Theologically their support for Israel is rooted in antisemitism. They need Israel to trigger the end times so Jews and other nonbelievers will be punished and ultimately destroyed.
If you pry and ask the right questions, they'll admit that they don't want this to happen, because they really want all those Jews and nonbelievers to convert and be saved. This is also antisemitism, but it's wrapped up in a millenia-old death cult.
Spring 2026 saw a marked shift in student performance. We saw it in intro physics courses on the East coast too. I bet anyone who cared to look saw it.
I'm not denying that. I'm just wondering if anyone measured if there is a correlation effect being induced by CS major declaration requirements.
Barely over a decade ago, CS tended to be a large but not too large major by enrollment in most universities yet nowadays it is the most in-demand major in most universities. You can see this at Stanford [0], but most other programs as well.
No. CS majors take a different physics sequence at my institution.
The proximate cause is the wide release of somewhat effective AI tooling. When the tools weren't able to do or explain, students didn't use them. Now the tools are somewhat competent, so students do use them.
The students didn't substantially change from Fall 2025 to Spring 2026. You can have whavever gatekeeping hobby-horse you want, but it's not germane to this particular conversation.
I'm at a public southeastern R2. Not selective. Mostly regional catchment. Most of our students have to learn how to be good students their first year or two.
We're making major changes in course structure as a result, so if things go well we won't have enough data to measure any kind of meaningful trend
That wasn't arbitrary, and it wasn't for no benefit. It was so that landowners along the coast could continue to use faulty sea level studies to justify state road and infrastructure investments.
In a broad sense, this distinction between Harvard and Cal is the distinction between an old money Ivy and a flagship state school. One exists to propagate a social hierarchy, and the other aims to allow all entrants to succeed.
Ironically, the techniques of the latter yield the results of the first, but everybody gets to keep a pure heart.
The insidious thing here is that students can think they're studying and practicing by chatting with an AI "tutor", which shifts them into a passive observation role that's no better than watching YouTube videos.
It turns out that it's much less memorable if you're too "clear and helpful", so nothing helpful sticks for students. A good teacher (tutor, educator, pick a word) challenges students and makes them the right amount of uncomfortable.
These resources often suck for the college major level anyhow. Youtube and such is all dumbed down usually. Or if it isn't dumbed down, you risk studying beyond the scope of the lecture. Every class I took, the professor would say something like "anything in lecture could end up on the exam." And indeed, every exam was comprised of something that came from the slides, and nothing that didn't come from the slides. Even if there was an assigned textbook, there would be so much skipped over, either subtopics or entire chapters. Emphasis can vary by lecturer for the same class as well. The class might fall behind or run ahead of whatever is outlined on the syllabus; that is more an aspirational goal than a solid plan of what to expect.
The best tutor, as always, is your TA or professor, during office hours that you already pay for in tuition. No one takes advantage though, well the students who were getting As already do just to validate their understanding. The students who really ought to go never go.
I'm a college (physics) professor, and last semester specifically had a huge shift in student behavior. In introductory courses, students basically stopped coming to help sessions.
I give a substantial amount of extra credit for attending regular help sessions which yielded about 30% help session conversion in past semesters. This term it dropped below 5%, and those few who came were the ones who were high B/ low A students. The solid A students don't come because they don't need to. The low B and lower students didn't come because they thought they didn't need to? It's unclear, but clearly something changed.
Students performing in the mid-B and up range weren't affected, but below that? The bottom dropped out. Students who should have earned B's earned C's. Students who could have earned C's... didn't.
If you pry and ask the right questions, they'll admit that they don't want this to happen, because they really want all those Jews and nonbelievers to convert and be saved. This is also antisemitism, but it's wrapped up in a millenia-old death cult.
reply