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If you are not already painfully aware of the reasons why undergraduates
desert the sciences, maths and engineering, a new American book, Talking About
Leaving (Westview Press, £37, ISBN 0 8133 8926 7) sets it all out in
academic detail. The most “angry, regretful and frustrated” people met by the
authors Elaine Seymour and Nancy Hewitt were students who started science
because they liked it and felt they were competent to do it, but were turned off
by lousy teachers and a cut-throat selection process. Hmm. If they want angry,
regretful and frustrated, they should speak to the ones who stuck it out.