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When I went to college for CS in the 2000's it was the same. Freshman class of 200 in the major, graduating class of 7. People get into it cause they like computers or games or something like that, realize it is actually difficult for reals and abandon it for easier majors. I bet most similar difficulty majors are the same. That is what makes them valuable.
As far as for lower education, we have been catering to the lowest common denominator for a long time and spending an out sized amount of teaching resources to bring the bottom performers up to "competent". That is probably the exact opposite approach a nation should take if it wants to be on the cutting edge of scientific and tech advancement. Invest the largest teaching resources into the best and brightest rather than trying to drag F students kicking and screaming into C- territory. F students provide fodder for the low skill service industry, we cant all be astrophysicists. Some of us have to be the guys that serve the astrophysicists their burgers in the drive through.
That was me - sort of. Did fine with the math and programming, okay with the physics, but chemistry kicked my butt. When my ideal design job popped up (my first degree), I didn't hesitate to ditch the idea of a second degree and take the job. My lab partner was this 18 year old kid from Russia. Smart as anyone I've ever met, but was into the weed and would only do the bare minimum needed.... wonder where he ever ended up? Sometimes even the ones who are smart enough don't have the drive to push themselves.
That was me - sort of. Did fine with the math and programming, okay with the physics, but chemistry kicked my butt. When my ideal design job popped up (my first degree), I didn't hesitate to ditch the idea of a second degree and take the job. My lab partner was this 18 year old kid from Russia. Smart as anyone I've ever met, but was into the weed and would only do the bare minimum needed.... wonder where he ever ended up? Sometimes even the ones who are smart enough don't have the drive to push themselves.
I function on opposite mode, I have an extremely hard time not being bored and lazy if the coursework is super easy and then would end up with middling grades, but if the coursework is extremely hard I end up with straight A's. I bet there are hordes of bright students in high schools that are the same way and could be far beyond where they were at if they weren't anchored to the rest of the students.
Me:
B's in high school, put literally no work into it. Senior year I put my textbooks in my locker at the beginning of the year and never took them out until I had to turn them in before graduation.
C's and B's and D's as a freshman graphic design major. Too much partying, too much laziness. Had artistic challenge but no intellectual challenge.
Swapped to CS after 2 semesters of that. Whoa hey, some of this stuff is actually difficult!
A's & B's as a sophomore CS major.
Straight A's Junior and Senior year, in freaking hard classes too. If I had started in CS I would have graduated with honors, as it stands I was just a hair short due to the drag of that first party year.
Also for any parents, I would highly suggest telling your kids to wait a year to go to college, get all the partying out of their systems and then hit it when they are ready to be serious about it. The draw of that first year of freedom almost makes it inevitable that they will, so just try to keep the time frame non overlapping with their education. Also seek out the degrees all the other students are running away from because they are too hard - that is built in demand.
Last edited by zzzSnorlax; 01-13-2017 at 03:02 PM..
When I went to college for CS in the 2000's it was the same. Freshman class of 200 in the major, graduating class of 7. People get into it cause they like computers or games or something like that, realize it is actually difficult for reals and abandon it for easier majors. I bet most similar difficulty majors are the same. That is what makes them valuable.
As far as for lower education, we have been catering to the lowest common denominator for a long time and spending an out sized amount of teaching resources to bring the bottom performers up to "competent". That is probably the exact opposite approach a nation should take if it wants to be on the cutting edge of scientific and tech advancement. Invest the largest teaching resources into the best and brightest rather than trying to drag F students kicking and screaming into C- territory. F students provide fodder for the low skill service industry, we cant all be astrophysicists. Some of us have to be the guys that serve the astrophysicists their burgers in the drive through.
Question for anyone with an opinion on the bolded: Why has this trend occurred? What can I do in my local community to fix this? Is this why I hear people wanting education put back in the hands of the states?
I am embarrassed to say that I have only recently been more focused on education trends now that I am a mother of two young children not yet in the public school system.
Question for anyone with an opinion on the bolded: Why has this trend occurred? What can I do in my local community to fix this? Is this why I hear people wanting education put back in the hands of the states?
I am embarrassed to say that I have only recently been more focused on education trends now that I am a mother of two young children not yet in the public school system.
I believe a lot of the problem originated with the short sighted "no child left behind" policies that went into place during the Bush Jr. years. It made funding dependent on pass fail rates of standardized tests, which led to an over focus on the students that had a higher chance of failing. There was no equivalent compensation for turning out exceptional students so the focus became how to get every student at least up to passing levels on said tests....
If your children are bright encourage them to seek out their own studies and interests and do their own research. Teach them to teach themselves basically.
So says Eric Weinstein, Mathematician and Economist.
He claims that the idea of Americans being bad at math is a myth concocted by employers in scientific industries to justify importing cheap labor from abroad.
The problem is how much the average person does not know and the techies pretend is more complicated than it really is.
I worked for IBM. They never mentioned von Neumann architectures or point out that IBM hired John von Neumann as a consultant in 1952. You were supposed to know enough to do your job not enough to get hired by DEC and use UNIX on a VAX.
Question for anyone with an opinion on the bolded: Why has this trend occurred?
As I posted earlier in this thread, this article by a college professor who has researched this issue explains a lot:
Quote:
Originally Posted by InformedConsent
Quote:
"While students in the bottom quartile have shown slow but steady improvement since the 1960s, average test scores have nonetheless gone down, primarily because of the performance of those in the top quartile. This "highest cohort of achievers," Rudman writes, has shown "the greatest declines across a variety of subjects as well as across age-level groups." Analysts have also found "a substantial drop among those children in the middle range of achievement"
...The contrast was stark: schools that had "severely declining test scores" had "moved determinedly toward heterogeneous grouping" (that is, mixed students of differing ability levels in the same classes), while the "schools who have maintained good SAT scores" tended "to prefer homogeneous grouping [ability/skill-level grouping, aka tracking]."
If attaining educational excellence is this simple, why have these high-quality schools become so rare? The answer lies in the cultural ferment of the 1960s.
THE INCUBUS OF THE SIXTIES
In every conceivable fashion the reigning ethos of those times was hostile to excellence in education. Individual achievement fell under intense suspicion, as did attempts to maintain standards. Discriminating among students on the basis of ability or performance was branded "elitist." Educational gurus of the day called for essentially nonacademic schools, whose main purpose would be to build habits of social cooperation and equality rather than to train the mind."
Note that not only is our population largely unable to think anymore due to the large-scale dumbing-down of our country's education system, but the "equal outcomes disdain for excellence" education ideology failed to accomplish its social cooperation and cohesion goal, as well.
The deliberate dumbing down in pursuit of "equal outcomes" has been going on for at least 50 years.
As I posted earlier in this thread, this article by a college professor who has researched this issue explains a lot:
The deliberate dumbing down in pursuit of "equal outcomes" has been going on for at least 50 years.
This seems like it could be fixed in the home. For example, if parents pushed for excellence then can't we reverse the trends.
I believe a lot of the problem originated with the short sighted "no child left behind" policies that went into place during the Bush Jr. years. It made funding dependent on pass fail rates of standardized tests, which led to an over focus on the students that had a higher chance of failing. There was no equivalent compensation for turning out exceptional students so the focus became how to get every student at least up to passing levels on said tests....
If your children are bright encourage them to seek out their own studies and interests and do their own research. Teach them to teach themselves basically.
Thanks - with the internet this is certainly possible. My 4-year old and I are constantly looking up things on google. She wanted to know what a Macintosh jacket was (we were reading Beatrice Potter) and I honestly had no idea. Now we are learning more together
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