Science Is Hard Work—Too Hard!
Are Americans flunking science? A national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences and conducted by Harris Interactive® reveals that the U.S. public is unable to pass even a basic scientific literacy test. According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences, reported by ScienceDaily (2009):
• Only 53 percent of adults know how long it takes for the earth to revolve around the Sun.
• Only 59 percent of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
• Only 47 percent of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the earth’s surface that is covered with water.
• Only 21 percent of adults answered all three questions correctly.
Considering that most people have little interest in science and know even less about the scientific method or the scientists’ toolbox, we should not be surprised by the lack of basic scientific knowledge as described above. The sad truth is, few people follow science news unless there is some sort of startling breakthrough event, like a new vaccine for swine flu or a new test procedure for breast cancer. And, when people do become aware of scientific breakthroughs, they typically receive this information from sound bites—mostly from non-detailed accounts from television or the Internet. It is interesting to note, however (based on our personal observation), that these same people who avoid almost anything science-based are, at the same time, fascinated with pseudoscience including the abominable snowperson, the Loch Ness Monster, alien abductions, flying saucers, extrasensory perception (ESP), physic phenomena, and astrology.
Life is full of roads we choose to travel and directions we choose to take. Eventually we come to a fork in the road of life and we must choose which way to go to continue life’s journey. Simply, life is full of tough choices. You need not be 70- something to determine if the life road you chose was the right one. We look at our choices all the time; sometimes we are pleased with the choices we made, and sometimes we are not.
One of the major decisions we all face is what academic road to take and how far to go down that particular road. For most of us, the first major decision, or fork in the road, is encountered in high school. Most high schools offer diploma track programs designed for life prep, or the postsecondary programs: work-prep or college-prep. For those who hope to obtain gainful employment immediately upon graduating high school, life prep high school diploma programs are designed for many of them. For those students who are vocationally inclined (i.e., electrical, plumbing, construction, etc.), work-prep high school curriculums are designed to teach traditional high school level courses along with vocational trade courses. College prep programs are just that; college level preparatory tracks. They can also include advanced placement (AP) college level courses geared to both prepare qualified students for college level work and, in many cases, allow them to earn college credit at the same time (dual track program), which in turn allows students to attain advanced placement upon entering college.
Upon entering college the student encounters more forks in life’s road. We say more forks because the student stands at the center of a crossroads that has multiple forks, including, for example, which particular school within the college to enroll in. A typical college or university may have schools of Arts and Letters, Business and Public Administration, Education, Engineering and Technology, Health Sciences, and Sciences and Computer Science.
Once the student chooses his or her school of interest another number of forks in the road are encountered; namely, a long list of majors. Deciding on a major is one of those tough choices college students face. Mainly because it is an important one, as changing majors can cost lots of time and money. Moreover, choosing the wrong major can also lead to frustration after graduation when the new graduate finds that there are limited or no employment opportunities available in his or her chosen field. Because many students are unsure about their futures and what fork in the life road to take they might decide to take the road marked “undecided,” which is quite popular among incoming freshmen. Unfortunately, this choice is often made because many students have no clue of what they want to do after college. In this position, students are better off taking generally recommended classes and other prerequisites first, to get these courses out of the way and leave their career choice until later.
After completing the generally recommended classes and other prerequisites, students have several majors to choose from, but may still be undecided. To aid in the decision-making process, some students will seek the advice of parents or guardians. Others will seek advice from school guidance counselors. Others seek advice from other students and/or friends. In this digital age, many students simply refer to the Internet and various websites available to them. For example, a student might be interested in choosing a major that is not only popular but is also easy, relative to some other choice. More enlightened students may look down the many forks in the life-road and try to foresee the future. That is, they may want to know what a four-year college degree in a particular major will do for them upon graduation. Will the major prepare and qualify them for a good paying job? Will their major and subsequent degree choice open the door for them to ensure a solid future in a field with a future? These are important questions, but you may be surprised to find out, at least based on our experience, that many students do not look or think long term. Much of the thinking is short term; the focus is on taking an easy major and graduating with a four-year degree. It is important to note that many students understand that their eventual career will not always be related to their college major, but it can help prepare them for a career.
In scanning the list of most popular college majors, business typically is the most popular major along with the social sciences and education. It should not be all that surprising that the business major is listed first. Business is popular because a degree in finance, marketing, managing, and/or accounting can lead to a good paying job right from the start, especially with a business degree from a top business school. Second, social sciences and history, education and psychology majors are generally looked upon by students as “fun” and “easy” majors. These majors include studies in anthropology, economics, geography, sociology, political science, elementary and secondary education, and various aspects of psychology. The most popular science is typically biology. This is not surprising because the study of life is fascinating to many people. Biology does require a lot of research, including lab and field work but is not heavily tied to higher mathematics (notwithstanding the need for statistics) and generally only interfaces with the other sciences (chemistry and physics) to a lesser degree. Based on our experience many of our students shift from biology majors to environmental health majors. When asked why, many state that after a few years of biology courses and after doing some job research, they came to the conclusion that there are too many biology graduates and not enough good paying jobs available after graduation. As a case in point, consider, for example, a southeastern Virginia sanitation district that typically hires recent college biology majors to work in their environmental laboratory as sludge handlers—receiving sludge samples from outlying wastewater treatment plants, analyzing contents, and washing sample bottles. That’s right, bottle washers!
Let’s look at an example of one student who stood in that college crossroads whereby he had to decide which education fork to take.
The student decides to enter the School of Sciences and Computer Science. Having looked over the various majors and curriculums offered, he notes that several individual majors in the sciences—biology, geology, oceanography, chemistry, and physics—are available to choose from. In addition, several computer science specialty fields are available. The student also notices that a major in psychology is listed.
The student is left to mull over his decision. He rationalizes that any choice he makes will be a good one. He looks at the sciences first: A lot of required hard courses, including extensive lab and field work, requiring a huge commitment of time. His focus then shifts to computer science. He likes computers but has used his own personal computer since he was a child; he feels he knows all he needs to know about computers. His final analysis lands on psychology. Psychology has two characteristics he likes: It is an easy major and it is fun. In the end, he chooses what he perceives as the major that is easy and fun over all the rest which he views as hard and boring. He tells himself that the goal is to take the easy road to a college degree; that is his bottom line.
At this point and time in the discussion you might feel that the student has reached all the forks in the educational road that he is likely to confront. Those of us who have been down these roads know this is not the case, however. Even while pursuing his degree in psychology he is confronted with other forks in the road: What subfield to major in and courses to take? In psychology the subfields are many, including abnormal, biological, clinical, cognitive, community, comparative, counseling, critical, developmental, educational, evolutionary, global, health, industrial/organizational, legal, occupational health, personality, quantitative, social, school, and forensic.
Having chosen a subfield, completed all required courses, and finally becoming a graduate, the student then usually seeks employment. And herein the realization begins: the nagging weight of all those huge student loans that have to be paid off. The need for gainful employment is the difficult realization, but real.
Our psychology major may have done well in college. Maybe exceptionally well. Maybe even graduating with one of those cum laude levels inscribed on his sheepskin. Maybe he concludes that he has a special knack for psychology. In his mind, he may see himself as a natural, a shoo-in, to become a practicing psychologist.
Unfortunately for our college psychology graduate, he finds to his complete initial bewilderment and ongoing consternation that a Bachelor’s Degree does not open too many entry doors to a career as a practicing psychologist. After submitting resume after resume and job application after job application, he waits at his parent’s home (he simply cannot afford to live on his own, and because he has no money, his girlfriend has little use for him; instead, she latched onto his best friend who was an engineering major and was hired as an engineer before graduation) and receives rejection letter after rejection letter or hears nothing at all.
“Gee, after all that hard work . . . the slavery . . . those crash binges to get work done and submitted only a few days late . . . and all those student and other loans . . . you would think someone out there would want someone of my worth and my obvious talents!”
But they do not. No, not for a practicing psychologist position. In rejection after rejection he hears the same thing: “Our practicing psychologists must have Doctor of Psychology, and in many cases we require Post-Doc work.”
Have you ever suffered the disappointment of having a Lotto ticket with all the drawn numbers but two or even one? If so, you may understand the feeling of disappointment the psychology student feels each time he receives a job employment rejection. “What a bummer!” he says to himself while searching the Internet for jobs suitable for his status.
We must point out, however, that not all is lost. Some of those written rejections did come with other job offers. These job offers ranged from employment as human resource technicians, public relations assistants, market research assistants, furniture, home appliance and used car salespersons . . . “With a degree in psychology, you should be good at getting into peoples’ minds and convincing them to buy, buy, buy!”
When You Arrive at a Fork in the Road . . .
The psychology graduate discussed above is the type of individual we often see in our environmental health classrooms. These 30- or 40- or 50-somethings have reached another fork in life’s-road and taken the path toward another degree or advanced degree in a major that we have had no problem placing epidemiologists, toxicologists, industrial hygienists, occupational heath and safety professionals, public health, and water and wastewater technicians. Many of these positions are reliable in the sense of long-term employment and above average salary and benefits packages. For example, consider wastewater operators. So long as there is a need for people to flush toilets, there will be a need for highly skilled and educated wastewater operators.
In regards to education, you can come back; it is never too late to change one’s direction of study and learning. This is true, of course, because we can’t help learning everyday—learning is an ongoing human experience. For those who took the non-science or non-technical road in their initial education, it is never too late and there is still the opportunity to take that other path, even if it is not science related. And when you reach that fork in the road again, remember what that great philosopher Yogi Berra said: “When you arrive at a fork in the road, take it.” When it comes to most fields in science, there is one Yogism that should be ignored, however; the one that says: “no one goes there nowadays, it’s too crowded.”
References and Recommended Reading
Berra, Y., Garagiola, J., and Berra, D., 1998. The Yogi Book: I Really Didn’t Say Everything I Said. New York: Workman Publishing Company.
ScienceDaily, 2009. Scientific Illiteracy in America. http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/33063_Scientific_illiteracy_in_America (accessed October 17, 2009).