Physics Majors are an Endangered Species in Texas

[Lionel Mandrake]

What is it about physics that turns students off in Texas?

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201110/physicsprograms.cfm

Five physics majors graduating per year at each school is all it would take to save these departments. Is that such a difficult problem? Apparently it is.

In the bleak future, physics students will usually be watching the lectures on TV, which is better than nothing, but hardly optimal.

http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201112/electcoaltion.cfm

Even fewer students will want to major in physics under these conditions. This will lead to a vicious circle, with more cuts at the participating schools.

Then who will train the future high-school physics teachers in Texas?

[Odin2005]

1. This is what happens when your state is run by religious idiot nut-jobs.

[Speck Tater]

2. I didn't know they had physics in Texas.

I thought that in Texas the whole universe was powered by divine miracles and prayer.

[Turbineguy]

3. Who needs science?

There's always the Bible. Besides, people with critical thinking skills are harmful to Fox News' ratings.

[Ishoutandscream2]

4. We're lagging behind, and not just in Texas

even though my building has excellent science teachers, and my sister-in-law is a damned good chemistry teacher.

This is just a thread to create the usual Texas bashing. And we have seen a couple of ignorant and bigoted responses to prove it.

[kestrel91316]

6. So, let me get this straight - NO ONE is allowed to point out FACTS about TX??

And no one is allowed to express their opinions about those FACTS and what the underlying problem behind then might be??

Wow. Go whine elsewhere. You don't get what DU is about.

[Ishoutandscream2]

7. You don't tell me what to do, got it!

There's facts, and then there's flame bait. You KNOW THAT THIS IS WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. This happens at DU all the time. The two replies above are making regional generalities which is a no-no on DU.

And you're telling me what I can say. I'll refrain on saying where you can go. Don't tell me what DU is all about! DU is NOT about attacking regions of this country.

[virgogal]

10. I'm with you. I have only visited Texas once but loved it. No region should be stereotyped.

[musette_sf]

9. Texans gonna tex

I've had similar responses when making negative commentary about Texas - as a former resident (of Hot Tub Tom DeLay's district, yet), I kind of thought I had some call to do so.

Some Texans and former Texans empathize, and/but other Texans and former Texans do take offense, because they love their communities and they try hard to bring as much progressive light as possible to those communities.

David Barton* and his negative impact on education in Texas notwithstanding, there are fine educational institutions in the great state - many states lack a university as prestigious and excellent as Rice. So go easy on Texas - our progressive friends there are actually making good progress towards the Purpleization of Texas.

* see http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/barton-s-bunk-religious-right-historian-hits-the-big-time-tea-party-america?gclid=CJ3cuO7UlK0CFRBphwodhgu2oA

[girl gone mad]

13. If you're posting this on the pretext that we have a statewide mental deficiency..

you are wrong. Some of the best physicists on the planet live and work here. Many moved here when SSC was under development, only to see this project killed by Congress. Texans were overwhelmingly supportive. We have several great engineering schools and some of the best medical schools in the world. We do not have a shortage of bright young people. What we have is a shortage of opportunity.

There are no jobs for physicists here. My peers graduated and went to work in finance and high tech, went on to med school or switched to engineering. Why devote your life to the pursuit of a subject that American society is not willing to minimally invest in? Students in Texas have eyes and ears. If they decide Physics is a risky major in this day and age, they've decided wisely in my view.

Above all else, this represents the failure of corporatism, supply-side economic dogma and capitalism. If there were jobs and opportunities in the field, there would be more students. Physics is already in a tough spot and without a willingness to invest in science for the sake of scientific knowledge rather than for profit motives, this trend will only continue.

[redqueen]

18. Yes, that's exactly what they were saying.

You understood it perfectly.

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. Non sequitur.

The existence of a couple of ignorant and bigoted responses does not prove anything about my intent.

As a matter of fact, I think it is remarkable that the authorities in Texas will allow a department to survive with only five graduating seniors per year. Schools in many states require far more than that.

[jberryhill]

11. The American Physical Society is "Texas bashing"?

[redqueen]

19. We'd have to know the situation in other states

before we could make that assessment. Perhaps that poster is aware of similar situations elsewhere. If the trend isn't just in Texas, then it would tend to raise an eyebrow if the phenomenon was only mentioned with respect to one state.

[kestrel91316]

5. Physics is false doctrine. There's nothing about physics in the Bible.

[krispos42]

12. It's pretty simple, actually.

Texas goes out of their way to NOT create smart people. Therefore, they'll create an ignorant, right-wing population that will put in Republicans.

The state-level Republicans keep taxes in Texas low, and county-level and city-level Republicans then lure in businesses in from blue states with the promises of huge tax savings and lower payrolls.

Federal-level Republicans, in the meantime, keeps sucking money out of the blue states (Connecticut gets only 67¢ for every $1 sent the federal treasury) and throwing it to Texas state, county, and city governments to make up for the tax breaks the those governments just shoveled at the former blue-state companies.

And the intelligent, educated people from the blue states will be forced to move to Texas to follow their careers, or stay in their state and start over, probably at a lower wage.


So Texas gets the intelligent people without having to pay for educating them AND they also get a loyal majority of conservative voters.

[MannyGoldstein]

14. Texas... Science...

Oy.

Sad, but (demonstrably) true.

[Nikia]

15. Could perspective physics majors be going out of state?

If you want to major in physics, you are probably better off going to a university with more physics majors. If you are going to be in a department with only 5 majors per class, you probably want to be at a smaller college in general that will give you individual attention.

[Lionel Mandrake]

16. Here is a chart illustrating a nationwide problem,

which is closely related to the particular problem in Texas ...

"The percentage of high school classes taught by teachers with degrees in the field they teach. The annual demand for physics instructors is roughly three times the supply of teachers with undergraduate majors in physics. Data is from the NCES Schools and Staffing Survey (2007-08)."



Read more: http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/201112/backpage.cfm

It is disgraceful that less than half of the high-school physics teachers in the USA have even a bachelor's degree in physics. Physics is unique in this respect. In no other subject do high-school teachers know so little about what they are supposed to teach.

Students who have taken high-school physics from an incompetent teacher are unlikely to major in physics when they go to college.

[and-justice-for-all]

17. Science does not exist in Texas...nt

[Lionel Mandrake]

20. Oh, I wouldn't say that.

A number of Nobel Prize winners have chosen to live and work in Texas:

http://www.tamest.org/about/nobel.html