
Math, Science Popular Until Students Realize They’re Hard - patmcguire
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2013/07/08/math-science-popular-until-students-realize-theyre-hard/
======
Osmium
Title could almost be from The Onion.

But it's true. It is hard, but that's okay. The whole point of the grading
system was to acknowledge subtlety; that it's okay if you don't have an A,
because it doesn't mean you haven't learnt anything, it just means you haven't
learnt _everything_ [in that course]. But somehow many students seem to take
it as the end of the world not to achieve that A, when really that isn't the
important thing at all.

This is my own bias talking, but I think that tests were people routinely get
above ~80% are badly designed tests, because set up the wrong expectations in
students. If students expect 90-100% scores are possible, and then they start
a subject where all of a sudden that's not true, then they're not going to
deal with that well. Whereas if everyone's getting results in the 60-80%
range, it sets up an attitude that "this is hard, but that's okay -- it's
meant to be, and there's no shame in realising that there's a lot left to
learn." Which I think is altogether more helpful...

~~~
enraged_camel
>>But somehow many students seem to take it as the end of the world not to
achieve that A, when really that isn't the important thing at all.

It _IS_ the end of the world because it directly affects your job prospects
after graduation. That's what it really comes down to. Most HR departments put
a disproportionate amount of emphasis on GPA. When looking at two candidates
from two equally popular schools, the candidate whose exams were easier will
be preferred because, with the same amount/level of knowledge, he/she got
higher grades.

It doesn't end there. The success of graduates in the job market ties directly
back to the popularity of the school, which in turn determines how much
funding the school can ask for in the state budget.

~~~
jlgreco
Does anybody care about GPA after the first job?

AFAIC, the way to do it is to go to a school that lets you get at least one
internship/co-op under your belt, then use that to never tell anybody your GPA
(if it is shit anyway, no harm telling people your GPA if it is good). Works
best if you can get the people you interned with to make an offer to hire you
straight out of school. After that first job I don't see GPA mattering much
one way or the other, your last employer should carry far more weight.

My entire school career I never broke a 3.0 (for general courses) for more
than a year, but everything has turned out pretty swell for me. I mean, I
_did_ get lucky getting accepted to the college that I did with my high-school
GPA, but after that it was fairly merit-based I like to think.

Looking back, I don't have regrets. I didn't give myself a heart attack or
turn myself into a nervous wreck but I still learned what I wanted from school
and enjoyed the process.

~~~
jobu
Google is one well-known example that used to require a minimum GPA, even for
people with years of experience:

[http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/03/27/i-interviewed-at-
goo...](http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2011/03/27/i-interviewed-at-google/)

[http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/09/how-t...](http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/09/how-
to-get-a-job-at-google-interview-questions-hiring-process.html)

That's why the recent announcement that they've found zero correlation between
GPA and job success was such a big deal:
[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-
hunting-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-
data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=2)

~~~
eshvk
> Google is one well-known example that used to require a minimum GPA, even
> for people with years of experience:

Google asked me for my grades when I was fresh out of school; after that, they
never have.

~~~
enjo
They asked for mine, rather early in the interview process I might add, in
2008 or so. I politely declined.

~~~
kyzyl
If I might ask, how did you go about declining, and what was their response?

~~~
enjo
Hard to say, I ended up finding funding for a project while I was in the
process with them. We never really finished.

------
dvt
First of all, I don't think math/science is harder than history or art. I
consider both Newton and Shakespeare to be geniuses; same with Bach and
Leibniz. I think it's an established empirical fact (maybe not -- see NYT
article) that to become an expert at anything, it will take you upwards of
10,000 hours -- be it playing violin, studying history, or doing number
theory. So I don't think the effort is any differentiating factor.

But I do think that in math/engineering classes there is a disproportional
amount of trickery. There are numerous memes that exemplify this:
[http://www.thefunnyblog.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/05/funny...](http://www.thefunnyblog.org/wp-
content/uploads/2012/05/funny-engineering-class-homework-exam-have-fan.jpg)

You'd be surprised how often this happens. In my calculus classes it was
virtually rampant. We'd get some material that was non-trivial to figure out
on an exam. That's just bad teaching. Sure, some people will argue that it
separates those a better grasp of the material from those with a worse one
(maybe it does), but to me it seems unfair. Say I'm not a bright student but I
understand the homework very well; the exam, however, uses a non-trivial
combination of the elements found in the homework. I personally think that's
bullshit. Why not go over the most mind-numbingly difficult problems in class?
Often times, there are only a limited number of tricks that can trip you up;
if professors would go over these, everyone would pass. But I guess we don't
want that (why not?).

Consider an analogy: I decide to prepare for a running competition. My trainer
shows me how to keep my heart-rate up, how to jog briskly, etc. All this is
done on a treadmill on the low setting. Come competition day, it turns out
that it's a 25k through the Australian outback. I'm not sure how anyone in
their right mind would think the trainer did a good job if he knew exactly
what I was getting into.

~~~
model-m
As a teacher, I take strong issue with dvt's comment: "We'd get some material
that was non-trivial to figure out on an exam. That's just bad teaching."

Exams are supposed to be non-trivial, if they are to test your understanding
of the material. When I teach freshman calculus, I invariably get this kind of
comments from students who aced math in high school because they had basically
memorized all possible question patterns from the textbook. But did they
understand it? More often than not, they hadn't, really. And when they get a
question that doesn't fit a pattern they've seen before, they call it a
"trick", when it's anything but.

I work hard at getting my students to understand that math is not about
memorizing stuff but about understanding stuff. You have to know the basic
concepts and techniques by heart, of course, same as any subject, but anything
more is just icing (unless your brain works in such a way that memorizing
patterns helps you understand general principles, in which case memorize away,
but don't mistake the means for the end.

Many students tell me they don't understand why they got a failing mark on an
exam because they did all the homework and/or put in tens of hours of study.
They seem to think that these actions should somehow guarantee them a passing
grade, and if it didn't, it's obviously because the exam was unfair.

Now let me be perfectly clear: I don't give _hard_ exams. In fact, most of the
questions I ask are downright easy, provided you understand the material.
Here's an example: "Sketch the graph of a twice-differentiable function f(x)
whose domain is the real numbers and which satisfies the following two
conditions: f'(x) is negative for all x, and f''(x) always has the same sign
as x." This was in fact a question in my calc 1 midterm last year.

Out of 60 students, 10 did not write anything. 10 drew something that was not
the graph of a function. 10 drew a function that did not satisfy any of the
requirements. 10 drew a decreasing function but got the concavity wrong
somehow. 20 gave a correct answer. (This is all approximate, of course.) The
average mark for this question was probably around 2/5.

Was this exam question harder than my homework problem sets? Absolutely not!
It's just different. Here's an example of a homework question relating to the
same material in a similar way: "A differentiable function f(x) is such that
f'(x) never changes sign. What can be said about the number of zeros of f?"
This is more difficult than the exam question because the step linking the
sign of f' to the number of zeros of f (drawing a graph) is not explicitly
suggested, and because the answer is "f has at most one zero" and not "f has
exactly one zero".

~~~
dvt
You cleverly avoid my analogy. I'll give another.

You teach someone how to do X, lets assume this goes something like: Step 1,
Step 2, Step 3, Step 4, done. You then teach someone how to do Y, this goes
like: Step 5, Step 6, done. On the exam you ask someone to do Z. This follows
from a nontrivial combination of Step 1, Step 3, Step 6, done. If anyone gets
it right, don't flatter yourself. You didn't _teach_ them how to do Z.

Either they have a sort of a priori intuition of the material (this is how I
get by most of the time), they got lucky, or they had someone else teach them.
Mathematicians (and other academics) feel the need to make their subjects so
obtuse they seem insurmountable. Math is _not_ hard - some guy saw an
interesting behavior of a function and wanted to see what happens when he
tries to differentiate it. Programming is _not_ hard - some girl thought she
could make her life easier by writing a program that writes other programs.
This pretty much exemplifies all of human understanding. It's not much more
than that.

Of course I'm not suggesting that complex analysis or the Dragon Book are
_trivial_ , all I'm saying is that they are _not hard_. But academics
themselves often discourage people from pursuing science and math (numerous
examples in this thread alone). We can blame the government, elementary
schools, and parents all we want, but it's blatantly obvious that universities
are broken. The fact that students are tested on material not covered in class
(or nontrivial combinations of material covered in class) is inane.

~~~
rimantas

      > You didn't teach them how to do Z
    

That's called problem soloving. You see the problem, see that it is a
combination of smaller problems, you solve them. Lots of problem solving at
school was teaching exactly that: how to transform a problem into the ones you
can solve with step-by-step approach. This was true not only for math, but for
physics and chemistry too.

~~~
comrade_ogilvy
Yes, but I would agree with dvt that there are professors who consider
themselves "clever" for putting material on the exam that looks nothing like
what showed up in lecture or in the homework.

Kinds of problems that can justify being on an exam are surely important
enough to be in lecture or on the homework. Putting a special kind of problem
on the exam that must be deconstructed before it can be transformed in a
problem that showed up in the homework is a "trick".

------
dropdownmenu
It is important to note the sample set of the survey: "The researchers
surveyed 655 students entering Berea College, a private liberal arts college
located in Kentucky, in the falls of 2000 and 2001."

I have a feeling that the results of the survey would be different at a public
university with strong science and engineering programs.

My personal experience has been that many people will change their intended
degrees, but rarely have I seen someone completely withdraw from science or
engineering programs

~~~
BrandonMarc
Agreed. A few hundred kids at one atypical college does not a full pattern
make.

Also, does it bug nobody else that this "news" is from research done a dozen
years ago?

------
gfodor
Hah, I like the part how students have a hard time accepting that even if they
work hard, they won't do well.

Where I went to school, the classes were curved to a B-. So generally
speaking, if you consider say a A- or above to be doing "well", most people
were not doing well by a large margin. The truth is though that it's when you
are sitting just below average, but not so far below that you're genuinely
lost, but still genuinely struggling that you are probably at your optimal
challenge level.

~~~
dragontamer
Indeed. This seems to be the main problem. One running joke around my family /
friends is that a hardworking B/C student does best in Engineering majors,
because they work hard and are used to getting poor grades anyway. They've
already come across that problem in their life.

On the other hand, students who got straight A's throughout high school become
surprised at the difficulty, get their first B in their lifetime, and feel bad
about themselves... possibly even switching majors.

~~~
nrivadeneira
I suppose I was fortunate that the time that I started my Mechanical
Engineering degree had coincided with a transition to a general "idgaf"
attitude about my grades.

~~~
dragontamer
Lol, ditto, except with Computer Engineering.

I managed to get an "F" in High School History, which was a low point for me
frankly, but the C's that came later in Engineering were no big sweat :-).

Focusing on learning, instead of getting decent grades, seems to have been a
good thing... definitely contributed to my sanity through college IMO.

------
yid
Thought I'd share my experience initially majoring in Physics (I ended up
going with the "easier" (for me) computer science).

I wanted to be a physicist really bad. However, I did not have any advanced
placement credit in math. I started college taking Calculus I along with the
basic intro physics courses. The first year was fine. The second year was
largely devoted to quantum mechanics, which is where the trouble started.
Semester 1 of my sophomore year, I was taking Calculus III and Differential
Equations. Unfortunately, a few weeks into the curriculum, we started using
partial differential equations everywhere -- I barely even knew how to solve
basic differential equations! Even more unfortunate was the fact that every
other student in the dwindling Physics class had advanced placement credit and
already had the prerequisite math.

It totally killed the joy I initially found in Physics. I found that I just
couldn't make up the lost ground myself, and ended up dropping out of Physics.

~~~
guelo
Sounds like a badly designed curriculum if the prereqs weren't required before
they were needed.

~~~
thebooktocome
I'm not entirely sure how knowing a standard undergrad PDE course would help
in understanding the various physicist-specific techniques that go into
solving the Schroedinger equation. I don't really understand why OP thought
they needed to grok ODEs before being able to solve PDEs; the two fields have
relatively small intersection.

~~~
dalke
Physics has more than just the Schrödinger equation. My undergrad PDE course
helped immensely in my graduate level physics qualifying example. One question
was on the heat equation and the other an E&M problem, both in a rectilinear
coordinate system.

With a solid foundation in second-order PDEs, it's a matter of setting up the
boundary conditions and solving for the Fourier series. The boundary
conditions were superimposeable combinations of simpler forms, so it was
mostly a matter of determining the correct Fourier series for those forms,
then simplifying.

The OP probably didn't understand the distinction between ODEs and PDEs
because of a lack of experience.

~~~
thebooktocome
> Physics has more than just the Schrödinger equation.

It was a course in Quantum Mechanics, specifically.

> With a solid foundation in second-order PDEs, it's a matter of setting up
> the boundary conditions and solving for the Fourier series. The boundary
> conditions were superimposeable combinations of simpler forms, so it was
> mostly a matter of determining the correct Fourier series for those forms,
> then simplifying.

In a usual undergrad course on QM, e.g., following Griffiths, one only solves
SE with particular choices of potential -- usually only infinite well and QHO,
and maybe a double well to illustrate tunneling. Neither really requires a
background in Fourier series.

~~~
dalke
Ahh, I see. I left the train of discussion, and reinterpreted "physics" in the
broad sense, rather than actual topic of "physics for an undergraduate quantum
course."

My apologies, and thanks for the clarification.

------
beloch
As far as I can tell, I was drawn to Physics out of sheer masochism. In
highschool I excelled in history and English without putting any effort in,
but had to work on my math and physics to do well. This trend only intensified
in university. I found quantum mechanics to be the most challenging sub-field
of physics (except, perhaps, solid state), and guess what I wound up doing in
grad school!

Maybe there just aren't enough masochists willing to embrace the pain out
there.

~~~
mdm_
I'm currently doing a double major in Philosophy and Mathematics part-time
while working a full-time job and caring for a house and 5-month old daughter
with my wife. I think one of the things that initially drew me to those
subjects and keeps me plugging away is that I find both of them confounding,
infuriating, confusing, and hard as shit. I have a couple tech-related college
diplomas that I really didn't have too work too hard to get, but in 8 to 10
years when I'm being presented with my degree, I'm going to really feel like I
accomplished something.

------
mathattack
It seems like a strange methodology to get at what's an obvious truism. Berea
college
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berea_College](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berea_College))
is very atypical. It's a small school, with a mission of helping poor
Appalachian students get an education. 100% of the students are on
scholarship. 100% have paid jobs while in school.

It's hard to extrapolate from this to a national poll. It would be better to
include Penn State, Michigan and University of Texas to understand national
trends.

That said, this is a truism. The fields pay well because they are hard enough
to scare away many students, and they have good jobs. Other fields are
difficult too (say Philosophy?) but they don't have good jobs on the other
side so people are less tempted.

------
InclinedPlane
Science and math are taught extremely poorly in K-12 public school, almost
criminally so. Most education focuses on rote memorization of often
questionably useful facts and eschews the more abstract concepts that are at
the core of the subject.

Science and math are fascinating subjects, and kids often have a natural
interest in them, but that interest gets squashed by the punishingly boring
way the subjects get taught. Most kids end up thinking that math and science
are just a lot of boring routine, like intellectual factory work. Who would
blame them for avoiding what seems to be a dismal waste of time?

~~~
derekp7
That's simply because memorization is about the only technique that can be
taught reliably across a wide range of learning styles. Anything that involves
deep though has to be individually tailored to each student.

Case in point -- one of my step kids did real well in math in grade school,
until the teacher started mixing in art to make it more fun (one project was
to make a "math cube", and decorated it -- he failed that project). The other
kid was out the week that fractions were taught. She heard from her friends
how hard it was, and was terrified of going back to school. So her mom taught
it to her (known her learning style), and she aced the test when she got back.
All other students in the class failed miserably. (And the teacher was
extremely upset -- how dare a parent actually teach their kid -- that's the
teachers job).

------
banachtarski
I grew up in the American public school system (and a decent one at that). One
thing I could never understand was the purpose of summer break. I understand
that to many kids, summer break was a sacred multi-month period but to me, the
opportunity cost seems significant. In those summers, I learned geometry,
physics, biology, multivariable calculus, and read tons of books while other
kids had "traditional" vacations that did nothing to reinforce what they had
learned the year before.

I know that rest and relaxation are also important to fostering a child's
creativity and independence, but there is certainly a tradeoff, and I am
wondering if we are nowhere near the correct balance.

~~~
Daishiman
Studying should not be the most important part of childhood, and knowing how
to enjoy time off is a life skill that a lot of "high achievers" are sorely
missing.

~~~
banachtarski
Oh I completely agree. This is still something that I struggle with 20-25
years after elementary school. Again, I'm questioning the balance. There
probably is something to be said for more frequent but shorter breaks too,
which I am taking a liking towards.

------
polemic
> _" Math, Science Popular Until Students Realize They’re Hard"_

Well, if that's not "begging the question" then I don't know what is.

If math & science is so hard, the real question should be: _why the hell is
everything else so 'easy'_?

~~~
com2kid
> If math & science is so hard, the real question should be: why the hell is
> everything else so 'easy'?

Look at usage.

I majored in CS, minored in Mathematics, yet as a programmer, I do more
communicating in English than anything resembling math, and about an even
amount communicating ideas and coding.

Growing up, everyday we speak, talk, write. We live history all around us, we
see TV specials about WW2, parents and grandparents tell stories about their
childhoods.

When is math truly used? On occasion, sure, it serves its purpose quite well.
But in day to day life? One does not go around taking the derivative of
arbitrary objects, but one may very well be called upon to present a
persuasive argument or find a moment to whisper poetry in a loved one's ear.

It may very well be a case that our daily living does more to reinforce
materials learned aside from the math and sciences.

~~~
selimthegrim
Real research mathematics, that which can't be reduced to mental calculation,
requires a command of verbal reasoning well beyond what it takes to win at
analogies on the SAT (as does theoretical physics).

It can also add to your ability to express yourself.

I very concisely was able to get my feelings about Mitt Romney across to my
math major roommate when I stated that Romney's ilk believed the well ordering
principle could proven to apply to people and not just integers.

Another less esoteric example is this James Fallows article about the Carter
administration

[http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1979/05/the-
pass...](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1979/05/the-passionless-
presidency/308516/) (ctrl-F cube root)

This was particularly chuckleworthy because I had just encountered a bug in
the TI calculator system (I used to work for a TI subcontractor) where to make
the cube root of -1 just be -1 (ie always taking the principal branch for the
unwashed masses of eighth graders who knew nothing of complex numbers), TI
decided to have negative rational numbers with an odd denominator have odd
roots go to -1, and even denominators numerically evaluate. (Try graphing the
cube root function on your TI and see the function go all over the place for
negative values, this is why) When we complained that it was screwing up the
numerics we were trying to code, we were told "it's a bug, not a feature". I
referred to it as "circumcising the cube root" in a drunken email to said math
major.

------
fnordfnordfnord
>"If more science graduates are desired, the findings suggest the importance
of policies at younger ages that lead students to enter college better
prepared to study science,” the researchers write in the paper.

Ironic to find this in the wsj. As a college instructor who has spent a lot of
his productive time working in fundamental science research, I can say this:

If more science graduates are desired, pay them more.

Many people you see in engineering and science, although they are making a
living, and some may even be well off, could make a lot more money applying
their critical thinking skills in other fields. I can't even count the number
of former colleagues and classmates who are doing much better financially than
their former peers after leaving the sciences and joining another field, like
finance.

~~~
jlgreco
Money is only one aspect of lifestyle. I doubt there are many jobs in finance
that let you maintain a "west-coast tech company" lifestyle.

Not all of us are cut out to be quants anyway.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
How is the West Coast tech-company lifestyle that different from the East
Coast financial-company lifestyle, other than the difference between flip-
flops and a suit? Both seem to involve working hideously long hours in an
unstable job in an expensive city.

------
feverishaaron
This article seemed to point out a problem with perception of "the value of a
letter grade" rather than a lack of motivation to do hard work.

It indicated to me that grades, rather than the outcome from learning, are
dangerously overvalued in our education and employment systems.

~~~
antitrust
" One of the things we’ve seen from all our data crunching is that G.P.A.’s
are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless — no
correlation at all except for brand-new college grads, where there’s a slight
correlation. Google famously used to ask everyone for a transcript and
G.P.A.’s and test scores, but we don’t anymore, unless you’re just a few years
out of school. We found that they don’t predict anything. "

[http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-
hunting-b...](http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/20/business/in-head-hunting-big-
data-may-not-be-such-a-big-deal.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&smid=tw-
nytimesbusiness&partner=socialflow)

------
schrodingersCat
This is so true. Not many students who are used to getting straight 'A's are
okay with getting that 'B-' in organic chemistry after working their asses off
studying. Its just a fact. Learning basic science takes dedication and
discipline. The inspiring words of Michio Kaku do not make free-body diagrams
any less mind numbing.

------
pge
One of the other issues is lack of adequate high school preparation. One of
the factors I saw in college (15 years ago) as a Physics major was that a lot
of students that wanted to study physics (or other sciences) just didnt have
adequate foundational knowledge coming out of HS. If a year of remedial
courses is required just to get to the point where you can take freshman level
classes, it becomes very difficult to complete the coursework required for the
major, because many of the courses have to be taken sequentially. You can't
just load up on a bunch and take classes in parallel to catch up. If you start
a year (or more behind) or try to switch into the major late, you can't finish
in four years.

Humanities major fields seemed more tolerant of lack of preparation - one
could switch into them late or do some remedial work before diving in deep and
still get the required coursework done because courses did not depend as much
on one another and could be taken in parallel.

~~~
lmartel
It's very upsetting, though, to be told you can't study or have a career in
the subject you're interested in because you lived in the wrong district when
you were 13 years old. I don't know if this is a problem with high schools,
colleges, or both, but it was a large factor in choosing my own major.

------
jwoah12
Something I noticed as an undergrad Comp Sci major was the disparity in the
grade curves for my classes and those of my friends in other majors ( _cough_
business school _cough_ ). If you look at the business classes' historical
grade distributions, they would look something like: a few Fs and Ds, and then
a sharp upward linear curve from C to A. The computer science, math,
engineering classes always had a more classic bell curve with most of the
grades in the C range.

Unless you're really interested in the subject matter, who would want to take
the classes where they'll have to work harder, and generally get a lower GPA?
I lost one of my partial scholarships because it required I keep a 3.5 GPA,
regardless of my major. Want to take bets on whether I would have kept that
scholarship had I been a finance major?

------
cnorgate
I think the bigger problem lies in how they are taught. They can be extremely
'hard' when taught in an unintuitive, abstract way. There are some people who
are drawn to the sort of raw problem sets that typify science and engineering
courses - But I believe there is a much larger set of people fully capable of
success in those courses, but dissuaded by lack of engaging content and clear
path to a future impact on the world (i.e. applicability)

When learning something new, it's important to help the learner see progress
and applicability of what they're learning - two things I believe are sadly
absent in most entry-level STEM courses... too much focus on theory, too early
on.

------
skierscott
Is it true in general? A small case study (Berea College, 655 students)
absolutely does not represent the whole case. It'd be better to look at a
school that has strong science/math/engineering programs. The university I'm
at now, the University of ___ has all of it's 15 odd programs rated in the top
25 programs. Berea College doesn't even make the list[1], that I can find (for
math, but I would guess it's true in general).

[1]:[http://graduate-
school.phds.org/rankings/mathematics/rank/ba...](http://graduate-
school.phds.org/rankings/mathematics/rank/basic)

------
Daishiman
Hard? Hell in the public university system in many countries lots of courses
are downright impossible to nail; even a passing grade is worthy of honor (and
we're not talking about first-year filter courses, just solid, important
subjects).

Degrees would be much more valuable if they required more than mere competence
to pass. I'm not claiming this should be the modus operandum, but it's
certainly something to ponder about, instead of believing that a difference of
a few hundredths of points in a test have any real-life meaning.

------
Datsundere
I think what feynman says in this kind of matter is very important.
Understanding is more important than just knowing information. Once you
understand things, it's not hard. You just need to invest time. For example,
if you can't explain relativity to a 3rd grader you don't really understand it
either. I really recommend watching "What do you care what other people think"
series on youtube (side note: he does talk a bit about his love life but
things that are said there have their meaning). He explains that for example
our languages like english is just a human convention. This really hit me.
Math notations are used so extensively (I understand the importance of them)
but when you want an understanding, you have to interpret it in your own way.
If you know the formal definition of derivative but cannot understand why and
how it's applicable (for example to derive equations you once had to remember
in high school!) then it's not very useful.

The one who has an open mind to think of all the posibilities of why things
are the way they are (by eliminating the wrong choices) is the one who masters
the topic and possibly even discover new things. [Twist: Everything we know is
just an approximation, they're not accurate; But that's for another day, also
by Feynman btw].

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zalambar
Oddly I don't see any mention in the article or linked paper of financial aid
as a contributing factor to these decisions.

I recall my college social circle being intently aware of GPA requirements for
continued merit based financial aid. Planning course schedules to try to keep
quarterly grades above our individual cutoffs was a common practice. That same
pressure influenced willingness to pursue minors, preparation for masters
programs, or double majors. Students in danger of losing their financing
absolutely considered which related majors they might transfer into which
might offer better odds of a successful degree.

Sadly I think this lead to several students who literally could not afford to
risk pursuing their preferred subjects.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Damn right! When I was in college _everyone knew_ that despite Commonwealth
College (the honors program) offering merit scholarships, you didn't want to
join if you were in STEM.

Why? Because they imposed a minimum GPA requirement (which started at 3.2/4.0
and went up over the years), also additional coursework requirements (you had
to take a certain number of "honors courses") and a thesis requirement.

Now, maintaining good grades and doing an undergrad thesis isn't _that_ bad.
Maintaining good grades and doing an undergrad thesis while also filling your
honors coursework _when your department 's cooperation with the honors program
is in its infancy and the honors college thinks only humanities subjects
should count for the Special Honors Sequence_, THAT was the problem. Please
note that yes, you had to do a Special Honors Sequence and an Honors Gen Ed.

The result was predictable: people would try to "dodge out" by doing the
easiest Honors courses they could get, because Honors courses usually had
_nothing_ to do with your actual degree focus.

Thus, I have been through a seminar about a neurologist working on African
baboons, and another one about Judaic bioethics. My honors thesis had to be
classified as an Independent Study, along with much of the undergrad research
work I did, and without that stuff I would never have filled my honors
requirements without screwing over my Computer Science requirements.

The "merit aid" bureaucrats are often _not only_ complete idiots, but
operating on a basic assumption that Merit Means Humanities.

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aphelion
It's not so much that the liberal arts are easier that the sciences, it's that
you can be lousy at them without realizing it. It's very hard to be bad at
math and not know it.

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6d0debc071
I wonder how much of this is a consequence of attempting to sell science as
something cool, rather than trying to sell the interesting puzzles.

We've spent all this money trying to get more people to take science without
any concern for the fact that very few people have been raised and encouraged
in the actual learning process. I'd frankly be rather surprised if something
like this _didn 't_ happen.

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qntmfred
> The researchers surveyed 655 students entering Berea College, a private
> liberal arts college located in Kentucky, in the falls of 2000 and 2001.

/closes tab

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scragg
To those that heard kids say they want to make video games.
[https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-cWkkWjZtU6Q/UMBEhVxINRI/A...](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-cWkkWjZtU6Q/UMBEhVxINRI/AAAAAAACL6I/AHqV3qUM7hE/w460-h477-no/class.jpg)

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aaron695
Yes, Math, Science is hard. It's not for everyone. People it's not suited to
leave.

So?

More the issue is smart people who do other degrees(Or no degrees) that
contribute less to society. We need them to do more Maths, Science. (From a
herd point of view)

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bicknergseng
In my experience, it's less that STEM is difficult and more that many other
majors are increasingly easy. Seriously... do you even have to go to class to
graduate in 3 years with a polisci degree?

Might explain some other things as well.

------
walshemj
Which is why the UK system of specializing in 3/4 areas in your last 2 years
at school as prep for Uni works better.

If you have A leves in Maths and the sciences your probably have worked out if
you want to do a STEM degree.

~~~
dalke
This is an old debate. Is it better to focus early on a specialization or to
provide a "well-rounded" person with a broader but less deep understanding? In
either case, university education is not the end of learning, so which is most
helpful for the future?

I remember in my 20s visiting the UK from the US and talking with other
researchers there my age. I was surprised that I knew more about European
history than actual Europeans. This is solely due to taking a European history
course my last year of high school, while they specialized early in science.

I took a course in psychology, and college one in sociology. These have helped
inform my understanding of group dynamics in software project teams.

If you believe that people can and even should change careers in their life,
then a diverse education may make more sense. (In the US parlance,
"reinventing yourself.") If you think people should stay in the same field,
then focused, specialized training may make more sense.

Personally, I prefer a diversified education more than a focused one, but as
someone raised in the US system, that's perhaps to be expected.

Finally, and only to highlight the humorousness, it's "A levels" instead of "A
leves" and "you" instead of "your." A STEM course of course doesn't focus as
much on writing as, say, a history or literature course. ;)

~~~
walshemj
You expect me to take your argument seriously when your dissing me because of
my dyslexia?

And whohoo psychology and sociology the soft and easy choice for schools
gaming the OFSTEAD system.

~~~
dalke
What I know about you is only what you have written. In my experience, most
people who misspell are not dyslexic, so no, I was not dissing you because of
your dyslexia.

I know nothing about your country's internal politics and cannot comment about
the last. I was talking about 'school as prep for Uni works better.' It
appears that you want a different discussion than what I can provide.

------
lifeisstillgood
So increase the _in school_ value of taking those classes - more free periods,
special lunches, non uniform days

Basically incentivise

------
jackmaney
And in other news: water is wet, and there is a large yellow-orange ball in
the sky that heats up the land.

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fatjokes
I love this. Finally, someone said it! I'm proud of barely passing my classes
for theoretical math!

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kenster07
The question is, how much do exams reflect real world work scenarios?

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antitrust
Hard, or just detail-oriented?

------
hawkw
...at Berea College.

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enupten
What surprised me after coming from India to the US for grad school in
Engineering, was the mad emphasis put on grades here. Back home, I either
cared enough to do coursework extremely well, or give up on it (the
consequences were usually harmless career wise). Here though, its an entirely
different ball game (I was surprised how anxious students here are about
assignments and exams).

Then again, I did get I into a very good grad school despite having awful
grades; so fret not. I guess employers in India care far more about which
college one graduated from more than one's grades.

------
goggles99
Is this is because movies and media such as "popular science" magazine sex
them up? They sound so cool, then reality hits. Probably kids are a lot lazier
now days also...

