Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This is in part an adverse selection problem. The average American college student is being compared to overseas students from the upper quartiles or decile. Apples and oranges.
Many of my students in Asia were mediocre and some quite awful. and of course, the top were excellent.
That said, higher ed has expanded too quickly in this world. Far too many have no business being in university.
Danger of poorly interpreting stats...or useless anecdotes
50th percentile kids are often irrelevant to many high-powered colleges or industries...where top 1% determine innovation and wealth creation
From where are the top 1% (or 10%) of grads of Stanford CompSci or Wharton Finance? From where are SiliconValley's top engineers/founders and NYC's top hedge fund founders derived?
Sure, see lots of Indians in any quant-intensive area...but many of top quants are also random white kids from US Midwest...
Funny to observe many cultures where kids allegedly do well in HS...but countries lack noted engineering or finance colleges (or lack competent engineering grad schools, like India (despite great undergrads in their IITs))....or countries that, despite allegedly "good" HS or college education, don't seem to create new, innovative cos. like google or Apple or the many hedge funds of US....or vaunted US colleges like MIT that fail to spawn innovative, valuable tech cos. despite many supposedly smart alums and faculty....
re the OP and the responses
any attempt to assert america has not dumbed down big time in last 40 years-- is futile.
without discipline inc punishment--- learning does not occur.
40 years on the off ramp.
Danger of poorly interpreting stats...or useless anecdotes
50th percentile kids are often irrelevant to many high-powered colleges or industries...where top 1% determine innovation and wealth creation
From where are the top 1% (or 10%) of grads of Stanford CompSci or Wharton Finance? From where are SiliconValley's top engineers/founders and NYC's top hedge fund founders derived?
Sure, see lots of Indians in any quant-intensive area...but many of top quants are also random white kids from US Midwest...
Funny to observe many cultures where kids allegedly do well in HS...but countries lack noted engineering or finance colleges (or lack competent engineering grad schools, like India (despite great undergrads in their IITs))....or countries that, despite allegedly "good" HS or college education, don't seem to create new, innovative cos. like google or Apple or the many hedge funds of US....or vaunted US colleges like MIT that fail to spawn innovative, valuable tech cos. despite many supposedly smart alums and faculty....
Excellent post.
There is a large and growing body of lazy/poor college students, but plenty of fantastic human capital to work with with despite the plethora of poorly designed ed policies.
When I studied in Oz I found I worked harder than many (not all) domestic students. I've had mates joined whatever group I was in on group projects, knowing the work would get done. Not all, of course. I was NOT impressed with a majority of students from India. A whole group were caught colluding. I've seen many Chinese students who needed translators at lectures to keep up and who could not construct sentences (missing objects, missing subjects). I lent one a paper I had done in a semester prior and it was pirated (the lecturer contacted me). I have encountered students from Japan and Nepal with the same inability to write or communicate -- they were disappointed when I cut their lengthy non-sensical diatrabes into succint sentences, where possible (they felt the more works, the better). Given all this, I have also encountered brilliant students from Japan, China, etc. etc.
Point of this post, I disagree that one group is targeted as lazy. I've seen lazy and brilliant from all students or various nationalities. The writer of article has their blinders on.
I have to wonder about sample bias. Often in places like India, and China education can be extremely competitive due to their large populations and limited educational resources. Thus someone, who in America, might be fine for higher education does not get it in India due to lack of resources and as a result only the truly motivated, high caliber people move on.
If I am not mistaken this type of situation has occurred in the United States as well, on a more limited scale, with the "Texas education miracle", in which, Houston area school showed vast gains in test scores seemingly by magic, but upon further inspection it was found that some of these "miracle" schools had defacto dropout rates reaching as high 70%.
Now some countries like Singapore just have incredible education systems, but I have to wonder if the article is a case study comparing the cream of the crop from Brazil, India and China with your average (or below average) American student.
Now some countries like Singapore just have incredible education systems, but I have to wonder if the article is a case study comparing the cream of the crop from Brazil, India and China with your average (or below average) American student.
FYI, Singapore's "system" is vastly overrated and pales in comparison with the way talent is produced in East Asia and part of SE Asia, like Vietnam and the Philippines.
The talent that is produced by Singapore is buried under layers of propaganda. The smartest ones either work for the government, thus stunting their development, or have left.
S.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
