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<p>Actual STEM work involves collaborating with others, just like much other work.</p>
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<p>Visual art and performing art (music, theater, dance) also?</p>
<p>What about liberal arts subjects that have obvious pre-professional applications like math, statistics, economics, foreign languages/literatures/cultures, and creative writing?</p>
<p>*Visual art and performing art (music, theater, dance) also?</p>
<p>What about liberal arts subjects that have obvious pre-professional applications like math, statistics, economics, foreign languages/literatures/cultures, and creative writing?*</p>
<p>Lots of room for those in undergrad for those taking a STEM ( non engineering) degree.
But as others have noted, not in many undergrad engineering programs</p>
<p>The question was, do you consider visual art, performing art, math, statistics, economics, foreign languages/literatures/cultures, and creative writing to be the sort of pre-professional major subjects that should be left to graduate school?</p>
<p>Engineering bachelor’s degree programs do have substantial liberal arts (both math/science and H/SS) requirements.</p>
<p>What holds back many H/SS students who are not pre-med from taking STEM classes that look interesting - even students who enter with aptitude and experience and would seem poised to be successful - is the abysmal quality of much of the teaching in the beginning courses, coupled with harsher grading standards that are not viewed holistically by potential employers, professional schools, or even grad schools outside of STEM. </p>
<p>Also, Frazzled kids discovered that balancing more than one prerequisite chain at a time can be extraordinarily difficult. A prerequisite for an advanced course in math or a physical science might be taught at the same time as a course in a language or performing arts sequence. We did find that even some engineering schools offered the option of a fifth year and second major in H/SS, but typically the second major would not involve courses with long prerequisite chains, such as sequential foreign language courses (with only one section per level each year) or performing arts or studio art courses.</p>
<p>I don’t buy it. Tell me, what subject of study has been ‘cool’? What majors have ‘heros’? What majors do students follow the latest findings and current happenings in?</p>
<p>I actually think that a lot of attempts to turn kids onto STEM …through cool exhibits, rock stars, volcanoes, TV shows…which have no relation to the actual content involved in real science, does no one any service. I get the intent, but I think it fails. </p>
<p>If students don’t find the actual real stuff interesting nor have great teaching to make it accessible- whether its calculus, or chemistry, or physics- it is not going to sustain them. It’s a bit like thinking exposing kids to great rock music that they love will help them become concert pianists, or playing fun video games will make them like computer science.</p>
<p>I do think that we have way too many kids who think a major or subject should be both fun and easy. It need not be either. It does have to be intrinsically interesting and while recognized as requiring hard work, it is achievable and that achievement is self-satisfying.</p>
<p>Anyone heard of FIRST. It should really get your attention. Get your kids involved.</p>
<p>My son is one of those classically geeky kids who is thriving in engineering. It helps to have parents whose idea of a fun vacation always involves science museums, and where the kid is exposed to a steady diet of science books and magazines from babyhood. Another factor in his STEM success is that his grade/middle (public) school math programs were exceptional. His peers were all doing advanced calculus by the time they were in HS. I do think the biggest hurdle to STEM enrollment is this country’s inadequate approach to math and science education, and logic training in general.</p>
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<p>Well, while I probably can’t meet your challenge as specifically worded (and I agree that no academic subject of study has ever been ‘cool’), perhaps I can satisfy the spirit of your challenge by pointing to what appears on TV.</p>
<p>Consider the social impact of skill-based gameshows (as opposed to chance-based gameshows such as High Rollers). They basically portray knowledge and education as ‘cool’, whether that be knowledge of random facts (Jeopardy, Who Wants to be a Millionaire), the prices of various household goods (Price is Right), wordplay and spelling (Wheel of Fortune), what regular Americans think (Family Feud), or even basic statistics (Deal or No Deal). Kids who love trivia can say that they want to become millionaires like Ken Jennings. </p>
<p>The problem is that no popular game show exists to test advanced knowledge of science, engineering, or mathematics. All that exists are relatively simple science/engineering trivia questions such as the names of various bones in the body or various Laws of Science. Apparently, at least according to Jeopardy, that’s no more important than knowing the names of various TV actors from the 1950’s. </p>
<p>Americans also clearly have a burgeoning interest in talent competitions, ranging from singing competitions (American Idol, the Voice), dancing competitions (So You Think You Can Dance, Dancing With the Stars), to general talent competitions (X-Factor, America’s Got Talent). So why can’t there be a popular show that features science and engineering talent? </p>
<p>Or, if you think such sci/eng competitions would be boring, then could somebody then explain why we have an entire TV network - and a popular one at that - devoted solely to cooking shows (The Food Network)? Let’s be honest - is it really that exciting to watch people cook food? At least with a dancing/singing/general-talent competition, you can observe and enjoy the performance, because the final product is visual/auditory in nature. But as a viewer of a cooking show, you can’t even taste the food afterwards, and the taste is the ultimate determinant of a skillful cook. All you can do is rely on the hosts of the show telling you that the dish is delectable. But what if they completely botched it? You wouldn’t know. Yet the fact remains that the Food Network is popular. {Nor is this an insult to them, as I like some of their shows.} </p>
<p>So if even cooking shows can become popular, why can’t there be an engineering show that also becomes popular. One could imagine a show that teaches you how to take ordinary materials available in your house or the local store to build cool technology devices. Or how about a show where teams compete, using the same set of ordinary gear, to build a certain device to best accomplish a certain task in a certain amount of time (Think Iron Chef, but with tech instead of food.) Or how about a show that explains every component inside a regular household technology device (TV, cell phone, computer, car, video game player, etc.), shows you how to dismantle it, and then how to rebuild it to perform even better? </p>
<p>If people can be inspired to learn how to cook through cooking shows and learn how to sing/dance through singing/dancing shows, then I have to imagine that people could be inspired to learn how to be engineers (or at least amateur tinkerers) through technology shows. </p>
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<p>Well, I think that’s a bit unfair. I don’t think it’s a matter of following the latest findings and current happenings in a particular subject - something that only those in academia are likely to care about. I think it’s more about wanting to understand even the old findings. Cars have been around for more than a century, yet the vast majority of people are uninterested in learning how a car actually works. I’m not talking about bleeding-edge car technologies, I’m talking about well-established car technologies. </p>
<p>But what if we could make that ‘cool to know’? For example, instead of having kids spending their time memorizing song lyrics, why can’t we inspire them to learn the inner workings of technologies. </p>
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<p>I believe you greatly discount the importance of inspiration and personal motivation. Kids have impressive tolerance levels for drudgery if the outcome is compelling enough. As a point of contrast, I doubt that many kids enjoy the endless hours of sports practice to be a star player. They may enjoy playing in actual games, but not the long hours of practice necessary. For example, to become a star basketball player, you basically have to spend countless hours shooting a ball, usually alone on a court somewhere. That doesn’t seem much fun. But many kids will endure it because they’re inspired by the final outcome: becoming star basketball players. They see those players on TV and they want to be like them.</p>
<p>The problem is that kids also see star scientists and engineers relegated to no better than regular middle-class lifestyles. And they’re not impressed. They rationally ask why they should endure the drudgery of learning science/engineering if that lifestyle is the final output.</p>
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<p>I would actually turn that around and ask: why do those other majors have to have such easy grading and relaxed demands? If the science/engineering majors need to be weeded out, then fine, why not weed out all the other majors too? If a one-unit science lab consumes as much time as a 3-unit humanities course (which I agree is the case), then why not force the humanities students to take 3 times more coursework to graduate? Or reduce the credit of those humanities courses to only 1 unit? </p>
<p>Frankly, I’m shocked that this contrast has been allowed to persist for this long. I think even most reasonable humanities students would concede that their majors demand less work and offer higher grading than do the STEM majors, and that far more students who flunked STEM migrate to humanities than there are humanities students who flunked and then migrated to STEM. Yet, year after year, nobody ever does anything about it. </p>
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<p>I agree, which is why I’ve always thought that one possible solution - short of enforcing grading/workload equity as explained above - is to then provide STEM students with 2 separate transcripts. One (with the ‘real’ grades) could be presented to STEM graduate schools, whereas the other (with 'fixed-up’grades) could be presented to non-STEM employers and grad schools. After all, because the latter has demonstrated that they will consistently abuse and misinterpret the information regarding low STEM grades, then perhaps we should deny them that information. </p>
<p>Outrageous, some may say? Well, that’s not substantially different from what MIT does now with its ‘internal’ vs. ‘external’ transcript, where the internal transcript can only be viewed only within MIT internally (including by MIT graduate programs), whereas the ‘external’ (fixed-up) transcript is presented to everybody outside of MIT. The biggest difference between the two is that the external transcript conceals freshman failing grades. If MIT can offer a fixed-up transcript for its students, why can’t other schools?</p>
<p>Regarding the popularity of the Food Network:</p>
<p>Alton Brown introduces basic STEM concepts in every episode.</p>
<p>Food is universal. Everyone needs to eat, and everyone (and don’t start a stupid argument here along the lines of “I have never cooked in my life”, Mr. Snarky Snark.) needs to know how to cook, at least a little bit. </p>
<p>Many of the food shows mix a lot of cultural and travel information with the food.</p>
<p>Then there’s always the Giada De Laurentis = Food Porn concept…</p>
<p>Heros, schmeros. I personally do not think we need to ramp up the numbers of STEM majors, anyway. I speak as one of those mid-career scientists who was downsized out of a lucrative job, whose field (synthetic organic chemistry) and whose industry (the American pharmaceutical industry) may never completely recover. ucb is correct - there are certain STEM fields, including organic chemistry and biology, who grim job prospects do not warrant all this hand-wringing.</p>
<p>On the other hand - I think what we DO need is more people who are science-savvy. We don’t need a ton of future chemists and biologists who will be post-docing into their forties; however, I think it would be great if everyone were a little more knowledgebale about chemistry and a lot less afraid of anything scientific. I think that the need to revamp K-12 curriculum is NOT to crank out more engineers - it’s more to educate everyone about the importance of science and to show them how really interesting, how integral, and how fascinating it can be.</p>
<p>I have four classes remaining until I can become certified to teach chemistry in my state. I’m planning to put my money where my mouth is.</p>
<p>What about Neil DeGrasse Tyson? Isn’t he considered “cool” among kids?</p>
<p>Even being scientifically “literate” makes you see the world in a different way. Why is STEM education important? Because even though not everyone may end up being engineers, we all get to vote. Democracy needs an educated public to be effective.</p>
<p>We need to change the way adults think, not the kids. Every child is born a scientist; a child probes, pokes and observes everything around him and imagines what could be. What determines whether a person become a scientist later in life is whether that person never lets go of that childlike curiosity. I am still fascinated by the simple things in life such as how water behaves, or how a light bulb works. An average person stops after asking a question, a scientist tries finding the answer and an engineer attempts to replicate it and make it more efficient.</p>
<p>I remember reading an interesting article in USA Today (I think) about how various talk shows used to routinely have guests that were involved in the sciences–now it is very rare, with the exception of The Daily Show. Jon Stewart often has scientists, writers, musicians and authors–and he seems to take a real interest in all of those fields–and who is cooler than Jon Stewart? I tape his show every evening, and if you happen to see a particularly interesting interview with a scientist, casually replay it in the evening when the kids are around and can watch it–it’s a show that they are usually happy to watch.</p>
<p>The problem isn’t so much that science isn’t “cool”. The problem is that the “geek factor” makes science super-not-cool and deters many children, particularly girls, away from it.</p>
<p>neil de grasse tyson is VERY cool! much cooler than that food network guy (who might turn people off–i know he turns me off).</p>
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<p>Well, nowadays, unless you’re going to live as a hermit in the woods, everybody needs to use technology these days. And I would say that they should know something about how it works, not just view it as akin to ‘magic’. </p>
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<p>I have to imagine that a slick movie/TV producer could make a thrilling science/tech show. </p>
<p>In fact, we already do. May of the highest grossing films in history are science-fiction films (e.g. Avatar, Inception, Star Wars franchise, Star Trek, Matrix franchise, Iron Man). So why can’t we produce a media franchise that doesn’t merely portray the possibilities of future sci/tech, but also the workings of current sci/tech (which then point to the possibilities of future tech)? </p>
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<p>I call your Giada De Laurentis, and I raise you one [Danica</a> McKellar](<a href=“Danica McKellar - Wikipedia”>Danica McKellar - Wikipedia).</p>
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<p>Then how’s this. Instead of producing more bio/chem PhD’s who will be post-doc-ing into their 40’s, how about we have more bio/chem bachelor’s degree graduates who will become high school science teachers. Our nation’s high schools run a shortage of thousands of qualified science teachers, hence forcing some numerous science classes to be taught by somebody lacking a degree in that subject. That was certainly true in my high school - not every chemistry teacher actually had a degree in chemistry. </p>
<p>High school teaching is not a bad career, as you have the entire summer off, usually a whole week off for Christmas, and many school distrincts offer the opportunity for tenure after a few years which renders you effectively unfireable. Frankly, that’s better than the low-level, low-paying lab tech jobs to which bio/chem college graduates are often times relegated. That would kill two birds with one stone: providing gainful employment for science graduates, while also improving the science literacy knowledge of high school students through more knowledgeable teaching.</p>
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<p>Exactly - so why not make it cool? It seems that slick TV marketing can make most anything cool. Glee has made glee-club supercool. Like I said, the Food Network has made cooking cool. Heck, even My Little Pony has become improbably cool amongst boys. {I’m still baffled as to how the last one happened.}</p>