Dear FIU College of Arts and Sciences Curriculum Committee, My name is Brandon Camelo and I am a current FIU undergraduate student majoring in Chemistry. As a current FIU STEM student, I urge you to act and include more learning assistants (LAs) in our STEM curriculum because it would help our school and our students in the long run.
STEM plays a very big role in the future of FIU. School's with strong STEM programs, like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), are given global recognition and because of this they are some of the most competitive schools to get into. Our generation is currently part of a 5-year plan to increase STEM learning and due to this the National Science Foundation is spending a lot of money to find innovative ways to increase undergraduate STEM retention rates ("Federal"). The United States government also has several initiatives, such as grants, to increase STEM graduates.
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Throughout my years in middle school and high school, many of my fellow classmates were determined to become doctors, engineers, and chemists. Unfortunately, a huge obstacle was cemented in the way of their hopes and dreams. That obstacle was the inability to understand math and science at a high level. Although I was aware of the fact that many of my classmates were having difficulty with their STEM classes, I did not know that this was a common problem for a lot of other students across the country until I reached FIU. According to a University of California study, about 60 percent of STEM majors, including pre-medical students, end up changing their major or end up dropping out of college altogether (Drew). This is an alarming number that shows the difficulty that many students have in STEM classes. I believe that incorporating more LAs into STEM classes can help remedy this nationwide problem and I believe that our university can be the one to set the