editorial1y speaking Chemistry and Education: Student Issues For many students the study of chemistry still holds considerable fascination. Students seem to be intrigued by the possibility of acquiring the knowledge that permits chemists to manipulate matter. There does not seem to be alack of students interested in a t least starting their studies in chemistry. Increasingly students-especially college studentsview their studies as an important part of their preparation to compete in the job market. Indeed, in these difficult economic times, many students' educational interests are dictated almost entirely by job prospects. Long gone are the days when a college degree was acquired for the discipline and the improvement of personal characteristics it imparted; today's students look at undergraduate degrees as "job training" exercises. A few years ago a National Science Foundation study projected a shortfall of almost 700,000 BS scientists and engineers by the year 2006. This prediction was based on a simple demographic projection of the changing numbers of science and engineering graduates with bachelor's degrees given the declining college-agepopulation in the US. In its original form the NSF study did not include much consideration for the demand side of the equation. Current unprecedented world-wide economic problems have dramatically revised the predictions onjob availability. In fact some more recent projections indicate that the current documented oversupply of scientists and engineers may continue into the next century. Despite the uncertainties in doing projections of this kind, it is clearly not a time for unbridled optimism regarding job prospects for scientists and engineers. Yet the present system of chemical education continues to overproduce chemists, mostly trained for graduate research programs, despite the fact that the majority of students with graduate degrees do not ply their trade in the academic world-at least that is what has happened in the past. The overproduction of research chemists provides opportunities for the chemical industry to hire chemists from an oversupply pool, which virtually guarantees lower salaries. Recent data published by the Industrial Research Institute ("Annual R&D Trends Survey") indicate a continuing trend in areas that used to be the source of jobs for graduate-level chemists. Of the 141 companies that responded to a survey, 40% indicated that they expect to hire fewer MS and PhD graduates in 1993 than they did in 1992. This continues a trend started in about 1988, since which time several measures of corporate interest in R&D, such as percentage-decrease in total R&D effort,percentage-increase hiring of new graduates, percentage-increase in directed basic research, strongly indicate a 50% diminution in the perceived need for scientists and engineers. Thus, the drive to supply graduate research students for academic laboratories, and, indirectly for industrial lahoratories, does not bode well for entry-level students who are interested in chemistry as a career. Yet few receive that message from their mentors, if mentoring exists a t all. It is clear that making chemical education-from entry-level to graduate programs-a job training program will tie us even more closely to the vagaries and inaccuracies of economic projections.
The fact that chemistry has retained its fascination for students is a tribute to the intrinsic value of the subject itself. Many students get a lot of things out of their study of chemistry that have little to do with the details of the subject. That the system of chemical education-especially in the postsecondary entry-level courses4oes not extinguish all of the natural interest students have in chemistry is confounding. Sheila Tobias in her studies of this subject (reported in her book, "They're Not Dumb, They're Different") has documented some of the hurdles that face not only chemistry students but also students in most of the entry-level science courses; a less anecdotal study of the same factors has been reported by Hewitt and Seymour. Students who want to (or have to) study chemistry are often faced with large classes taught in rather sterile ways by teachers who are not neceisarily interested, or sufficiently experienced, to do so. Entry-level laboratory courses are often fraught with logistical problems associated with time, people, space, and supplies, which produces an experience that is very often lacking in intellectual quality and is unrewarding to all involved. More advaked laboratory courses ~ f t e ~ f anoi rbetter. Outdated or marfinally useful instrumentation that is inadeauate to the tack of illustrating one of the important asiects of teaching how modern chemistry-the science-progresses is often the norm, even in many advanced courses. From one point of view students of chemistry-whether they are chemistry majors or science majors-currently find themselves in an environment where their expectations cannot be fully met because important resources such as faculty, other support personnel, space, and supplies are drained from their interest areas in a number of ways by the "research establishment". Experienced faculty are "lured" into research: "re~lacementfacultv" " are~ often ~ inadequate for the task; fewe; teaching staff are employed to teach an increasing number of students. Teachine " laboratory space is co-opted for research, "curriculum developeraduate nroeram. ment funds" are used to enhance the " n The techmques d e s ~ p e dfor the d ~ v r r s ~ oof'funds n away from teaching-all w t h the connivance of the facul~vand the adminisGation-are varied. In this ambiance: students are being asked to pay a greater and greater share of their education in the form of tuition and fees. According to a recent college board report, the average tuition and fees at four-year public universities and colleges rose 10% for this academic year, followinga 13% increase last vear. The ibr private institutions IS markedly c~rres~ond~ngincrense less at 7 1 . These increases, which exceed the inflation rate, can be interpreted as one example of society, through its institutional structures, buying into the concept that research is more important than education. From one point of view, it is probably well that students currentlv immersed in the extant svstem of chemical- education db not know, in a historical gense, what the educational system is capable of. If they did, there would be even more dissatisfaction among them than there currently is. The only natural defense that students have is the faculty, which unfortunately, seems to have been captured by the idea that research is desimed - to ~roduceresults rather than people. JJL
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Volume 69 Number 12 December 1992
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