Is Our Cultural Strength a Liability for STEM Majors?

By Quetzal Mama • December 30, 2014

Roxanne Ocampo Copyright 2015

A First Semester Post Mortem

            Now that first year Latina/o freshman at our nation’s competitive colleges and universities have just completed and survived their first round of final exams, I thought it would be interesting to look at a subset of these students and examine the ways in which they approach these exams. 

Why is this of concern to me?  The majority of students I coach are overwhelmingly STEM majors (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math).  More than 90% of the students who seek out my coaching are pursuing pre-med majors (biological sciences) or engineering.  I’m not sure why this exists, why my program attracts these particular majors, or why the statistics are consistent year after year.  What I do know is that a significant portion of these students will be vulnerable to forces that may cause them to change their STEM major and/or career goal typically within the first year of college.  And, it’s not just Latino students.  According to Malcolm Gladwell:

“More than half of all American students
who start out in STEM drop out
after their first or second year.”

How does this happen?  These students declare their major, get admitted to a specialized STEM program, and share with family and friends their desire to be a physician, surgeon, or engineer.  However, they are not prepared for the first year experience – the year many of these students get weeded out of these competitive programs.  What are they up against that causes the high drop-out rate?  Why not look into three selective campuses:  Harvard, Berkeley, and Princeton.

Let’s say you’re a premed major at Harvard.  As a first year student, you’ll enroll in Life Sciences 1a (Chemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology).  I won’t attempt to describe it, so instead I’ll share how student described it on an online scorecard:  “As a requirement it’s somewhat like ripping off a Band-Aid, except for three long, excruciatingly painful months.”

Or, say you are at Berkeley majoring in Engineering.  Your first year you’ll be taking “Calculus-based Physics.”  Let me share one student’s description of this course via an online forum:  “Run.... run away.”  And, let’s add Princeton’s Organic Chemistry to the mix.  How do students feel about this first-year course?  “Don't take this course unless you absolutely have to, or unless you are just absolutely obsessed with Chemistry.”

I’m using these examples to illustrate how even at uber competitive campuses like Harvard, Berkeley, and Princeton, where we can safely assume the students are exceptionally bright, they are still having a tough time with these particular first-year courses.  So, what does that mean for the rest of students pursuing STEM majors?  Especially Latino students?  Do they crush it, or does it crush them?
       
It tends to crush them.  Why?  Because of a series of events that are, surprisingly, interconnected with a very positive aspect of our culture.  It goes down like this.  First comes the realization these Latino superstars are no longer the “big fish” in the small pond.  They are surrounded by other large fish who seemingly swim with ease through Organic Chemistry or Physics.  They watch these other fish quickly raising their hands in response to the professor’s questions, providing brilliant analysis. Struggling to master the concepts, they begin to feel a little defeated, discouraged, and dispirited.  So, they decide to work harder.  They will defer to an approach that is highly regarded in Latino culture.  Many reading this article will easily identify with this cultural behavioral practice:  buckle down, work harder, and put in 150% effort. We have been taught this behavior (admirable, no doubt) by our parents, peers, and close social ties within our communities.  While this is a great trait – and one I would argue got these students to the competitive university in the first place – it’s a trait that creates a huge deficit and obstacle for these first year students.  Just ask Claude Steele.

Dr. Steele is s social psychologist and currently the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost at UC Berkeley.   In his book, “Whistling Vivaldi,” he describes the phenomenon as academic “Over-Efforting.”  In a nutshell, Over-Efforting is when minority students put forth intense, isolated effort, to defend against the pressure of stereotype threat.  They sit in their dorm room, isolating themselves, over-efforting, through long hours of study.  Meanwhile, their Asian counterparts are successfully engaging in completely different rituals and habit.  They study in groups (not individually), focusing on understanding concepts rather than rote problems.  They also blend their academic and social lives – bonding socially while at the library focusing on math or engineering problems together.  The Latino students I coach tend to separate their social and academic lives. And, they isolate themselves. Their parents tell me, “But [s/he] studies every night until three o’clock in the morning.”  Hmm.

Malcolm Gladwell touched on this “big fish” phenomenon in David & Goliath:  Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants.  However, through a very limited analysis – based on a few anecdotal references, he rushes to an oversimplified explanation:  these big fish should have stayed in a smaller pond (meaning less competitive university).  Citing lack of motivation and confidence, and how the student feels about their abilities, Gladwell goes on to say that these kids would have been better served by staying away from the big, scary, demoralizing pond and opt for the smaller, more welcoming pond.  Then, Gladwell goes down a road that crushed me.  He lends support to his big fish/small pond analysis by referring to the leading anti-affirmative action proponent, Richard Sander. In a small footnote he declares that Sander’s argument is “common sense.”  Boo.  But then again, Gladwell is not Steele.  Gladwell is not formally trained or educated in any of the sciences, let alone sociology or psychology.  He’s a journalist, relying on tantalizing linkages that make for a good read.

            Now, I’m not a social scientist, nor am I a psychologist.  But, I am a practitioner and I engage in my own version of research every recruitment cycle – asking my STEM students probing questions regarding their choice of major, the obstacles they face, and how they succeed (or not).  I compare these qualitative findings with statistical data I collect.  So, I want to share what some of these successful STEM students are telling me about their challenges in their first and second year of college.

By and large, they tell me that they intentionally acknowledge and reconcile their abilities with the reality of outcomes they are experiencing.  It is something psychologists refer to as “cognitive dissonance.”  This is a fancy word to describe how we humans feel uncomfortable when our personal beliefs do not match up with reality.  The reality is that these kids are really intelligent.  But, when they sit in classrooms with other brilliant kids or receive a lower grade than expected, they must reconcile and separate their intellectual abilities with the task at hand.  These successful students are able to put the situation into the proper context, understanding the relative nature of a competitive university.  One Berkeley engineering student recently told me, “I know the material and I know the answers.  If I don’t perform in the top 10%, I don’t take it personal.  I know I’m smart enough.  I just realize that we are graded on a curve and for Berkeley that curve is unreasonably high.”  Apparently, this student perseveres because he is not viewing his exam grades as personal (due to a deficiency in ability or talent) but due to statistical factors beyond his control.  In other words, he is not internalizing judgment about his intelligence.  He will try harder, but not in the way that crushes other STEM students.  Instead of focusing on a perceived intellectual deficiency, he will focus on developing strategic habits to help him out-maneuver the next exam or benchmark.

Unfortunately, there are too many unsuccessful students to every one student who understands how to distinguish and separate ability versus strategic maneuvering.  Sadly, those students who have not yet discovered this difference will concede their dreams of becoming the family’s first physician or engineer.  They will change their major to something outside of STEM, transfer to another campus, or drop out altogether.

For those of you who work with aspiring STEM majors, you’ll want to share this article with them before they begin their first year in a competitive program.  For parents with college students in a first or second year STEM program, make sure to have the conversation about perceived ability versus obtaining strategic help.  This means encouraging them to get tutoring, participating in a study group, or meeting with their TA’s.  Our task as counselors, coaches, advisors, or program directors working with Latino STEM students is twofold:  We need to help our students separate their actual abilities (reality) against environmental obstacles (yes, they are smart enough) and ensure they are obtaining the right type of resources (and getting them out of their isolated dorm rooms).