I'm not really surprised due to the fact that I suspect that the vast majority of the people who would first take and then do well in a high school STEM program would go on to college. Almost by definition, the non-college bound would probably not, at least not in significant numbers, be the students that you would find in your typical STEM program.
That being said, I do have to say that there are certainly exceptions, since all I have to do is look at my own family to see that. Now while it's true that this thread was ostensibly focused on girls in STEM programs, it would appear that the study IR referenced was not limited to one gender so my comments should not out out line. In our case we have three sons who are sufficiently grown so that we can look at the impact of their educations on their career choices and successes.
Our oldest, who just turned 48 last week, did not attend college. In fact, we had a hard time keeping him in school as he really didn't like it. In the 2nd grade he was diagnosed as having 'learning disabilities', including being dyslexic and having a hearing lose. The hearing lose was treated medically but he was still left with a 15% deficiency and while he attended therapy to address the dyslexia there was only so much that they could do and this left a sort sigma on him, not the least of which was having to ride the so-called 'retard bus' to school for the next four years or so. He was finally 'main-streamed' in Junior High, but by then his opinion of school was set. The only thing that keep him from failing altogether was that he had a well above average IQ and he did work hard even if it frustrated him. In the end, since he was obliviously not going to college, he took advantage of an option that upon turning 18, if he passed what was basically a GED exam, he could get his diploma and leave school early, which he did, passing the test with flying colors despite us having been warned that most students in our son's situation failed. So he turned his part-time job as a chef into a full-time one, but that only lasted a couple of months since he had been talking to the Army recruiter and he finally decided to enlist, where he spent four full years in the infantry, being discharged a fairly well-decorated Sargent despite never being in actual combat. He loved the Army and while he didn't reenlist he always said that the Army taught him was that nothing was impossible if you just put your mind to solving the problem before you, since in the Army, you had NO choice but to succeed. He immediately went back to that job as a chef and today he's an executive with a large restaurant/hospitality corporation.
Son number two, who will be turning 48 in December, was the exact opposite of his older brother. He loved school from the very beginning and was also being pushed into the more advanced classes, first in what they used to call the GATES program and then in high school, taking a heavy load of AP classes. He graduated from high school with honors and immediately enrolled in the Cal State system and four years later got his BA in Psychology, again with honors and while he originally planned to attend graduate school, because there's really very little that you can do with just a BA in Psychology, he had by then decided that he was an 'artist' only in his case it was an art where he could actually earn a living, as a pastry chef. He had been working since high school in restaurants, the one thing he did share with his older brother, and by the time he got his degree he felt that that was his true calling, so he moved to Napa Valley, enrolled in a Baking & Pastry Arts program at the CIA (Culinary Institute of America at their Greystone Academy) and graduated 30 weeks later. He has since worked at many different places around the world refining his baking skills and is currently working as the Executive Pastry Chef at a large Los Angeles catering company as well as teaching Baking & Pastry Arts two nights a week at the L.A. Art Institute.
And our youngest son, who will turn 40 in June, we had the hardest time keeping him in school, not because of academic issues, but other more trying ones. Up until high school we had no problems at all, he was a good student, he got along with everyone, teachers really liked him, but from the first day in high school he changed. He was big man on campus both with the girls and other things (lets put it this way, he did a lot of after-class 'chemistry' experiments). We finally had to send him off, against his will, to a private lock-up high school in Utah (one of the only places where schools like that are legal) to try and break the cycle he was in. Again he was very smart, probably the smartest of the three in terms of IQ, but he was a wild kid. However, the 'intervention' worked and he was able to finally return home and finish high school with, in the end, a good academic record, but he showed no interest in college. He was part of that first generation of kids where they had access to computers at home and he latched onto that with a passion. Even while still in school, he was getting jobs doing computer work. He did work for the school, working in their publishing operation after classes (and getting paid). His senior year he had a job working for a mortgage company at night, updating and downloading files to their main servers in the Bay area (this was before the high-speed web so they had to do this using dial-ups, thus the night work) and again he was getting paid really well. When he finished high school he worked for several different companies, all with computers, most on the systems side, installing and updating hardware and eventually setting up networks and servers. Before be was 25 years old, he was already making six figures, but his weaknesses remained and having money like that was not good for him and he has crashed hard several times, but he manages to survive, get clean and start over. He's been pretty stable the last five years or so and is currently working as the IT Director at a local subsidiary of a large German high-tech company here in SoCal. He also does personal IT work for several very well-to-do families who hire people like him to take care of their home systems.
Anyway, my point is that of our three son's, while only two of them would be considered to have spent any real amount of time in STEM classes (#2 and #3), of the two that did NOT go to college (#1 and #3), #3 is definitely working in a STEM career and while he's currently not making the most money of the three, as that would be #1, he is doing very well for himself considering the demons he's had to overcome and which still impact him today (he has some chronic but self-inflicted health issues). And I guess of more of a lesson is that some things haven't really changed; our oldest son, who never went to college and except for his Army time, has worked basically for the same company, he has achieved a very high level of success, both in terms of responsibilities and compensation but he also works the hardest. And our second son, with the most education, is earning the least and has never been in one job for more than 3 or 4 years. However, of the three, he's probably the happiest with his situation.
Sorry for the long missive, but...
John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
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