentaries, science types bragging that STEM-like subjects are of Superior Intrinsic Value and Lead You To The Meaning Of Life, and parents selling the field to their children as an easy way to make money. And a very good point about the hacker/elite snobs pissing on other classmates + gender imbalance and lousy social environment, it's not just limited to CS undergrads but is widespread in Ph. D programs as well, you'd expect that these Head Nerd types would have gotten with the program of life by then. Combine the shitty social elements with a shitty ROI plus an increased awareness of other kinds of worth than being a coding rockstar, and you've got a bunch of disillusioned, not-very-young people who feel they have been deceived into making their life choices. The last point is also what's making me reconsider being involved in computer science. It seems like even research universities are increasingly doing work that are more low-quality first-startup style grabs at attention, using machine learning (itself a balkanized field devoid of theory) as a semantic stopsign-marker of objective quality, and less of "classical" computer science results that were very mathematically informed.

brudgers 15y ago

I think the analysis is a little superficial. K-12 education in the US channels a lot of really bright kids onto a highly time consuming and sequential STEM track, and the idea that anything other than a STEM major is for wimps is not uncommon. In addition, STEM majors is where such students are directed by guidance counselors. I went off to college to major in EE. I had a 3 minute conversation with my academic adviser which consisted entirely of him telling me exactly which 15 hours to take. I walked out and changed majors to CHM, where the academic councilor explained the various degree options and discussed electives over the course of about an hour. But it turns out, though I loved the theory, I really fucking hated laboratory sessions. Organic synthesis on paper was an interesting problem - I just didn't care for going through the motions, cleaning glassware and pretending I was conducting a meaningful experiment. It took me several years to decide that there are lots of worthy intellectual endeavors and challenging problems outside of STEM [YMMV]. I believe my choice to pursue a liberal arts degree is among the best decisions I ever made. Personally, I think the problem is that the US educational system narrows the funnel toward the STEM field too early - for all practical purposes it's already narrowing way down into the primary grades...even though the it is obvious that people can find their way into the more "open" STEM areas (such as programming) without being channeled academically toward a STEM career. In other words, the primary reason that a person first exposed to algebra at Junior College is less likely to become a mathematician is lower expectations, both on the part of the academy and on the part of the student.

pnathan 15y ago
FYI, there is a whole branch of chemistry that exists outside the lab and dealing with the abstract concepts and mechanics.
- brudgers 15y ago
  Yep. Unfortunately, you can't get there without cleaning a lot of glassware.
cageface 15y ago
Organic synthesis on paper was an interesting problem - I just didn't care for going through the motions, cleaning glassware and pretending I was conducting a meaningful experiment. You don't learn enough in four years to do meaningful lab work in OChem, but you still have to learn the basic techniques somewhere. Personally I really miss bench chemistry. If the professional culture weren't so conservative and hierarchical I'd probably still be doing it.

devindotcom 15y ago

Personally I stepped away from pre-med because I couldn't stand the idea of my major determining my life for the next ten years - graduate programs, internships, residence, all that stuff, it's daunting when you're 21 and all you want to do is STUFF. Going premed would mean what I'd done was just the beginning not an accomplishment in and of itself. That was daunting and a bit demoralizing. The fact is it's not for everyone, and not just because of the difficulty (I never excelled in math or organic chemistry), and people like me who get in because it's interesting often find that the career paths that present themselves are strictly defined and entail a lot of drudgery. I remember perceiving this very clearly in my 3rd year after doing a lot of prep work and it was an easy decision. I ended up majoring in Psych with minors in Neuroscience and Cog Sci, for the record, which was hard as hell anyway, but technically a BA and not applicable to STEM-type employment.

rflrob 15y ago

The bulk of attrition comes in engineering and among pre-med majors, who typically leave STEM fields if their hopes for medical school fade. I don't know that including pre-meds in the analysis is worthwhile. While medicine is certainly quite technical, I don't really consider it a STEM field. The economic multipliers from improved medicine (increasing productivity for each of a doctor's patients) is qualitatively different from those for "real" STEM fields (increasing productivity for potentially anyone who can get the discovered knowledge).

alexholehouse 15y ago

I think this in an interesting problem you don't really have in a lot of tertiary education systems else wear (that said, I still think the ability to pick and chose a diverse set of classes is a great model, and better than most). I studied in the UK, so you apply from high school to do, "Computer Science" or, "Physics" or, "English". And that's what you do. You have some choice in terms of the classes and courses you take, but (generally) they're all totally within that sphere. I think having some options to do other courses would be really valuable, but equally it means people don't typically chose to switch from an STEM based degree to something else, and people stick it out (or just drop out).

ewanmcteagle 15y ago

I think this is a valuable alternate perspective. Students will become discouraged from time to time and this will vary by field. Frankly, most professors don't care about undergraduate education. I know this from direct experience. They will typically list their priorities as: research and grants, graduate students, and only then, undergraduate teaching. And teaching is hard enough even when it's a top priority. You always lose some students without dedicated effort put into teaching and that will be worse in harder classes. High school doesn't prepare students for a rigorous college experience and if we don't bridge that gap somehow that will be one more reason someone will get out of a tough curriculum.

ewanmcteagle 15y ago

Why are the students afraid of lower grades? If you don't go to a PhD program, does it matter all that much? I think this emphasis on grades is something we should work to undo. You can learn, you can relearn and get extra help, but if the grades cause you to quit too early then grades are not having the effect we want.

astar 15y ago
because they've been raised to be that way since preschool? the few friends I have that are on faculty seem to feel that its just more trouble than it's worth to give students low grades, and then face the evals.
Kuiper 15y ago
A significant portion of the undergraduate population at my school receive scholarships that are recurring on the condition of maintaining a 3.0 GPA. We're talking non-trivial amounts, on the scale of $18-22k scholarship money per year for a school that costs ~$45k/year. For students receiving these scholarships, grades matter significantly, and it can become an economic question of whether they'd rather continue pursuing the engineering degree and graduate tens of thousands more in debt, or switch to an easier set of courses that will allow them to retain the scholarship. I think a lot of it also has to do with expectations from parents. For a lot of students, graduating with an engineering degree and a 2.5 GPA will leave mom and dad less happy than an English degree with a 3.5 GPA, even though the former is more likely to be useful in the job hunt.
pnathan 15y ago
I applied for a job where the cutoff for applicants was 3.8 gpa out of a 4.0 school. I was a 3.1 something, iirc. If your future employers are looking for that, you do your living best to pad your transcript to stuff your GPA up.