- Chemistry 2.78 GPA
- Math 2.90 GPA
- Economics 2.95 GPA
- Psychology 2.98 GPA
- Biology 3.02 GPA
- Education 3.36 GPA
- Language 3.34 GPA
- English 3.33 GPA
- Music 3.30 GPA
- Religion 3.22 GPA
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Why aren't more college students earning degrees in engineering and the sciences?
About one out of three college students intend to pursue a STEM major, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math, but most never make it.
A new study from Wake Forest University suggests that a huge reason why so many students abandon their pursuit of science and engineering majors is this: Their professors are grading too hard.
About one out of three college students intend to pursue a STEM major, which stands for science, technology, engineering and math, but most never make it.
A new study from Wake Forest University suggests that a huge reason why so many students abandon their pursuit of science and engineering majors is this: Their professors are grading too hard.
... or the students won't work hard enough to meet the standards of the field of study.
ReplyDeleteEducation. Well, sure. That's where all the smart people go, right?
ReplyDeleteMy dear old Dad was an intelligent fellow, and a teacher, who retired when he turned 65 in 1970 because he didn't handle the '60s well. Thank God he didn't live to see what teaching has come to.
DeleteI have little doubt that the author's stated results are accurate but only two of the bottom 5 GPAs are in sciences (excluding social sciences, which are not typically included as part of STEM) and none are in engineering.
ReplyDeleteApart from Deans lists and merit scholarships, there is little value in comparing STEM GPAs and humanities GPAs. If your a chemist, you probably won't send a resume with a 2.8 GPA off to a publishing company to be a magazine editor. Likewise, a 3.7 GPA in languages won't get you an interview with BASF. Students need to understand that employers and grad schools don't compare applicants' GPAs to students in all other fields, we just compare the GPAs to other applicants'. If your average is a 3.2 and that's the best we get, then you're the best (based on GPA).
Oh, we're back to Blogger! Well anyway: in the Humanities, GPA in the major doesn't matter all that much if you are not going to graduate school.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble with the sciences is that they involve known facts and right answers. Another major problem that so-called employment experts never seem to understand is this: if it's so desirable to have a STEM degree, then why is it still so hard to get a job with one?
ReplyDeleteMore to the point: remember Derek de Solla Price's 25-75 rule, that 75% of published scientific papers are by 25% of the scientists. Of all the gifts the gods bestow upon humans, few are as unequally given out as scientific productivity. Science profs must -not- "lighten up" their grading: it's how the good students still get challenged.
DeleteAlso, from the nearly two-year-old article: I thought multivariate calculus was wonderful stuff, requiring little bravery at all. Organic chemistry was harder, but we got to make neat stuff like soap and aspirin, and learned enough to figure out how make a substance we called gin that tasted like something for dressing wounds.
The Atlantic asked the same question earlier this week:
Deletehttp://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/do-we-really-need-more-scientists/254109/
Oh man, I remember making aspirin in organic lab.
DeleteOne guy stuck his finger in the final product and licked it. He didn't die, and it's a wonder he didn't at least get sick, since one look at our TLC plates would tell you that our "aspirin" was hella contaminated.
I think that guy's in dental school now. I'm not kidding.
"if it's so desirable to have a STEM degree, then why is it still so hard to get a job with one?"
DeleteI can't speak to various science degrees, but getting a job with an engr. degree was no problem for me. I was expecting a ton of problems with the down economy and mass layoffs etc etc. Talking to employers they were all consistently saying that its getting harder to find good engr. graduates.
"Talking to employers they were all consistently saying that its getting harder to find good engr. graduates."
DeleteThis is obviously still a problem.
Well gee whiz, let's water down standards in organic chemistry, then. Never mind that physicians need to know it well in order to prescribe drugs safely and effectively: that we need more STEM majors obviously trumps everything here. Now you know why they call economics the dismal science.
ReplyDeleteIt's harder to inflate grades in the sciences.
ReplyDeleteCould it also be accounted for by students who select their majors? Based on my experience, students who don't do well in an English class don't go on to become English majors... those who select English know they're going to be good at it (well, the smart ones do). Fallacious reasoning, perhaps?
ReplyDeleteThe only majors I respect when someone says "my major is so hard" are math, physics, (most) engineering, and architecture. Chemistry I don't have enough info on to judge.
ReplyDeleteClasses like biology, economics, and psychology where you could ace every test if they were open book I don't respect. Because at that point you're majoring in memorization.
"Classes like biology, economics, and psychology where you could ace every test if they were open book I don't respect. Because at that point you're majoring in memorization."
DeleteThen you must have just had shitty teachers for these subjects. I have plenty of students that could take a test open book and still not pass because I don't ask them to regurgitate the info, but instead to be able to think about it and reason. This can be done for any class...and likewise, a physics, engineering or architecture class could also be based on memorization.
Thanks Turgeson, somebody needed to say that. I've had a lot of grief from students believing that my particular branch of hamster husbandry was "all memorization" and then flunking the tests.
DeleteMy sense is that this article is another sad example of how administrators think. There may well be an argument that we need more people who can actually do chemistry or calculus.
ReplyDeleteBut Adminflakes (and I include politicians and managers in this) can't recognize actually useful ability. If it doesn't have a 'metric' it just doesn't exist for them. So in their minds a need for actual skills turns into a need to hand out more pieces of parchment to students who paid tuition to a STEM program.
All of which goes to show that what we desperately need are more people who can think straight.
Even worse, metrics might exist that point to a source of the problem, if not a solution. However, if those underlying problems raise politically uncomfortable issues, then they ignore them. For instance, I think you can pin a lot of blame for declining K-12 academic performance on parents, not teachers. However, parents pay the taxes that support the schools, so that's a nonstarter, even if it is what's wrong.
DeleteI wish Contemplative Cynic's observation (that students who do badly in English don't choose it as a major) were true. But alas -- our major is filled with those who didn't get through the sciences. And grades *are* inflated, because it's less deadly to not understand metaphor than it is to not understand the periodic table of elements. We tend to give too many grades based on trying hard or on improvement.
ReplyDeleteThere, I said it.
That's an interesting point. Excuse me for speaking in generalities, but do faculty feel more pressure to raise grades when their students (and the administration) view that major as the student's last resort before dropping out?
DeleteI have no problem failing students in chemistry because I know that if they can't handle it, they are better off finding something else to study. Nobody views chemistry as a safe backup major (except maybe engineers). That means that students shift from STEM fields to other majors like humanities and business.
Now those departments have to deal the students who switched to their majors and are unqualified. If they fail the students, they will probably drop out of college. How many times do you change majors before giving up?) The alternative is to apply a mix of pity for the poor students and practicality of keeping enrollment up.
The long term result is that prospective students look at that situation and see under-qualified students graduating with business and humanities degrees, marking these fields as "easy majors". This attracts low quality students who make this their first choice. And here we are.
Yes, this. In the humanities we stress the beauty of revision--no grade is ever final. Not allowing students to revise is not only an unpopular choice--it's also considered bad pedagogical practice. So what if Stevie turned in a two-page paper for a five-page assignment? Maybe he just didn't understand. Maybe he's having a bad week. In any case, he gets to do it all over again for a brand new grade.
DeleteI think the obsession with "process, not product" has led to a lot of grade inflation in the humanities. What started out as a pretty good idea has been badly abused. Students know they can get away with turning in a shitty product because they will be given ample opportunities to do it again. Those who do not allow students to revise are immediately categorized as "unfair" or "allowing only one way to write a paper."
My dear old Dad used to hate a similar phenomenon. He taught high-school Spanish. Too often he'd get kids who'd flunked Latin, and then had flunked French, and then wound up in his Spanish class, expecting it to be "easy." I don't have this problem so much in my Intro-Astronomy-for-Non-Majors general ed class, or at least I don't have my nose rubbed in it as often, because I am so intimidating, as they tell me. Good.
Delete@Froderick
DeleteI have witnessed how the assignment of language classes in some school systems can lead to the assumption that Spanish is the "easy" language.
In the large city public school system I attended, junior high and high school had three academic levels equivalent to honors, "college prep," and remedial.
Foreign language classes started in junior high: honors students had to take Latin, college prep students took French, and remedial students took Spanish.
High school students could choose their language. Many of my honors-level friends switched to Spanish. Some made the switch because they thought Spanish was more useful than Latin; others admitted that they just thought Latin was too hard, so Spanish must be easy, because that's what the remedial students take.
Hm, I can't say I feel pressure from above to inflate grades. Rather, the students seem absolutely incensed that an English class *isn't* an easy A -- whether this is because English is viewed as an easy major or because of touchy-feely colleagues, I cannot say. I don't allow revisions except in very small classes, because I can't overwork my TAs in my huge classes, so it isn't the culture of revision, where I work.
ReplyDeleteOh, I realize this doesn't quite make sense. There is some kind of "pity for having tried hard" that kicks in at grading time, or something. Our department grade average for undergrad classes is a B+. Mine is a B-, and I am therefore a meanie.
DeleteIt's one thing to inflict underqualified grade-inflated English majors on the world. They're probably not going to kill anyone with bad writing. But lightening up the grades of engineering or biology or even computer science majors could cause some serious damage and even loss of life. Some disciplines are harder than others. Easing up on the grades doesn't change that. If you fail calculus but the professor's curve puts in you the passing range, you don't magically know calculus just because your grade says you do. You are just as ill-equipped to do calculus as before the curve. The grade represents how well the student has mastered the subject. Boosting the grade doesn't magically make the student gain additional knowledge.
ReplyDeleteTry out reading this article about choosing college major.
ReplyDeleteI admired your effort you've put on this article. Keep posting. Well, I've a blog engineering personal statements for those students who wants to get info about engineering.
ReplyDelete