About 40% of STEM majors choose something else.
What does that mean for UMBC?
posted about 13 years ago
Every year, budding scientists and engineers who grew up inspired by Bill Nye make it all the way to college, and then switch out to other majors or fail to graduate at all. The percentage for pre-med is even worse: 60% of students switch to a different program, according to this article in the New York Times.
After reading this article, I had a lot of questions. Is it a problem that such a large portion of people interested in STEM careers never reach their goal? Or is this just a natural part of education in the sciences, bound to weed out those who can't cut it?
As a research university, science and engineering classes are kind of a big deal at UMBC, but is our school taking the right steps to combat the underlying reasons for this systematic loss of interest? Do discovery and discussion sessions, undergraduate research, and the Meyerhoff Program help students deal with the workload, overfilling lecture halls, never-ending formulas to memorize, or opportunities to apply what often seems like dry theory, useful only for the class itself?
I think UMBC is thinking in the right direction, but based on the number of people who dropped out of my Pchem class after the first exam, there is still a long way to go. There should be more opportunities for working on real-world problems, instead of just with learning and remembering. More emphasis on how theory can be put to use, rather than how well you can solve a problem. More links to the subjects that inspire people to choose such hard majors in the first place.
There will always be people who realize STEM majors are not for them. But 40% I think is much higher than it should be. What is UMBC doing that helps? How do you think UMBC could improve?
As a research university, science and engineering classes are kind of a big deal at UMBC, but is our school taking the right steps to combat the underlying reasons for this systematic loss of interest? Do discovery and discussion sessions, undergraduate research, and the Meyerhoff Program help students deal with the workload, overfilling lecture halls, never-ending formulas to memorize, or opportunities to apply what often seems like dry theory, useful only for the class itself?
I think UMBC is thinking in the right direction, but based on the number of people who dropped out of my Pchem class after the first exam, there is still a long way to go. There should be more opportunities for working on real-world problems, instead of just with learning and remembering. More emphasis on how theory can be put to use, rather than how well you can solve a problem. More links to the subjects that inspire people to choose such hard majors in the first place.
There will always be people who realize STEM majors are not for them. But 40% I think is much higher than it should be. What is UMBC doing that helps? How do you think UMBC could improve?
