
Why College Students Leave the Engineering Track - robg
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/why-students-leave-the-engineering-track/?hp
======
bane
Because it's really hard and there tend to be absolutely right and wrong
answers in the work.

You can't skate through with a b.s., content free essay on the plight of the
modern farmer in a consumer world, shackled by the inadequacies of an archaic
nation-state governing system or a 5-paragraph essay on the plight of the
Hellenic world during the rise and fall of the Roman Empire -- getting A's
only because it's properly formatted and has the right number of words,
arranged roughly into the right number of paragraphs.

The "soft" subjects in college were _easy_. I could put off any assignment
until the last night, then whip something up before class and guarantee an A.

My engineering classes on the other hand, were so hard, so time consuming,
that I spent at least 6-8 hours outside of class for every hour I spent _in_
class. A 12 credit semester might mean 80 hours outside of class writing code,
reading books, trying desperately to _grok_ complex data structured and mind-
bending math. Write it wrong, and it crashes, or the answer is wrong, and you
get an F.

~~~
cparedes
I think the problem isn't inherently the class content (in 'soft' subjects),
but how decent the professor is in letting students get by with weak arguments
in their papers. I think there's some correlation between how much they
actually care about the class, and how tough the class will end up being.

I took an English class in college that was probably one of my toughest
classes in college (yes, about as tough as my math classes) - the professor
and the TA's tore apart each paper ruthlessly, and judged them at a quality
slightly below academic papers. I wrote a paper that was well formatted and
had decent grammar in it, but it was summarily torn apart and was given a C on
the paper, because my arguments in the paper sucked.

Also, I'd say that Philosophy is also a pretty damn tough subject in the 'soft
subjects' of college. You're expected to be nearly as technical as a
mathematician in your arguments, except you're writing essays/articles in
prose, rather than with terse explanations and symbols. Philosophy took about
as much time for me to study for as my math classes.

~~~
arctangent
I'd agree that Philosophy is a tough subject.

The reason I'd give for this is that in some sense philosophy _does_ have
correct answers, if and only if a question is framed within an existing
philosophical model.

The point of philosophy (as I see it) is trying to work out which
philosophical model is most correct - a bit like a choosing between scientific
theories.

Instead of testing against measurable things in the real world, philosophers
derive logical outcomes from propositions within linguistic/logical systems
and compare them to detect inconsistencies.

Therefore it's fine to ask a question about the consequences of a particular
line of thought if a particular philosophical framework is specified, because
you can mark a student not only on whether they arrived at an expected answer
but also on the quality of their argument (i.e. how they got there).

~~~
sliverstorm
Would it be wrong to call philosophy "abstract {math|logic}"?

~~~
ezyang
A large an interesting part of being a philosopher involves logic in its
purest sense, but it wouldn't right to claim that this is all philosophy is.

------
wtvanhest
There is another explanation for the high attrition rate which I believe also
explains why so many engineers end up in business school.

People select engineering as a career for the money, not because they actually
want to do it for a living.

In 1995 I was starting high school and had signed up for computer programming
classes and was teaching myself along with my friends.

In 1999 I fell in love with finance and realized I hated programming. Before
entering my freshman year I had switched my major to finance.

4 years later I entered an MBA program. Once there I noticed a huge percentage
of engineers and their reason for doing the MBA was always to get away from
engineering.

Engineering takes a particular type of mind to enjoy it, and I don't believe
10% of the population has the combination of aptitude and passion for the
career.

That is why great engineers are rare and very valuable. As someone that tried
programming, I fully respect and oftentimes envy those that enjoy it.

------
ColinWright
Same story, same paper, different writer, and now it's "engineering" and not
the more generic "science." I have to admit I'm a little surprised at the NYT
running pretty much the same story just 11 weeks apart.

Here's the link to the NYT article:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/why-
scien...](http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/06/education/edlife/why-science-
majors-change-their-mind-its-just-so-darn-hard.html?_r=1)

And here's the HN discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3196377>

~~~
minimax
It's the same topic but it's a different story. The science and engineering
indicators report linked in the first paragraph hadn't even been published
when the first story was written. Also she provides a link to the previous NYT
story you've pointed out directly in her blog post (ctrl-f "As my colleague
Christopher Drew wrote in an article in November").

I read this as a "If you liked that article you might want to check out some
of this new data" sort of post.

------
jethroalias97
From 1980 to today the population has increased by roughly 36% while college
enrollment increased by roughly 68%. More people feel they need to go to
college to get a job, so when they say, "in 1961, full-time students spent
about 40 hours each week in class and studying. By 2003, they were investing
about 27 hours a week." That shouldn't indicate as implied by the article that
we are becoming lazier, merely there is a larger percentage of the population
in the mix.

1) <http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98>

2)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Stat...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States)

~~~
prophetjohn
I don't get your point. Are you claiming that the 1961 stats are a result of a
small sample size? If not, the larger percentage of the population enrolling
isn't going to change the _average_ hours spent per week studying unless
students were, _on average_ , spending less time studying.

~~~
jethroalias97
My point is that nowadays, individuals who are disinclined to higher
education, and hence are less likely to put their heart and soul into it,
still feel obliged to attend. That's my analysis anyway.

------
zachrose
The article and comments here suggest it's because homework and math are hard
and non-Engineering students don't work as hard.

My hunch is that students drop majors because the initial appeal doesn't match
up with the actual path. Numbers weren't given for math majors who drop math,
but it wouldn't surprise me if they were lower than for engineering: perhaps
math majors know what they're getting into.

To my 10th grade mind, engineering was where students bolted together wacky
gizmos to suit their own desires, rather than study consistent strategies to
minimize cost, maximize performance, etc. I'm sympathetic to the idea that
engineering could have a glamerous outward appearance (despite Dilbert) that
doesn't match up to what it's actually like. And math is hard.

~~~
JamesLeonis
I agree. Traditional engineering has the appeal of robots and rockets, while
comp-sci has the Facebooks and Googles. Even chemistry has the mad scientist
images. The closest I can think of for Math is A Beautiful Mind, which doesn't
have the same glam as the above.

This phenomenon was observed during the DotCom boom with engineering classes
surging with wannabe millionaires who found out how _hard_ this stuff can be.
For a couple years after that bubble burst, there was a real scare that the
drought of incoming comp-sci freshmen would stagnate the industry.

In a way, I wouldn't be surprised if this was happening again as we are
entering into another tech boom.

------
zackzackzack
"You can do math? Fuck chemical engineering. Do math." -Dad's friend when I
told him that I was having doubts about chemical engineering.

The first year of engineering at Texas A&M is mostly just stuff that you
"need" to know, i.e. excel for Euler's formula. I got pretty bored and did
poorly in the class. I was doing research at the time with a really prominent
chemical engineer doing neat stuff. Asking around in the lab after a month of
tedious lab work, everybody was just like this is basically the day to day
life of chemical engineers. I talked to my dad's friend who was a chemical
engineer and he said the above. I switched to math the next semester and
haven't looked back since. Just my view on why I switched over.

------
geogra4
I left the engineering track after 2 years, although I still work in tech in a
roundabout way. I am a GIS Analyst who also does various software testing and
scripting tasks when required. We're a small shop that makes a GIS Tool for
Windows.

I guess I left because I didn't find the work interesting. All of these pipes
and valves and pressures and volumes didn't really hold my focus very much. I
tried computer science as well, but although I liked it enough, I didn't love
it enough to continue (Probably heresy to the HN crowd).

Even though I don't have a degree in engineering I'm very glad that I took the
math and physics courses that I did. I can have meaningful conversations with
Software Engineers, which I enjoy. In fact I worked as a math tutor for 2
years in college to help pay the bills so it's not that I hate math.

------
pixie_
Homework is the problem - it burns people out, and not just engineering
students, but everyone k-12 as well.

I'm a supporter of the flipped classroom model, it makes a lot of sense and is
a real solution to this exact problem.

<http://www.knewton.com/flipped-classroom>

------
hkarthik
As others have stated, it's mostly issues with the Math and the lack of
preparation that most US public high schoolers get in Calculus.

I started Engineering (CS Degree) in Boulder, CO with a guy that came in study
Electrical Engineering. He was good with circuit boards and the mechanics
involved in electrical parts so EE seemed like a natural fit for him.

I went to an International Baccalaureate program in HS and studied Calculus
pretty extensively in my 11th and 12th grades. My friend went to a small HS
outside of Colorado Springs and never went past Algebra 2.

Engineering Calculus 101 showed me the value of my high school math
curriculum. I didn't find it too difficult, as it was mostly a review for me.
But it destroyed my friend completely. I remember watching his eyes glaze over
as he struggled to keep up even in the early sessions. When we all got
together to do the homework he was struggling to understand even the basics of
Calculus.

On his first exam, he scored a 15%. At the professor's office hours, he was
told nobody from his HS had passed Calc 101 in the past 5 years. He was
advised to switch to B-school and that's where he ended up getting his degree.

------
lrobb
Apparently I'm one of the few that actually read the article... The workload
is cited as one of the main reasons.

This was true when I was in school, a long time ago.

Engineers could only party on the weekends, because they always had homework
to do.

Architects couldn't party at all, because they were always in the lab.

Liberal arts majors were the most fun... They could always party.

Then, at least in my peer group, quite a few of them went to law school and
"buckled down"... Now they charge me $250 per hour to review a stinking form
contract.

~~~
EiZei
Becoming a lawyer in the US is probably the least profitable thing you can do:
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1497044##>

~~~
lrobb
Those things are always off the mark...

He assumes the __way __too much about the quality and quantity of the
student's future earnings if they just continue "in the workforce", whatever
that means.

Or, as the old joke goes: "A lawyer or accountant with 30 years of experience
is semi-retired... A software engineer with 30 years of experience is likely
unemployed".

------
minsight
People left Engineering when I was studying it because they got into it for
the wrong reason. They took it because they thought it was good money and/or
because they were told that they were well-suited for it. Unfortunately, the
workload is such that, unless you really, really wanted to do it, it wasn't
worth the hassle. (At the time, I worked in the lab with people taking
Computer Science who had about 24 hours per week of lectures, tutorials and
labs (before homework), while we had between 37-40)

I remember going to an upper-level math student with a problem when I was in
second year and they guy had no idea what my coursework was or how to do it.
They would blast you with about 2.5 years of insane math and other tools, and
the last 1.5 years consisted of explaining to you how stringing those tools
together allowed you to do just about anything.

------
droithomme
Engineering is hard and you better understand calculus and be smart and an
analytical and creative thinker, things that are not present together in
everyone. That is fine. Not everyone has the same strengths. I am not a great
basketball player and never will play in the NBA. I am a good swimmer but even
so I will never compete in the olympics.

The science and engineering fields have always had weeder classes where those
who are not up to it realize their error and find another major. That is not a
problem.

There is almost the presumption in these articles that everyone is equal and
schools should be able to take any random person off the street and form them
into a competent engineer through proper training. It is a fallacy that that
is possible.

~~~
tdfx
I've taken the weeder classes at decent colleges and I have to say that "not
up to it" simply means undisciplined. While my experience isn't all-
encompassing, I personally haven't seen any undergraduate class that couldn't
be passed by almost any of the students with a sustained effort. Some students
are more naturally inclined for the hard sciences than others. It doesn't mean
they can't do it. It just means they have to work harder at it. Most just
choose not to.

------
mnemonicsloth
Think about how much longer a college course would take if you didn't have:
electronic calculators, word processors, 24-hour communications (email),
Wikipedia.

I can believe that standards have slipped since 1961, but all the productivity
enhancers that have been invented since then would have caused homework hours
to drop regardless.

------
candre717
The difficulty in studying engineering is overrated. This article is
describing a correlation, not a causation.

If you're interested in what you're studying, spending extra time studying it
isn't a chore. The engineering students I knew either loved what they learned
or loved what they would accomplish with it - aka projects, service, careers,
etc. The students who I knew that were unhappy (I was one) did not have that
kind of interest, even though we did well. That's a hard feeling to overcome,
if you're spending a lot of time studying with no sense of purpose or
intrinsic motivation, while your peers are excited about their work. I
remember interviewing and visiting engineering companies, trying to imagine
myself working there. For all the talk about engineering teaching you how to
"solve hard problems," most jobs were not at all the creative, inventive type
I had thought.

Sometimes, students come in with the wrong understanding of a major or career
type. For example, "I liked studying chemistry in high school, so let me study
chemical engineering," thinking they're the same. Sometimes, students find
that they were more passionate about something else, like music. I or my peers
didn't transfer into a liberal arts program, following the article's train of
thought. We made our own paths instead. To this day, I take a fair amount of
math courses.

Instead of focusing on hard or soft subjects, schools need to focus on
training good thinkers who know how to learn, reason, and implement in a wide
variety of styles.

------
kenamarit
I myself am one of the statistics mentioned in the article. I studied comp sci
for two years then switched to a BFA. Still, it's so much easier to find work
as a programmer so that's what I do.

Yes, engineering is hard. It is much easier to slack through a liberal arts
degree, yes. However, for me I felt that my education in computer science was
too narrow. To study it I had to drop jazz band, I had to drop American lit, I
had to drop film, I had to drop art, all things I was passionate about in high
school (in addition to writing code).

I didn't work any less hard in my easier major. In fact I probably worked
harder. A lot of my friends who also defected felt a similar sense of narrow
scope in studying engineering.

While I do think a lot people drop engineering because it's hard, I think that
a lot of people who are able and intelligent leave STEM fields because the
fields themselves do nothing to try and encourage its students to develop
outside interests. And those outside interests are important, they can be life
changing.

Similarly, the liberal arts majors do NOT do enough to encourage its students
to explore STEM subjects, which is just as horrible, in my opinion.

------
bri3d
I think this article would have been far more useful if it had included raw
numbers in addition to percentages, especially as it cites data from the past
compared to today.

I suspect that as more people go to college with the idea of ensuring that
they'll make more money later, rather than to learn or due to a passion in a
given field, the percentage of people who are successful at college will
decline.

Plus, it has to be noted that for people with an engineering passion and
mindset (who like math, breaking a large problem into smaller components, take
pride in solving technical problems, and so on), college has become a less
attractive option in recent years. While I don't think people with a natural
engineering passion eschewing college to work in programming or startups is
shifting the numbers dramatically, it's certainly something to think about.

------
mathattack
As others have said, engineering is hard. It's also why managers in other
fields like to hire engineers.

I am just surprised by the chart. It implies engineering majors only study 4
more hours per week than humanities majors. I would have thought it to be much
higher.

------
WalterBright
One word reason: math

~~~
ISloop
True. One of the calculus courses at my college is a weeder class. I have met
so many people who gave up on their dreams of being scientists and engineers
because they couldn't handle the intensity of the course. I was among the
majority that didn't pass the class. I admit I'm not the brightest math
student, but I truly enjoy learning about Computer Science so I'm gonna power
through those classes for as long as it takes. I'll be retaking the class
again this upcoming semester.

The article has a point, the quantity of homework assigned in technical
classes is insane. People burn out. Some people put in the hours, yet pull off
mediocre grades at best. Its highly discouraging and destroys peoples egos. My
friends attending Top 5 engineering universities are simply broken on the
inside. Doing homework for 10+ hours a day, every day, as long as you can
handle it, just to earn a shitty GPA barely above 3.0. Luckily they're all
stubborn enough to continue pursuing their goals.

~~~
WalterBright
It wasn't so bad for me. I suppose I wound up working an average of about 9
hours a day, 5 hours a week. But a lot of that time was in "troll sessions"
with friends, and it was fun. I also really enjoyed being around smart and
motivated people.

All in all, it was a very positive experience for me, and has paid off
handsomely over the years. (Not the degree, I don't give a crap about that,
but what I learned. A friend summed it up succinctly with "it's not about
learning facts, it's about learning how to think." Learning engineering and
science rewires your brain.)

------
caublestone
That would imply that humanities majors could have similar earnings potential
if only they studied more, which may or may not be true.

Maybe Humanities majors would have similar earnings potential if they learned
a skill.

------
michaelcampbell
I know why I left. It was hard, and I was lazy. I wish I'd had the fortitude
to stay, but I did not.

------
llz
How about the simplest answer –Students don't always know, regardless of
topic, whether or not it's a good fit for them and they change majors?

------
keithnoizu

       Or possibly some people aren't necessarily wired to grok 

the concepts needed to get ahead in this industry and find that while they
like the increased earning potential sitting in a desk all day long writing
code isn't for them.

    
    
       To be honest in the long run they're probably better off 

with a business degree and MBA if they really want to max out on earning
potential.

    
    
      Meanwhile power to them. It keeps our salaries higher.

~~~
pnathan
There's a decent body of research that shows talent doesn't really play much
of a role in learning, it's more will and the willingness to work hard.

~~~
WalterBright
I've long suspected that talent in anything amounts to about 1% of your
success, and the other 99% is hard work.

Note that things like athletic events are designed to discriminate the tiniest
of differences from one althlete to the next.

------
Mc_Big_G
Answer:

Calculus

Thermodynamics

Fluid Dynamics

Heat Transfer

...

