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Community Colleges in the Evolving STEM Education Landscape Summary of a Summit (2012) / Chapter Skim
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3 The Loss of Students from STEM Majors
Pages 19-22

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From page 19...
... • he culture of STEM education and potential earnings in the workplace ap T pear to be significant factors in students' decisions to remain in or abandon STEM majors. Students who intend to work as scientists, technicians, engineers, or mathematicians typically choose to major in a STEM field in college.
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From page 20...
... students pursuing STEM majors in two-year and four-year institutions: 1. At the end of secondary school, few are prepared to enter STEM fields.
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From page 21...
... The students who left STEM were just as likely to pass their initial STEM courses, so the difficulty of the courses did not seem to be the deciding factor. But the course demands of STEM majors are high and require commitment -- even though, as Bettinger observed, some of the majors to which students switch, such as education, also have extensive course requirements, even if they are not as sequential as those for STEM majors.
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From page 22...
... DISCUSSION During one of the discussion periods at the summit, Catherine Didion from the National Academy of Engineering pointed out that underrepresented students and women are interested in giving back to their communities but often do not see STEM fields as occupations that enable them to do so. Additional investigations could indicate why so many of these students switch into non-STEM fields.
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  • business majors
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