Wednesday, October 15, 2014
STEM education vs. Liberal Arts education
Article Link: http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/05/17/education.stem.graduation/
This is a really intriguing article looking at why more people are not pursuing degrees in science. The article concludes that lack of support from professors and other students leads to a 'cut throat' atmosphere and prevents students from succeeding. I think that this speaks to intellectual freedom in that students are unable to learn the material and achieve the degree they want because they are not receiving the instruction and encouragement they need. Instead students are made to believe that they are either smart and determined enough to finish or they are not. This mindset limits students and prevents them from becoming more scientifically aware. These students go on to pursue liberal arts majors and are disconnected from the scientific world that they were told they just did not fit into.
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A lot of schools offer classes at varying levels. They have calculus, writing, economics classes tailored to engineering vs. non-engineerings students or specific majors. Do you think that this helps be more inclusive to students or does it limit student's freedom because they are exposed to a fraction of what they might learn in a similar class?
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ReplyDeleteI think this article is on to something. In my three years at mines I've seen my graduating class shrink in size considerably. Some of this has to do with people failing classes and being held back a year or a semester, but I think some of the factors mentioned in the article here play a large part in the big attrition rate. For me it comes down to two main issues with the approach to education within the chemical engineering department.
ReplyDelete1. Little to no personal attention from faculty
2. Discouraging atmosphere
Chem e is a large department so it makes sense that visiting professors for help or advice is tricky, but the main contributor to the barrier between teachers and students here is research. A large part of the teaching staff at mines is heavily involved in research, teaching is not their profession nor is it their passion. Mix that with a huge time commitment to research and you have a big problem: teachers that don't want to teach, and students that are not inspired to learn.
Chemical engineering is also notorious for its weed-out classes; classes that are designed to fail a certain fraction of the class. While this is a useful practice in that it keeps higher level class sizes small, it also creates an atmosphere that is incredibly discouraging. It often seems like the objective of the professor is to fail you rather than teach you. After a student fails a class like this, I imagine it would be difficult to convince ones self to return to the same scenario.
Our education has turned into a sink or swim scenario. Rather than teaching us to swim, we are being thrown in the water without a pool noodle for backup.