Severe shortages in the engineering field are predicted by the year 2000 and University professors say it is partly due to a high rate of engineering dropouts.

National studies have indicated that attrition rates of engineering majors average around 50 percent after the first two years of college.

James Levin, academic adviser and assistant professor of education, and John Wyckoff, assistant director of the Division of Undergraduate Studies, are involved in a four-year study of characteristics that determine success in the College of Engineering.

For example, interested high school students often are not given clear definitions of what the major involves or what can be expected in the workplace, Levin said.

About one-third of students entering engineering could not provide even a minimal explanation of what engineering entailed. Of these students, only 11 percent were still in engineering after two years.

"We need new ways of describing majors," Levin said. "We shouldn't lump all sciences together into just a body of rules and facts. It should be more meaningful."

Ron Faris, guidance counselor at State College Area Senior High School, said the power of guiding students into majors lies more with parents and personal preference than with counselors.

"We can't play God," Faris said. "I can offer guidance, and through experience we can determine who has a good chance of succeeding in engineering and who doesn't. But I don't have the right to say to a student, 'You won't make it.' "

Levin agreed that often a student with minimal knowledge of engineering may be attracted to the field because their parents may be engineers or because money and prestige are often associated with engineering positions.

Fran Magee (junior-finance) enrolled as an engineering major but switched to finance after one semester because the University changed the requirements of his program, environmental engineering, he said. He did not make his decision because the courses were too challenging, or because the field was not what he expected, he added.

"I kind of chose (engineering) by myself," Magee said. "My guidance counselor didn't help me at all."

Faris said he is unsure about other areas of the country, but students in the State College Area schools are provided with adequate descriptions of college majors and their occupations.

"I believe most guidance counselors are thorough," Faris said. "I think it's especially true here, because we're so closely related to Penn State."

Other key factors can often predict how persistent and successful an engineering major will be, Levin and Wyckoff said.

"High school GPAs in the math and science courses is usually a good indicator," Levin said, as well as the algebra and chemistry placement tests.

Engineers should also have a genuine interest in how things work.

If "environmental variables" such as math and science GPA and good placement test scores are matched with the right "self variables" such as science and math interest and self-persistence, the student has a better than average chance of graduating as an engineer, he said.

The predictors change after the first year of college, Levin said. The freshman and sophomore engineering major should look at the grades of baseline courses such as Physics 201, Math 140, and Chem 12 to determine whether he or she should remain in the field.

"Simply passing these courses with C grades is not adequate," Wyckoff said. "Students must earn Bs or better to expect successful persistence in engineering study."

Another inconsistency found in the study was gender: 10 percent fewer women remained in engineering than men. Minorities also seem to pursue other areas of study.

Levin could only speculate about the reasons for the lower numbers of women remaining in the field.

"Those are just the raw numbers we found. It doesn't mean females are less persistent," he said, adding the high female attrition rates may stem from the way women are socialized.

Boys are traditionally taught to be interested in taking things apart and fixing them, while girls are guided more into the life sciences.

In any case, Levin noted women should not rule out engineering as a prospective field simply because the numbers are against them.

"Any individual case may be an exception, and these exceptions should not be overlooked," he said.

Professors are also quick to point out that the high attrition rates of engineering majors do not necessarily mean the students are choosing other majors. These numbers include students who change universities or drop out altogether.

One strategy for keeping students in the major and helping their initial decision would be to provide college students with profiles of successful engineering role models, Wyckoff said.

The professors are hoping to use this research to develop a computer-assisted advising program that would explain the field more thoroughly and evaluate the student's predictors of engineering success.