Math and Science Popular With Students Until They Realize They're Hard 580
First time accepted submitter HonorPoncaCityDotCom writes "Khadeeja Safdar reports in the WSJ that researchers who surveyed 655 incoming college students found that while math and science majors drew the most interest initially, not many students finished with degrees in those subjects. Students who dropped out didn't do so because they discovered an unexpected amount of the work and because they were dissatisfied with their grades. "Students knew science was hard to begin with, but for a lot of them it turned out to be much worse than what they expected," says Todd R. Stinebrickner, one of the paper's authors. "What they didn't expect is that even if they work hard, they still won't do well." The authors add that the substantial overoptimism about completing a degree in science can be attributed largely to students beginning school with misperceptions about their ability to perform well academically in science. ""If more science graduates are desired, the findings suggest the importance of policies at younger ages that lead students to enter college better prepared (PDF) to study science.""
This just in: Science is Hard (Score:5, Funny)
The Onion [theonion.com] has reported on this ground breaking finding exhaustively.
Re: like anything else.. (Score:5, Funny)
I have a most wonderful proof of that assertion, but sadly the limited character set of the slashdot text editor will not allow me to present it!
Re:Why does the WSJ hate American students? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:like anything else.. (Score:5, Funny)
Care to offer some evidence for that assertion?
Of course not! He was talking about math, not science!
I guess technically he needs to provide a proof.
Great until you find out how hard it is (Score:5, Funny)
Funny, marriage is like that, too.
Re:like anything else.. (Score:5, Funny)
Engineers want to be physicists.
Physicists want to be mathematicians.
Mathematicians want to be God.
God is an engineer.