Why Do So Many College Science Majors Drop Out?

Hugh Pickens writes "Christopher Drew writes that President Obama and industry groups have called on colleges to graduate 10,000 more engineers a year and 100,000 new teachers with majors in science, technology, engineering and math but studies find that roughly 40 percent of students planning engineering and science majors end up switching to other subjects or failing to get any degree — 60 percent when pre-medical students are included. Middle and high school students are having most of the fun, building their erector sets and dropping eggs into water to test the first law of motion, but the excitement quickly fades as students brush up against the reality of what David E. Goldberg calls 'the math-science death march' as freshmen in college wade through a blizzard of calculus, physics and chemistry in lecture halls with hundreds of other students where many wash out. 'Treating the freshman year as a "sink or swim" experience and accepting attrition as inevitable,' says a report by the National Academy of Engineering, 'is both unfair to students and wasteful of resources and faculty time.' But help is on the way. In September, the Association of American Universities announced a five-year initiative to encourage faculty members in the STEM fields to use more interactive teaching techniques (PDF)."

...stuff they see on the Science Channel.

[taxman_10m]

Crab fishing? Ice road trucking? Paranormal investigation?

Reminds me of a joke

[slasho81]

This reminds me of a joke I read here in a thread about whether pre-med students should study organic chemistry:

A college physics professor was explaining a concept to his class when a pre-med student interrupted him. "Why do we have to learn this stuff?" he blurted out. "To save lives," the professor responded before continuing the lecture.
A few minutes later the student spoke up again. "Wait-- how does physics save lives?" The professor responded. "By keeping idiots out of medical school."

Re:Need to model science after sports.

[timeOday]

We need lots of scientists/engineers/etc., and relatively few athletes

If pay is any indication, this nation is suffering from a critical shortage of Senior Vice Presidents. Apple just has to pay $60,000,000 bonuses [cnet.com] to each of its Senior Vice Presidents to to keep them from taking their unique skills to other companies where, apparently, Senior Vice Presidents might be paid even more. No word yet on the STEM folks underneath who design their products. And of course we all know what the poor schmucks who actually manufacture their goods make. Why is higher education not responding to the obvious indicators of demand? We should cancel all STEM education for the next 5-10 years and focus on the vibrant Senior Vice President sector so all Americans can get $60,000,000 bonuses.