[Edu-sig] Low Enrollments

[Chuck Allison]

Hello David,

This makes so much sense it's scary. Except I don't know how to
explain myself. I was a deprived city-slicker who did not know how to
work. College woke me up. But to be brutally honest, I didn't have
anything else to do but go to college, and I had no other area of
strength besides mathematics, so that's where I started. Not typical,
I suppose. But I totally agree - the work ethic is diminishing. But if
we can "wake some up" like I was awakened, we can grab a few good
ones, no?

Now that you mention it, we took special pains to teach our children
to work (without a farm - they had to earn what they got). My son is
now a stellar Ph.D. candidate in M.E. at U. of Mich. My daughter is a
devoted mother of two and a culinary artist. Food for thought (sic).

As an interesting data point, most of our students are older and/or
married and/or working, so we're doing okay there. It's getting them
into the program in the first place that's the problem. But I'm sure
that across the country many bail because of the work issue. Good
insight.

Wednesday, October 12, 2005, 9:45:02 PM, you wrote:

DH> On Wed, Oct 12, 2005 at 08:25:56PM -0600, Chuck Allison wrote:
>> Hello EDU-SIG,
>> 
>>   CS enrollments seem to be dropping drastically everywhere. Many
>>   factors probably are at fault (dot-com bust, off-shoring hype), but
>>   there seem to be others. One in particular is that so few HS
>>   graduates seem ready analytically to join in.
>> 
DH> ...
>> 
>>   Honestly, I can't imagine a field that better combines both sides of
>>   the brain with a service ethic and a dimension of fun than CS. But
>>   it looks like so much nerd-ness or drivel to the uninitiated.
>>   
>>   Any ideas would be appreciated.

DH> I noticed a profound shift occur at Glencoe High School in Hillsboro, Oregon
DH> between 1985 (when I graduated from there) and 1995-1998 when I visited
DH> there to give talks for national engineering week. In one memorable
DH> experience, I spoke to the Biochemistry students, in the same classroom
DH> where I had taken that same class a decade earlier. These were the top 20
DH> math and science students in the school. I asked how many of them wanted to
DH> become engineers. I got zero responses. I was floored. Based on my
DH> experience of the past, I had expected least a handful! I said "engineering
DH> is a good career, it pays good money, why are you not interested?" One kid
DH> raised his hand and said "It's too hard." Another volunteered, "Yeah, I have
DH> a friend who is an engineering student and he has to work all the time." I
DH> was dumbfounded. It appeared as if these kids thought there was a hard road
DH> to success and an easy road to the same success, so planned to take the easy
DH> road.

DH> Chuck, we are up against a more difficult problem than just making CS look
DH> cool. CS is fun, of course, but it is also hard work, there is no disguising
DH> that.  If the rising generation doesn't have the work ethic, there is really
DH> no substitute.

DH> In my experience, I noticed that among the successful American-born
DH> engineering students, a significant number of them had been raised on farms,
DH> where they had to get up at 5am every morning to milk the cows. In other
DH> words, they knew how to work.  So what did I do?  When I lived back in
DH> Oregon, we moved out to the country and we had goats and chickens, and my
DH> boys went out with me morning and evening to milk the goats.  Now that we
DH> live in a different environment in North Carolina, I have taken a different
DH> route and have the boys help me in our home publishing business.  They have
DH> gotten pretty good at binding books. (Just a little plug: anyone who buys my
DH> book is contributing to my children's education in multiple ways.)

DH> David H




-- 
Best regards,
 Chuck