Last year, I wrote a blog about research that explained why STEM (science, technology,
engineering, math) majors in college become discouraged about their chances of
persisting in their major. In this week’s blog, I look at the reasons why
graduates of STEM majors drop out of STEM-related careers after they enter the workforce.
The analysis of undergraduate behavior that I reported on
last year found that students who become disillusioned with non-STEM majors
tend to do so slowly over several years and tend to experience loss of interest
and diminishing expectations about the earnings they can expect in their field.
On the other hand, students who become disappointed with STEM majors tend to do
so precipitously in their freshman year, mostly because of diminished
expectations of their ability to earn a decent GPA. In other words, it’s not
boredom or lowered career expectations that discourages them, but the challenge
of the coursework.
But what about after graduation? Those who graduate with a
bachelor’s in a STEM field have successfully met the challenges of the
curriculum. Having overcome this hurdle, do they face other barriers once they
have left college and entered the workforce? I found some answers to this
question by analyzing data from the 2003 National Study of College Graduates, a longitudinal study conducted by the
Census Bureau on behalf of the National Science Foundation. This survey asked
170,000 college grads under age 76 about their education and their current work
situation. Although the survey was updated in 2006, I used data from the 2003
sample because it polled graduates of the full range of college majors, whereas
the 2006 survey looked only at science and engineering majors.
Using data from the 2003 survey, I was able to compare the
work situations of people who held bachelor’s degrees from STEM and non-STEM
majors. In compiling the set of STEM majors, I ruled out the social sciences
and the health-care sciences that focus primarily on patient care.
One important finding was that STEM grads are more likely
than non-STEM grads to be working in a job that is closely related or somewhat
related to their major, as shown by the graph below. The differences are not
great, but they are significant.
But when STEM grads are in an unrelated career, what is the
reason? The next graph compares the responses of the two types of grads. You’ll
note that for many of the reasons for not working in a related job, the STEM
and non-STEM grads are quite similar. Evidently
the STEM grads have hardly any added tendency to lose interest in their
field, because only one percentage point separates them from the non-STEM
grads. The biggest difference is shown by the navy blue zone: STEM grads tend
to be quite a bit more likely to be in an unrelated field because of their
inability to find work in their field. With non-STEM grads, as indicated by the
two lowest zones, disappointment with pay or promotion or dissatisfaction with
working conditions was a more likely reason for working outside their field.
Keep in mind that this analysis is based on data collected
in 2003. It may be that in 2012 and the years ahead, there will be lots of job
opportunities for STEM grads, keeping them employed in work that is related to
their major. But what I find from this survey tells me that if lots of
STEM-related jobs don’t materialize soon, or if career development
professionals fail to help connect STEM grads with appropriate jobs, we may
lose STEM grads to unrelated careers.
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