<p>By major:</p>
<p>ChemE
Civil
CE/EE
Mechanical
All others</p>
<p>Nuclear Engineering:</p>
<p>So many...</p>
<p>Materials: Of my class of 17 we lost one to math. And...umm...that's it.</p>
<p>Of the 30 or so people that were in my material and energy balances course, I can think of only four who did not finish or get on the track to finish. 2 of them dropped out of engineering during the balances course and 2 dropped out later (one for no other reason than he didn't like engineering, he was making As but switched to math).</p>
<p>In ChE, once you get past the sophomore level courses (thermodynamics, fluid flow principles, heat and mass transfer principles), it's smooth sailing.</p>
<p>My daughter started with 40-something in ChemE. She said they are down in the mid-30's now. One went to Biomed Eng and reported back it was so much easier. Don't know what happened to the others.</p>
<p>I remember back at my other college, we started initially with 50 chemical engineering students. After two freshmen semester we lost all but 13. Obviously, your first two years is an elimination process with tons of projects and homeworks. Over here, we lost only 15 out of 60 students. It might be because my current college is easier?</p>
<p>With me, it was kind of difficult to tell. By the time I got through all the intro courses where there were ALL the engineers, I was late into my sophomore year. It was tough to tell who washed out of engineering and who never really went in the first place. For the twelve of us who started taking upper-division courses in civil engineering for my year, we all stayed there. Two ended up in law and business.</p>
<p>Civil - We started with about 18, but 4 left the school because of academic problems (not sure if they stuck with engineering or not though). All left before junior year, which was when we had 4 transfer students join us. Of the 18 graduates, all 18 stayed in the civil engineering field, which was not the case in past years.</p>
<p>...oh, except for the one that jettisoned his civ career and became an actor, but I'd say he qualifies as an outlier.</p>
<p>If you want to talk about outliers, a civil engineering undergrad at where I did my graduate studies was just signed by an NFL team as a quarterback.</p>
<p>Awhile back I found this article on the internet: :)</p>
<p>
[quote]
*Confessions of an Engineering Washout *
By Douglas Kern</p>
<p>I am an engineering washout. I left a chemical engineering major in shame and disgust to pursue the softer pleasures of a liberal arts education. No, do not pity me, gentle reader; do not assuage your horror and dismay at my degradation by flinging a filthy quarter into my shiny tin cup. Instead, hear my story, and learn why the United States lacks engineers.</p>
<p>Not long ago, I showed up for my first year at Smartypants U., fresh from a high school career full of awards and honors and gold stars. My accomplishments all pointed towards a more verbal course of study, but I was determined to spend my college days learning something useful. With my strong science grades and excellent standardized test scores, I felt certain that I could handle whatever engineering challenges Smartypants U. had to offer. Remember: Kern = real good at math and science. You will have cause to forget that fact very soon.</p>
<p>I had three options for a chemistry class: the intro course, the accelerated course, and the genius course. My high school chemistry background made me a good fit for the accelerated course, but my academic advisor warned me not to take it. The course instructor was a legendarily incompetent teacher, even by the dubious standards of Smartypants U's engineering department. He was so incoherent and capricious that academic advisors were warned to steer students away from his courses. So why was he kept on staff? His research was outstanding. My tuition dollars at work.</p>
<p>Being too arrogant to waste my gifts in some kiddie intro course, I enrolled in the genius course. Memo to freshmen, wherever you are: unless you are a certified, card-carrying prodigy with a four-digit IQ, do not EVER EVER EVER sign up for a chemistry class whose informal nickname contains the word "Turbo." "What happened?" said the comment on my second test. I wish I knew.</p>
<p>In high school I had grown accustomed to math classes that featured clear, helpful instruction from teachers who liked to teach and excelled at teaching. At Smartypants U, the jewel in the crown of American academia, my math instructor was a twenty-something teaching assistant whose classroom style never deviated from the following pattern:</p>
<p>1) Greet class.
2) Ask if there were any questions about the previous evening's problem set.
3) If so, work out the problem in question on the chalkboard, without further explanation.
4) Repeat step 3) as needed.
5) Announce the pages in the textbook from which the next problem set would be derived.
6) Perform a sample problem from the new problem set.
7) Ask if anyone has any questions.
8) Give the problem set assignment.
9) Dismiss the class.
Total elapsed time: never more than 25 minutes. </p>
<p>Clutching the shredded tatters of my pride and dignity, I trudged to the office hours of my math instructor every week, seeking an explanation for the increasingly mysterious problems in the textbook. My instructor welcomed my presence as she would welcome the Angel of Death. Irritated? She was terrified. Explain…the problems? Articulate…the steps? Relate…the concepts? I would ask questions, and she would respond by completing yet another sample problem as fast as she possibly could, blushing nervously. I felt like I was on a Star Trek episode. "Captain, I think I understand…the creature communicates through multivariable calculus problems!"</p>
<p>I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong. She was as American as I am. Spoke perfect colloquial English.</p>
<p>Engineering physics was only marginally better. The harried teaching assistant could actually explain the occasional physics concept. But he made sure you understood that a poor grade on any assignment reflected upon your merit in the eyes of God. "If you get a 60% below on ANY quiz," he wrote on the chalkboard on day one, "YOU ARE NOT STUDYING HARD ENOUGH." I wondered what would happen if you got a 30% on a quiz. Were you branded? Expelled? Excommunicated?</p>
<p>The social-life-killing workload was the stuff of gallows humor among the three or four upper-class engineers who could still laugh. "Sleep is for the weak!" they bellowed, when gathering at the listless engineering parties. "Your underwear has two sides," they whispered, pressing their furry acne-ridden faces into the ears of bewildered freshmen. "Use them."</p>
<p>Reader, let us not dwell upon the endless problem sets, the wretched grades, and the weary nights spent screaming at my inscrutable textbooks. Compose in your mind a montage of quizzes covered in red ink, classes wasted in the stupor of incomprehension, and frowning instructors muttering strange incantations in their eerie scientific argot. And of the hands-on laboratory portion of the chemistry class, I will say only that I still hold the record at Smartypants U. for most failed attempts at that hateful titration experiment. ("No - not dark pink! You filthy godless soul-eating beaker! Damn you to hell!") They assigned grad students to watch me after failure number six. And I still screwed it up.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, my friends majoring in the liberal arts pulled dandy grades while studying little. "You just wait," I thought, gazing upon them like the ant regarding the grasshopper in the summer. "You party and blow off homework now, but in ten years, you'll be making merely wonderful money as fast food workers, while I'll be driving my new Porsche to a great job at General Electric."</p>
<p>My first-semester GPA was the engineering major average: 2.7. But to a former academic superstar, a 2.7 GPA was akin to a public flogging.
I nearly fainted when I learned that I received a 43% on the Physics final. I nearly fainted again when I learned that the class average was 38%. A sub-50% grade on a science test is a curious creature, as much the product of grader whim as academic achievement. "Hmmm…looks like he understood a tiny bit of this question. I'll give three points out of ten. Or should I give four? Whoops…tummy rumbling…better make it three." Having allegedly mastered 43% of the course material, I was now deemed fit to take even harder Physics classes. I wondered: at the highest levels of physics, could you get a passing grade with a 5% score on a test? A 3% score? A zero? Could drinking from a fire hose actually slake your thirst?</p>
<p>Exhausted and demoralized, I stumbled into my next semester of engineering. My new math T.A. had all of my old T.A.'s inability to teach, but half of her mastery of English. One day in class I heard myself saying: "If I understood what I didn't understand about the problem, I would understand the problem, and therefore I wouldn't be asking a question." The T.A. stared at me across a void that seemed increasingly unbridgeable.</p>
<p>The course was called "Discrete Mathematics." Many people thought that the course was called "Discreet Mathematics." Wrong. To clarify: "Discrete Mathematics" is "the mathematics in which Kern was getting a D at midterm." "Discreet Mathematics" is "how Kern dropped that class along with the rest of his engineering course load and signed into liberal arts classes, all on the last day he was eligible to do so, because he couldn't stand the stress, abuse, and lack of comprehension anymore." No one waved goodbye to me at the engineering door.</p>
<p>The United States contains a finite number of smart people, most of whom have options in life besides engineering. You will not produce thronging bevies of pocket-protector-wearing number-jockeys simply by handing out spiffy Space Shuttle patches at the local Science Fair. If you want more engineers in the United States, you must find a way for America's engineering programs to retain students like, well, me: people smart enough to do the math and motivated enough to at least take a bite at the engineering apple, but turned off by the overwhelming coursework, low grades, and abysmal teaching. Find a way to teach engineering to verbally oriented students who can't learn math by sense of smell. Demand from (and give to) students an actual mastery of the material, rather than relying on bogus on-the-curve pseudo-grades that hinge upon the amount of partial credit that bored T.A.s choose to dole out. Write textbooks that are more than just glorified problem set manuals. Give grades that will make engineering majors competitive in a grade-inflated environment. Don't let T.A.s teach unless they can actually teach. </p>
<p>None of these things will happen, of course. Engineering professors are perfectly happy weeding out undesirables with absurd boot-camp courses that conceal the inability of said professors to communicate with words. Fewer students will pursue science and engineering majors, and the United States will grow ever more reliant upon foreign brainpower to design its scientific and manufacturing endeavors. I did my part to fight this problem, and for my trouble I got four months of humiliation and a semester's worth of shabby grades that I had to explain to law schools and employers for years. Thousands of college students will have a similar experience this fall.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Thanks UCLA Band Mom. I agree. I also remember struggling to learn early math and science on my own in college because my teachers were so inept at the art of teaching. Or else they just didn't care. The deficit was further highlighted by having one or two excellent teachers for comparison.</p>
<p>But the problem starts WAY before college. We have had quite a few math and science teachers at the middle and high school levels that just could not or would not teach. It is no wonder that so few kids are prepared to be successful in math, sciences and engineering at the college level. I am sure there are multiple reasons for poor teacher preparation, but I feel powerless to affect any change. The best I can do is supplement and reteach, so that when they get to the college level, my kids CAN do learn it on their own (just in case they have to!) </p>
<p>BTW, I agree with the author's view on technical textbooks, too. Clearly, teaching incompetency extends to the written form also.</p>
<p>That dude must've been an engineering major at UF; described the experience to a 'T'.</p>
<p>um...Engineering is not that hard, seriously. Yea, I mean you have to put a little bit more effort in it than you would in, say, Asian Studies. But if you do the HWs, problem sets and examples and understand them, then you should get above average on exams most of the time, which in most cases means a B-/B. I had a 3.67 GPA in HS, so I was never part of the "cream of the crop" students, but I pulled up in CC with a 3.80 GPA and now am a senior in UCLA EE about to graduate in a year. The author of the above article is clearly a moron and made a good decision choosing to switch majors. We really don't need or like whiners like him in Engineering. So, yea, Engineering is difficult but very interesting if you are curious about the theories behind how things work (Computers, Cell Phones, Cars etc.) and like to solve problems.</p>
<p>About the dropout rate, I have heard of a lot of people here who have switched out of Engineering into Liberal Arts (mostly Business/Economics or Psychology)...which makes me wonder what made them choose Engineering in the first place, and what they expected it to be?</p>
<p>About lkf725's hypothesis about the "problem", I agree that the Science/Math curriculum is a joke in America compared to say in India/China (I did my schooling up to 5th grade in India, and I was flabbergasted at the level of Math students were learning when I came to the States). But there is also a cultural problem which is plaguing America in regards to the relative unpopularity of Math/Science. In general, the value system when it comes to appreciating education in this country is abysmal, which can be seen by viewing the emphasis placed on "Sports" and making the Jocks heroes in our schools and the general disdain or indifference shown towards people who are interested in Math or Science, with them being labeled as "Nerds". And we can see the consequences of this today. Go to any Graduate program in the top schools in EE/CS or even other Engineering majors and you will find it flooded by mostly International students, whose culture value technical knowledge and realize its potentials. Also a concern is the lack of Mathematical rigor expected from students in schools here. In my HS, Algebra II was considered the "highest-level" Math class students needed to take to graduate. In my AP Calculus class, there were maybe 10 students in total. This is totally unacceptable in this technological era and explains the dropout rate in Engineering programs in the country. In most Asian countries, Algebra (I and II) is taken way before the student even reaches high school so the students there are well prepared for any Mathematics they encounter in college and are not scared by the subject.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Go to any Graduate program in the top schools in EE/CS or even other Engineering majors and you will find it flooded by mostly International students, whose culture value technical knowledge and realize its potentials.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Anecdotal evidence: In my program, 10 of the 13 grad students that I knew were born outside of the United States. The entire full-time civil engineering faculty was born overseas, except for one. </p>
<p>We're not alone in this problem. It's happening over in Japan as well. Here's a link to a NY Times story about it (free registration required): <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/business/worldbusiness/17engineers.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp&oref=login%5B/url%5D">http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/business/worldbusiness/17engineers.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hp&oref=login</a></p>
<p>Some interesting excerpts:
- By one ministry of internal affairs estimate, the digital technology industry here is already short almost half a million engineers.
- In the meantime, the country has slowly begun to accept more foreign engineers, but nowhere near the number that industry needs.
- Some young Japanese, products of a rich society, unfamiliar with the postwar hardships many of their parents and grandparents knew, do not see the value in slaving over plans and numbers when they could make money, have more contact with other people or have more fun.
- But engineering students see themselves as a vanishing breed. Masafumi Hikita, a 24-year-old electric engineering senior, said most of his former high school classmates chose college majors in economics to pursue “easier money” in finance and banking. In fact, friends and neighbors were surprised he picked a difficult field like engineering, he said, with a reputation for long hours.
-A labor ministry survey last year showed there were 4.5 job openings for every graduate specializing in fields like electronic machinery.</p>
<p>the problem with switching out of engineering because it's too hard is that in most of those cases, one's switching out because his/her GPA is suffering and it's hard to land those prestigious finance jobs even if you switch into Economics major by then(as far as i know)...</p>
<p>... for one thing, if i was a HS senior again, i know i'd definitely not apply for engineering again.</p>
<p>i'd instead apply to one of those programs that guarantees you an admission into its medical school. i'd rather become a doctor (duh)...</p>
<p>
[quote]
The author of the above article is clearly a moron and made a good decision choosing to switch majors. We really don't need or like whiners like him in Engineering.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think a moron could write with that sort of articulation.
And it's not 'whining', it's strategic use of hyperbole to get his point across.</p>
<p>You can't possibly compare how you (or anyone you know) did to how he did, there's too many discrepancies (different school, professors, etc) to consider.</p>
<p>Kind of O/T, but I've heard a lot of engineering students complain about how they wish they went into finance without realizing that the average econ/bus majors get pretty mediocre jobs compared to the average engineering major. An economics major from an average university with average grades isn't going to get some hot-shot financial job while an engineering major from an average university with average grades has a significantly higher starting salary and better job prospects.</p>
<p>If you're talking about graduating from top-notch universities with high grades, then yes, the graduates who go into finance will make plenty of money and have great career prospects compared to engineers, but a huge amount of non-econ/finance students from such universities get good financial jobs as well -- especially engineering, math, and physics majors.</p>
<p>
[quote]
um...Engineering is not that hard, seriously. Yea, I mean you have to put a little bit more effort in it than you would in, say, Asian Studies. But if you do the HWs, problem sets and examples and understand them, then you should get above average on exams most of the time, which in most cases means a B-/B. I had a 3.67 GPA in HS, so I was never part of the "cream of the crop" students, but I pulled up in CC with a 3.80 GPA and now am a senior in UCLA EE about to graduate in a year. The author of the above article is clearly a moron and made a good decision choosing to switch majors. We really don't need or like whiners like him in Engineering. So, yea, Engineering is difficult but very interesting if you are curious about the theories behind how things work (Computers, Cell Phones, Cars etc.) and like to solve problems.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Going to a CC you had the luxury of not dealing with the first 1-2 years of weed-out courses in engineering. </p>
<p>Calling the author a moron is naive... sounds to me like the author just didn't have the patience or drive to stick with engineering. Neither of which deal with his intelligence.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I had a 3.67 GPA in HS, so I was never part of the "cream of the crop" students, but I pulled up in CC with a 3.80 GPA and now am a senior in UCLA EE about to graduate in a year. The author of the above article is clearly a moron
[/quote]
</p>
<p>somehow you pulling 3.80 GPA in CC and graduating from UCLA EE makes you so proud of yourself and the right to call the author a moron? w.t.*</p>
<p>i think it was a right for him to switch out of engineering but that's only because it's pretty apparent that engineering wasn't his thing.</p>