
50% of US engineering students drop out - Why? - wumi
http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2008/11/50-of-us-engineering-students-dropout---why.html
======
timr
Because it's far easier for a smart person to get a business degree that pays
just as well, if not better?

Because a degree in engineering is a fast-track to career marginalization by
the frat-boy MBAs who see technical workers as interchangeable cogs?

Because engineering virtually guarantees you a minimum of social interaction
in college, when your peers are actually _enjoying_ their lives?

Because you'll run smack into the wall of age (and possibly sex)
discrimination, right when you should be entering your prime earning years?

Because you've got to eternally compete in the job market with 20-year-olds
who will always be more proficient with new technologies, and willing to work
at lower wages?

Let's be real: as a career, engineering sucks. We shouldn't scratch our heads
and act totally _shocked_ when young people turn their noses up at the
prospect of working like a dog until they turn 40, only to be laid off by the
guys who played frisbee golf and drank their way through school.

~~~
zzzmarcus
On the other hand, as an engineer you can:

-Work for a big company, a small company or just work for yourself.

-Work from anywhere in the world you can take a laptop and an internet connection

-Use free tools to create a product you can duplicate (and sell) infinitely

-Be a part of an extremely active and passionate community that is on the cutting edge of the industry that is driving the global economy

Where else are you going to find that much flexibility and potential?

~~~
Xichekolas
You don't need a degree for any of those things.

While 'Engineer' is a set that may overlap 'Open Source Programmer' (what you
described), it's definitely not an equivalent set, and I wouldn't even say
it's a superset.

~~~
alecco

      Clean Room Technician: You know what they do with engineers when they turn forty?
      [to Aaron, who shakes his head]
      Clean Room Technician: They take them out and shoot them.

------
mechanical_fish
I agree that there are probably a lot of improvements to be made in
undergraduate engineering education.

However...

I think it's a big mistake to assume that every engineering dropout represents
a failure of the college, or even a failure of the student. Maybe it's simply
a question of incoming students not having the slightest idea what an
engineering degree is all about. I seem to remember a lot of people who signed
up for engineering _before_ they discovered that you need to learn a lot of
fairly difficult math and physics to be an engineer, after which they switched
to something else.

That's why the dropout rate is so much smaller at MIT and other elite
engineering schools: The students are preselected for their affinity for math
and/or physics. For example, I can't help but notice that Olin's "redefinition
of engineering education" includes this bullet point:

 _Applicants are required to spend a weekend at Olin before acceptance. During
the weekend they participate in team engineering projects to assess their
teamwork and technical skill._

Note: "Assess their technical skill." Now, I'm not saying that Olin's not a
great school, but if you get to hand-pick the students, and then _you give
them a 100% scholarship_ , having a low dropout rate isn't much of an
achievement. I assume with confidence that the vast majority of calculus-
phobic people get weeded out before they ever get to Olin. At least, I hope
so, because otherwise this practice would be cruel and unusual punishment:

 _Other engineering schools require students to take foundational courses in
physics, thermo-dynamics, chemistry, and math for the first two years. Olin
introduces these disciplines as needed throughout the 4 years._

If there's anything worse than hitting the wall in year one, it's being
encouraged to go through a year or two in the major before you hit the wall.

------
lhorn
That's because our system somehow rewards real estate speculators, mortgage
brokers, middle management, lawyers and healthcare professionals way more than
it rewards engineers. I don't really know why this is happening, but I am sure
you all have met a few MBA types who have "the vision" and looking for "just"
a code monkey to build their fortune. This is also the reason why
GE/Ford/Chrysler continued building shit for decades, giving out multi-million
dollar bonuses to their top-tier management.

Someone suggested it's because we live in a "services economy" not a "product
economy" and, therefore, the value of engineering is declining. There is some
truth in that: google isn't an engineering firm, they are in the entertainment
business, very much like ESPN, Fox and those annoying guys in big hats at your
local Tres Amigos.

~~~
kalvin
That's funny, it's a routine complaint at Stanford that all the campus job
fairs are filled with companies recruiting engineers and nobody else. :p

Our system also rewards engineers way more than teachers, graduates who go
into public service, and-- at graduation time, at least-- anyone with a
humanities degree. I'd worry about fixing compensation for teachers before
rewarding engineers...

Google is an engineering firm, they just happen to make money from ads.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Compensation for teachers is fantastic, as long as you compare it properly to
compensation for other workers.

To begin with, multiply by (12 months worked by others)/(9 months worked by
teachers).

Then add in the value of the state health plan, usually fantastic.

Then add in the real value of a defined benefit pension plan (chances are you
only get a defined contribution plan) available in most states.

Then add in the value of tenure, which I'll tentatively estimate as
effectively doubling the salary (1).

All that is actually pretty good for a group of people who tend to come from
the bottom of the barrel cognitively
([http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended...](http://www.ncsu.edu/chass/philo/GRE%20Scores%20by%20Intended%20Graduate%20Major.htm)).

The idea that teachers are underpaid is a myth propagated by teachers unions
and their lackeys in the media.

(1) Many tenured professors could easily double their salary by quitting, but
choose not to.

~~~
lliiffee
Your doubling the salary for teachers due to tenure is questionable. The
reason tenured professors don't quit is only partly due to tenure, also due to
the fact that they find being a professor more interesting than the other
work. Regular (grade-school to high-school) teachers don't exactly have tenure
(though for those in most unions it is close), and they probably don't have
the same employment options outside the profession.

I'd give a multiple of 1.2.

~~~
yummyfajitas
It's certainly questionable, I didn't mean to imply it was more than a rough
guess. It's true, professor jobs at research universities have an
"interestingness" premium, so part of the multiple comes from that.

On the other hand, lack of external employment options makes tenure MORE
valuable, since it raises the risk premium the teacher would demand to quit
the tenured job.

Since my financial math is rusty, I won't try to compute the actuarial values
of these revenue streams, however.

------
bokonist
A 50% dropout rate may be a sign of health - it means the courses haven't been
watered down. I'd be far more worried about a 95% graduation rate. States
universities are less selective with general admission, so the engineering
departments have to screen out the students who aren't up to the challenge.
MIT pre-screens everyone so it's not fair to compare it to state schools.

~~~
Brushfire
I think the other problem here is that we have no information available about
other programs.

Isn't it just as likely that people drop out of all or many programs at
relatively the same rate? Psychology, Pre-Med, Law, Business, Journalism, Poli
Sci, etc.

These are undergraduates, after all.

------
gamble
If I recall correctly, something like 20-30% of undergraduates drop out during
the course of their degree. Engineering is generally the most difficult
program, so you'd expect that the dropout rates would be higher. I suspect
there's also a number of transfers to less demanding programs baked in there.

Why should we want to minimize drop-out rates anyway? It doesn't necessarily
indicate there's a problem with the curriculum - engineering _should_ be a
tough program. The only way you could minimize drop-outs would be to prevent
all but the strongest students from entering in the first place. I think it's
telling that the highly-selective schools have very low drop-out rates. Is
MIT's methodology all that different from less selective universities? I doubt
it.

------
siong1987
"At the recent Web 2.0 conference John suggested that the US should staple a
Green Card to every foreign student's engineering diploma and encourage them
to stay in the USA."

I really agree this. It's hard for a foreigner to work here.

~~~
lliiffee
It isn't really an unmitigated good, though. By increasing the incentive for a
foreigner to get a US engineering degree, it would increase the competition
for those slots, and result in fewer US students getting degrees. Of course,
if the foreign degree holders stay in the US, that might be OK, but things
must be thought through carefully. For example, presumably at least some
people not interested in engineering, but interested in a green card would get
degrees.

Mixing up incentives is a dangerous business. I would prefer a more mundane
approach, like increasing the number of H1B visas.

~~~
potatolicious
Keep in mind that all schools have a foreign student quota - i.e. slots that
will either be filled by foreign students or not filled at all. Foreigners do
not compete with domestic students for college enrollment at all.

I would prefer an approach that is more realistic and honest about the state
of immigration - the H1B is organized as a work visa, not an immigration visa.
What the US needs to do is establish means for _direct immigration_ for
qualified, professional people. The problem with H1Bs _all_ stem from the fact
that, if the recipient desires permanent residency, he/she is essentially a
slave to the sponsor company for 5+ years. This encourages abuse both in
employee treatment and in wages - which affects everyone.

If highly qualified people can simply _immigrate_ to the US and find jobs,
without signing themselves into virtual slavery, we would all benefit.

~~~
lliiffee
> Keep in mind that all schools have a foreign student quota - i.e. slots that
> will either be filled by foreign students or not filled at all. Foreigners
> do not compete with domestic students for college enrollment at all.

Well, I _know_ that is false for grad school. (In my department, the
percentage of Americans goes up during recessions, as the US applicant pool is
stronger at those times. Yet enough Americans apply every year to fill all
slots many times over.) I don't know about undergrad, but I would be very
surprised if it were true for _all_ schools! Where did you get this
information?

------
fallentimes
Because I would have gotten C's & D's in Engineering school working my ass
off.

Because in business school I graduated with great grades, didn't do anything,
and landed a pretty awesome job.

Undergraduate business school was somewhat worthless, but all the free time
allowed me to learn how to start my own business and campus job hop like a
mofo.

------
geebee
Look like I'm showing up late to this discussion.

I'll just comment on the "stapling a green card to every engineering degree
awarded to a foreign national idea."

I have no doubt this would increase the incentives for foreigners to study
engineering in the US, but if we _only_ do this in engineering and not in
medicine, law, business, art, humanities, etc... well then wouldn't we create
an incentive for US citizens to avoid engineering degrees and instead go into
areas that are insulated from foreign competition? It seems that this has
already happened to some extent. If one of our goals as a nation is to
increase the interest of our young people in science and engineering, we
should at least consider the effect a program like this on their career
choices, shouldn't we?

I'm not saying there's no room for debate on this subject, but I'm eternally
amazed that pundits almost _never_ consider this possibility when making this
recommendation.

(BTW, in "the world is flat", Friedman suggested doing this for all doctoral
degrees, not just engineering...)

------
ojbyrne
I was hoping that Don Dodge would actually have some kind of technical
background (because mixed technical/business backgrounds are in my opinion the
best). Nope - accounting undergrad/MBA. Preach to someone else.

------
rbanffy
The article fails to acknowledge that MIT and Olin have 2% drop-out rates
because they are f*ng hard to get in in the first place.

The drop-out rate is directly proportional on how easy it is to enroll in a
hard program.

The school I graduated from, FEI (in Brazil), has a very high drop-out rate in
the first semester - about 50% on my freshman year, mostly due to calculus and
physics. It's also regarded as a top private school in its field.

So, that's why those teachers are not being fired - because students pay for
their first semester whether or not they stick around for the second one.

------
liuliu
Well, I nearly drop out recent two years. It is unbearable in university to
see so many students who are 4th year and don't have basic skills in
programming (i.e. comparing two double variables in C with == operator). As
playing a while with profs, I am so confident that I have all the skills and
knowledges I should know in the next 3 years. It is just had to stick on CS
major when you had them all. The only reason I still here is that I am so
desperately wanting to publish a good paper in next year.

~~~
bluelu
That's a language issue and not a people issue. C also allows you to assign
variable in if clauses, which can cause hard to find errors.

~~~
liuliu
It is not a language issue. In some perspectives, you may say that it is a
processor issue of handling float. But this is the fact of every nowadays
processor. Languages don't have the responsibility to deal with processor's
fault, people do.

------
rsheridan6
Any recent engineering grads here who can tell us if there really is a
shortage? If you guys are getting multiple job offers with hiring bonuses,
there is. If not, there isn't.

~~~
elecengin
As class of 2005 grad (who incidentally goes to Olin), I have multiple offers
w/ signing bonuses.

Whether this is a sign of a shortage, I am not sure.

~~~
pchristensen
It's a sign of a shortage of graduates that companies trust to be of a certain
caliber. Either you have done something to distinguish yourself, or Olin has
developed a track record that companies trust, or both.

------
debt
Because engineering is difficult.

~~~
elecengin
I don't agree that difficulty is the reason for high dropout rates. Olin has
long been lauded for it's almost zero dropout rate, but I will not use that to
make my point since we have a very small sample size (300 people) and we are
relatively selective, and therefore not representative of the average US
engineering student.

Instead, lets look at ASU in this study:
[http://www.foundationcoalition.org/publications/journalpaper...](http://www.foundationcoalition.org/publications/journalpapers/asee97/3553.pdf)

The study found that the top 5 reasons (as summarized on page 3) are:

1) reasons for choice of SME [Science, Math, Engineering] proved inappropriate

2) poor teaching by SME faculty

3) inadequate advising or help with academic problems

4) non-SME major offers better education/more interest

5) lack/loss of interest in SME ("turned off science")

Reasons 2, 3, 4 and 5 are directly related to failures of the institution.
Sure, there are students who cannot comprehend the coursework, but those are
few and far between compared to the numbers who simply do not receive the
support necessary for them to succeed.

This study, along with many others, points to a common trend: we blame the
student for being incompetent or unmotivated, instead of blaming the
institution for not providing them the necessary help (that they are paying
tens of thousands for).

~~~
yummyfajitas
Reasons (4) and (5) are not necessarily a failure of the institution. If a
student likes dinosaur bones more than ODEs _after being exposed to both_ ,
how is that a failure at all? Students may have an incorrect idea of either
science or their personal preferences, and college may correct these views.
That's a good thing.

Another fact to note: I don't see "I'm not smart/hardworking enough to be an
engineer" as even an option. It would be interesting to know what fraction of
students flunked out or were barely able to avoid this fate.

Plus, I'm highly suspicious of the quality of this study. The authors appear
to be morons:

 _...only the difference on the seventh ranked reason... was statistically
significant (p=.019). ... However, another [statistically_ insignificant _]
difference worth noting is..._

------
mattmaroon
It's not useful to compare raw numbers against India and China since their
population is larger than ours.

Also, what % of total college students drop out? It's got to be near 50
(though maybe less for declared majors).

~~~
nradov
Furthermore, it's stupid to compare numbers of technical graduates. It's not
the numbers that count but the quality.

Has there been any academic research on the average quality of technical
graduates in the USA versus India and China? I don't mean just memorization of
facts and formulas, but ability to creatively solve real-world problems.
Perhaps that's impossible to objectively measure.

~~~
pchristensen
_"It's not the numbers that count but the quality._ "

For the short term economy (1-5 yrs), the quantity counts much more than
quality. If Bank of America needs to hire 500 interchangeable Java
programmers, they probably can't use or manage 10 excellent programmers
instead. But for the longer term, a couple Sergeys and Zuckerbergs (or for
that matter, Grahams and Morrises) are much more valuable.

------
bobochan
My theory is that a high percentage are forced out because there are
incentives for doing so. Undergraduate programs are ranked based on the
percentage of graduates they place in competitive graduate programs and top
employers. Getting weaker students to change majors lowers the denominator.

Engineering and science faculties, in general, want to produce stars and have
little interest in helping students along that find the material interesting
but challenging.

------
nradov
The Olin program looks pretty similar to what Harvey Mudd College has been
doing for decades.

~~~
elecengin
You are right - there are many similarities. In fact, our Dean of Faculty came
from Harvey Mudd. I think that Olin has a bit more freedom to innovate,
though, given it's young age (fourth graduating class this year). There is a
joke around campus that no class has ever been the same for two years - in
almost every case, there are significant overhauls that result from student
feedback. While this makes things tumultuous (and of course there is no
guarantee that change is good), it is clear that the profs are not willing to
settle on something that is just "good" or "acceptable". Did you get this
feeling at HMC?

I can't really make a more detailed comparison without more information about
what aspects of Harvey Mudd you find similar.

------
nazgulnarsil
I thought it was common knowledge that the only 2 useful B.S. degrees are C.S.
(and related) and Finance (and related).

~~~
rsheridan6
Biology is good if your grades are good enough to get into a professional
program. Not so much otherwise.

~~~
emmett
Biology is worthless as a major; as long as you take the pre-med requirements,
they don't care what your major is.

Granted, Biology requires a lot of the same classes, so it might be easier to
be a bio major if you're already pre-med, but the biology degree itself isn't
worth anything.

~~~
rms
For the purpose of getting into med school, as long as you take the pre-med
requirements, you are better off majoring in anything but biology.

~~~
rsheridan6
That's news to me. It seems like majoring in anything else would be a waste of
time because you would have to take more irrelevant classes.

~~~
emmett
Taking more irrelevant classes is probably harder (as I said), but because
it's harder it is also more impressive and thus looks better on your resume
(as rms said).

------
redrobot5050
I know the wash-out rate at my school -- just during the "freshmen
engineering" program was 50%. The next year, the wash out rate was 25%.

They don't want airline safety / nuclear reactor controls / bridges devices
made by D students. And the best way to ensure that's going to happen is make
the person really really really want to call himself an engineer. Its far
easier to be a a liberal arts major and convince two girls to follow you back
to your place.

------
bluelu
If my university only had a 5% drop out rate, I would have studied at the
wrong university. If everybody get's a degree, everybody is equal and your
degree is worthless.

------
guruz
I am not sure about the exact numbers, but i suspect it is the same in Germany
where I have been studying.

(at least in Stuttgart / Germany)

------
Dilpil
Two words: Linear algebra. Or if you wish, Differential Equations.

------
ynomad
Because Don Dodge wears a toupee.

Oops wrong article.

------
Alex3917
Incidentally, the National Science Foundation and the National Council for
Teachers of Mathematics describe the Obama's education plan as abysmally bad.
Specifically the NSF and NCTM are very much against the AP curriculum, which
Obama wants to expand by 50% over the next few years. I think the exact quote
is that AP science/math courses represent "the worst kind of pedagogy" or
something like that.

~~~
kalvin
I call bullshit--

1) Not a single source that can be googled.

2) The NSF gave the College Board 1.8 million two years ago to fund AP science
courses: <http://www.collegeboard.com/press/releases/51572.html>

3) It's highly unlikely that either organization, which have broader
educational concerns than AP curriculum, would ever release a statement
condemning either political candidate.

~~~
Alex3917
1) Read books.

2) The source you linked to supports my claim, if you actually read it.

3) They didn't release a statement condemning Obama, but they've been
criticizing the AP curriculum since the 90s. (And Obama's plan is to increase
the number of students taking the AP.) I'm sure they'd never actually
criticize Obama himself, at least not yet, since they will depend on him for
lots of other stuff.

