ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1
Source: ACT’s The Condition of STEM (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016). Links ->2013201420152016
2
3
Methods: The ACT defines four STEM categories: Science, Computer Science and Mathematics, Engineering and Technology, and Medical and Health. For our analysis, we excluded the Medical and Health category to align with the federal BLS definition of STEM (which does not include medical fields). Within each category, the ACT lists several majors/occupations. We were able to separate Computer Science majors/occupations from Mathematics majors/occupations (see table below), and we separated Engineering and Technology majors/occupations, resulting in the following STEM categories for our analysis: Computer Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Technology, and Science.

We ranked each major/occupation by total interest AND the expressed and measure interest and calculated the percent growth in interest for each major/occupation each year.

The ACT assigned students to one of the 3 types of STEM categories based on interest and/or ability: Expressed Only, Measured Only, and Expressed & Measured:
1. Expressed Only: students who expressed an interest in a STEM major or occupation. No measured STEM interest.

2. Measure Only: students with a measured interested in the ACT Inventory score in Science or had a highest ACT Interest Inventory score in Technology and a second-highest score in Science. No expressed interest.

3. Expressed & Measured: student who expressed and measured interested in STEM.

The ACT also reports the Overall STEM interest, which is Expressed Only + Expressed & Measured. The ACT found student in the Expressed Only or Measured Only categories fall far short in benchmark attainment and preparedness of STEM majors and careers as compared to the Expressed & Measured category. Therefore, we did our analysis on the Expressed & Measured category.

72 of the total 294 majors/occupations listed were classified in the ACT’s analysis as STEM. The following table lists the majors/occupations classified by the ACT in the "Computer Science and Mathematics" STEM category that we would define as CS-related.
4
5
Computer Science Majors/Occupations
6
Computer and Information Sciences, General
7
Computer Network/Telecommunications
8
Computer Science and Programming
9
Computer Software and Media Application
10
Computer System Administration
11
Data Management Technology
12
Information Science
13
Management Information Systems
14
Webpage Design
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100