In a recent Orlando Sentinel column, University of Central Florida (UCF) President Alexander Cartwright declared his intention to “grow our capacity to educate students in technology-related programs, engineering, and computer science by 50% — ultimately educating 25,000 students annually in these high-demand disciplines.”
The president’s goal is certainly ambitious. During the 2021-22 academic year, all of the State University System (SUS) institutions together awarded 5,320 bachelors’ degrees in engineering and 3,219 in computing, according to the IPEDS service of the US Department of Education. UCF was the leader among the SUS institutions, with 1,365 engineering B.S. grads and 756 computing B.S. grads. The University of Florida was close behind in engineering grads (1,261) and Florida International University was UCF’s nearest competition for computing grads (667).
But if Cartwright’s UCF is going to make large jumps in its numbers of engineering and computing graduates, it will have to confront a challenge that originates not on its own Orlando campus but instead on the campuses of Florida’s K-12 schools. Our state is notoriously poor at preparing its high school graduates for college majors in engineering, computer science and other math-intensive fields like meteorology and physics.
What should high school students be doing to prepare themselves for these math-intensive STEM majors? The American Society for Engineering Education says that engineering schools are generally looking for students who have taken chemistry, physics, precalculus and, if possible, a year of calculus in high school. The Orlando Sentinel reported in 2019 that the head of UCF Computer Science Department advised high school students who are aspiring to major in computer science to take calculus and physics in high school. Chemistry, physics, precalculus and calculus are important for high school students intending to major in meteorology and physics as well.
Unfortunately for President Cartwright and the rest of us who teach students majoring in math-intensive STEM fields, there is a limited pool of Florida high school students who are well prepared to succeed in majors like engineering and computer science. In the fall of 2023, only 4.1 percent of Florida’s public high school students were taking a physics course (data from the Florida Department of Education). The most recent national physics enrollment rate was measured in 2017-2018, when 11.1 percent of American public high school students were taking physics. That same year, 4.7 percent of American public high school students were taking calculus. This past fall, only 2.7 percent of Florida’s public high school students were taking calculus.
Being well-prepared matters. At Florida State University, I teach the introductory physics courses taken by students majoring in engineering, computer science and other math-intensive STEM fields. About one-third of my students did not take a high school physics class. On the average, those students earn a full letter grade lower than students who did take a physics class in high school. A few students without high school physics succeed in my class, anyway. But most students without high school physics end up near the bottom of the grade distribution. Many of these students end up losing their dreams of becoming engineers and scientists. Several studies of the effect of high school course-taking on STEM majors published in leading journals during the last few decades (here and here) show that my experience is typical at colleges and universities around the nation.
If President Cartwright is serious about increasing the number of students earning bachelors’ degrees in engineering and computer science at UCF, he must take on the challenge of increasing the number of high school students who take strong courses in chemistry, physics, precalculus and calculus. First of all, that means increasing the number of math and science teachers being prepared at UCF for Florida’s middle and high school classrooms. Cartwright will need help with this from the state’s education policy makers, who must make K-12 teaching a more attractive career. Second, Cartwright should start a program to inform the parents of middle and high school students throughout Florida about the importance of taking chemistry, physics, precalculus and calculus in high school, at least for students who are considering STEM careers. In fact, he should consider giving applicants for admission to UCF extra points for taking these courses.
President Cartwright’s vision is for a university that extends opportunities for lucrative STEM careers to students from a broad range of backgrounds and at the same time fuels the state’s economy. But his present vision betrays a lack of understanding of what it takes to educate students in math-intensive STEM fields. Cartwright should expand the scope of his vision to include improving the K-12 segment of the STEM pipeline so that opportunities for Florida’s students are indeed broadened.
Bridge to Tomorrow 