After a barrage of complaints from parents, students and opinion page editors and writers, Senator Baxley this week removed his proposal to reduce Bright Futures scholarship benefits for students who pursue careers that do not “lead directly to employment” from Senate Bill 86. One of the provisions he left behind in the bill was a requirement that first-year college students have a career counseling experience so that they understand the career prospects for the majors they are considering.
I agree with Senator Baxley that every student – and every student’s parents – should be making decisions about college majors with their eyes wide open about career prospects. But Senator Baxley’s proposal for counseling first-year college students has one big problem – students and their parents would be counseled years too late.
A student who graduates from high school without taking upper-level math and science courses like pre-calculus, calculus, chemistry and physics – perhaps thinking that she or he will be majoring in an arts or humanities field – and then decides in college to major in engineering, physics, computer science or math because of better job prospects is quite likely to fail because of her or his lack of preparation in high school.
That doesn’t mean that students should abandon their ambitions to succeed in arts or humanities fields while they are still in high school. But it does mean that all college-bound students should take the upper-level high school courses in math and science necessary to prepare for college STEM majors, just in case she or he has a change of plans. One student I know succeeded in gaining admission to a program in music performance at FSU and then decided after a year of college to switch to a math-intensive STEM field. She was able to succeed in her new major because she had taken physics and calculus in high school.
How would parents and students know that chemistry, physics, pre-calculus and calculus courses provide strong preparation for college STEM majors? They might find out from their high school counselors or teachers. Or perhaps they might hear it from me during one of my visits (face-to-face or virtual) to middle or high schools.
But students and parents often do not get such advice from high school counselors and teachers. And there is only one of me (and I’m aging quickly). So what might work better?
The Wisconsin Study of Families and Work reached out to parents of 10th and 11th graders and implemented “a theory-based intervention designed to help parents convey the importance of mathematics and science courses to their high-school–aged children”. The intervention consisted of a brochure and a web site – and the web site was relatively rudimentary given that this intervention was performed before 2010.
In a report on the Wisconsin intervention published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Rozek et al. described the intervention and its impact on high school course-taking:
Intervention materials provided information about the utility and relevance of mathematics and science for high-school students and encouragement to discuss this information with their child. In addition, parents were given advice and recommendations about how to most effectively communicate this information to their children. For example, parents were advised to personalize the information to their children’s interests and goals by helping their children generate their own connections with STEM topics and supporting these connections with information and examples from the intervention materials. Parents in the control group did not receive any additional materials. Students could only be affected by the intervention through interactions with their parents because none of the intervention materials were ever directed to students. Harackiewicz et al. (32) found that this intervention increased students’ STEM course-taking in the 11th and 12th grades of high school by approximately one semester of additional STEM course-taking on average.
Rozek et al. furthermore found that “greater STEM preparation in high school was associated with increased STEM career pursuit after high school.”
So career counseling can be effective – but what made the Wisconsin Study of Families and Work intervention effective was that it was delivered in high school. That’s a message that someone should deliver to our Senators and their staff members while they are considering what’s left of Senate Bill 86.
Bridge to Tomorrow 