mubs
Storage? I am Storage!
An Engineering student explains why he dropped out and became a lawyer instead. He points the finger at the Universities and faculty...
Confessions of an Engineering Washout
- Thread starter mubs
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Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
The other thing that makes getting an engineering degree in the US hard, is all the non-engineneering bullshit courses that are manditory. Aztek history??
I believe these courses are manditory just to keep professors on the payroll.
Bozo :mrgrn:
I believe these courses are manditory just to keep professors on the payroll.
Bozo :mrgrn:
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
No, they're there to make sure Engineers are well-rounded human beings.
Liberal Arts should be an important part of EVERYONE'S education.
Liberal Arts should be an important part of EVERYONE'S education.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Not news to me. I've known for years that most lawyers are engineering and med school dropouts. It pisses me off that lawyers make more despite engineering being a harder profession to break into.
As to the quality of instruction, I have to say my teachers at Bronx HS of Science were way better than at Princeton. This isn't surprising, either, because teaching was the only thing they did. They were there because they wanted to teach. In college on the other hand many professors were involved in research and only grudgingly taught because it was required as part of their employment package. Now these professors were undoubtably great at their research. That's why they were hired on in the first place. However, they couldn't pass on their knowledge if their lives depended upon it. That's par for the course I suppose. At some point when someone gets really good at doing something they forget all the assumed knowledge and steps they use. When they try to teach, they forget that their students don't have their background. I run into the exact same problem when I try to explain things. I remember once trying to teach my neice (who was 7 at the time) something she had asked regarding the computer, and I found myself talking about logical block addresses and file allocation tables while staring at a puzzled look on her face. Another time she asked me about LEDs and I ended up getting into band gaps and semconductor doping. Like my former professors, I'm often utterly incapable of relating to someone with a lesser background. At least I'm not quitting my day job to teach.
As to the quality of instruction, I have to say my teachers at Bronx HS of Science were way better than at Princeton. This isn't surprising, either, because teaching was the only thing they did. They were there because they wanted to teach. In college on the other hand many professors were involved in research and only grudgingly taught because it was required as part of their employment package. Now these professors were undoubtably great at their research. That's why they were hired on in the first place. However, they couldn't pass on their knowledge if their lives depended upon it. That's par for the course I suppose. At some point when someone gets really good at doing something they forget all the assumed knowledge and steps they use. When they try to teach, they forget that their students don't have their background. I run into the exact same problem when I try to explain things. I remember once trying to teach my neice (who was 7 at the time) something she had asked regarding the computer, and I found myself talking about logical block addresses and file allocation tables while staring at a puzzled look on her face. Another time she asked me about LEDs and I ended up getting into band gaps and semconductor doping. Like my former professors, I'm often utterly incapable of relating to someone with a lesser background. At least I'm not quitting my day job to teach.
I pretty much feel that way as well. The schools unfortunately act like someone isn't "balanced" without a healthy dose of liberal acts. They assume that all engineering students will do if left to their own devices is read technical books and data sheets. That's very wrong thinking. Sure, some will, but sooner or later any intelligent person will pursue other non-engineering interests. While I never personally read much fiction, or liked music, I do plenty of things which have nothing to do with engineering. Even if a student isn't "well-rounded", then so what? It is often these obsessives who have advanced fields by leaps and bounds. Let the "rounding" take place off-campus, not on. I personally resented having to take 25% liberal arts courses. I think it had the opposite intended effect in that it closed my mind to certain things just by virtue of having them rammed down my throat. Although not in college, to this day the music appreciation course I had to take in high school was the most hated course I ever took.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
My degree is in Computer Science. Not too much of a stretch from that to Engineering. Certainly a field of creditable difficulty. I went to one of "The" engineering schools in the US, and I saw what went on from day to day for four years.
And what that was, was a lot of people who had no interest in anything but getting their engineering degree so they could go earn those fat engineer paychecks. These were not people who were interested in their nontechnical education - they could've been just as well served by vocational training, which would omit what they would call Useless classes in Literature and Humanities.
What did these people do when they weren't studying to be engineers? Well, mostly they drank. A lot. That may be typical of most college students, but someone with a mind fine enough to be in an Engineering program at Purdue should have at least a basic knowledge of things like history and geography and (especially) philosophy. And they didn't. They don't.
The thing that drove me insane about Purdue were the people I dealt with on campus. When I was a subfreshman at the University of Illinois high school (the U of I has much stronger programs in the humanities, and it shows), I could sit in a coffeehouse and hear people talking about, excited about ideas and art. When I was at Purdue, NO ONE talked about those things. Not in all the time I spent there. Discussion was limited to ways to pass/cheat through a class or where and when the next round of drinking and/or fucking would take place. And that's pretty much my impression of young engineers. If you're gonna be like that, go to DeVry and get a Technology degree, rather than finishing an Engineering program. If you can't understand the benefit for an engineer of learning how to critique literature or to find meaning in abstract art, you don't belong at a university in the first place.
And what that was, was a lot of people who had no interest in anything but getting their engineering degree so they could go earn those fat engineer paychecks. These were not people who were interested in their nontechnical education - they could've been just as well served by vocational training, which would omit what they would call Useless classes in Literature and Humanities.
What did these people do when they weren't studying to be engineers? Well, mostly they drank. A lot. That may be typical of most college students, but someone with a mind fine enough to be in an Engineering program at Purdue should have at least a basic knowledge of things like history and geography and (especially) philosophy. And they didn't. They don't.
The thing that drove me insane about Purdue were the people I dealt with on campus. When I was a subfreshman at the University of Illinois high school (the U of I has much stronger programs in the humanities, and it shows), I could sit in a coffeehouse and hear people talking about, excited about ideas and art. When I was at Purdue, NO ONE talked about those things. Not in all the time I spent there. Discussion was limited to ways to pass/cheat through a class or where and when the next round of drinking and/or fucking would take place. And that's pretty much my impression of young engineers. If you're gonna be like that, go to DeVry and get a Technology degree, rather than finishing an Engineering program. If you can't understand the benefit for an engineer of learning how to critique literature or to find meaning in abstract art, you don't belong at a university in the first place.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
That's a product of going into a field for all the wrong reasons, Merc, rather than a symptom of being a "typical" engineering undergraduate. I'm guessing you'll find the same thing in law schools and pre med programs. Unfortunately, it's a trend that's growing. You should go into a field first because you love it, and not because of any income potential. Sadly, nowadays it seems like many students will choose a field first even if they had little interest in it beforehand just because it offers higher earning potential.
Sadly, we're starting to see the results of this trend. First you have lawyers who have no interest in real justice but rather just enter the field to play the lawsuit lottery. After that you have doctors who couldn't care less about doing the right thing for their patients because healthier patients will spend less on medical care. And finally you have clueless engineers who have no idea how ordinary people will interact with their products, or how to design elegantly. You end up with overly complex designs, VCRs which you need to read a 100-page manual to use, and products which ultimately make little sense at all (fuel-cell cars are about the dumbest idea going for reasons I've mentioned many times). Why do we see these things? Simple. Most of the people in these fields now went into them solely for the paycheck. They lack an inherent love of the field which leads to inspired designs or brilliant new ways of thinking. Small wonder the US is giving more and more patents to foreigners. And this carries over even to those who don't fit the mold. Nothing worse than being one of the few who truly loves and understands their field, but being hamstrung in a company with unimaginative coworkers and management.
My advice now if someone wants to be an engineer is to go to a school somewhere in the Far East, with China, Japan, or Korea being the countries of choice. More good engineers are coming from those places than everywhere else put together.
On another note, US schools prior to college are just doing a very poor job at creating a love of learning. They are also not exposing students to enough so that they at least have some idea of a field they would actually enjoy doing. It seems high school graduates nowadays are totally turned off to learning in general so they just pick a field based on earning potential. And they lack any inherent self-starting ability so all they focus on when not dealing with school is getting drunk. I have to say I'm appalled but hardly surprised.
Sadly, we're starting to see the results of this trend. First you have lawyers who have no interest in real justice but rather just enter the field to play the lawsuit lottery. After that you have doctors who couldn't care less about doing the right thing for their patients because healthier patients will spend less on medical care. And finally you have clueless engineers who have no idea how ordinary people will interact with their products, or how to design elegantly. You end up with overly complex designs, VCRs which you need to read a 100-page manual to use, and products which ultimately make little sense at all (fuel-cell cars are about the dumbest idea going for reasons I've mentioned many times). Why do we see these things? Simple. Most of the people in these fields now went into them solely for the paycheck. They lack an inherent love of the field which leads to inspired designs or brilliant new ways of thinking. Small wonder the US is giving more and more patents to foreigners. And this carries over even to those who don't fit the mold. Nothing worse than being one of the few who truly loves and understands their field, but being hamstrung in a company with unimaginative coworkers and management.
My advice now if someone wants to be an engineer is to go to a school somewhere in the Far East, with China, Japan, or Korea being the countries of choice. More good engineers are coming from those places than everywhere else put together.
On another note, US schools prior to college are just doing a very poor job at creating a love of learning. They are also not exposing students to enough so that they at least have some idea of a field they would actually enjoy doing. It seems high school graduates nowadays are totally turned off to learning in general so they just pick a field based on earning potential. And they lack any inherent self-starting ability so all they focus on when not dealing with school is getting drunk. I have to say I'm appalled but hardly surprised.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
The 'rounding' should have taken place in high school. Students by that time should have the basics and social skills.
When I went to high school, we had courses like English Lit, Greek methology, geography, social studies, economics, higher math or business math, physics, biology, english composition, world history, american history,etc. Most of these courses were required to graduate. We didn't have electives.
Now days the high schools seem to be only interested in sports and vo-tech. If you show up for 51% of the schedualed school days, you graduate regardless of your grades.
As far as college life: my son was going to go to PS for his engineering degree. His best friend was a year ahead of him and was already at PS. The friends description of college was the sames as Mercs. Both my son and his friend changed to small private colleges. Everybody was there for an education. But he still had to have the bullshit courses.
Apparently the only reason we have PSU is so we can have a football team
Bozo
:mrgrn:
When I went to high school, we had courses like English Lit, Greek methology, geography, social studies, economics, higher math or business math, physics, biology, english composition, world history, american history,etc. Most of these courses were required to graduate. We didn't have electives.
Now days the high schools seem to be only interested in sports and vo-tech. If you show up for 51% of the schedualed school days, you graduate regardless of your grades.
As far as college life: my son was going to go to PS for his engineering degree. His best friend was a year ahead of him and was already at PS. The friends description of college was the sames as Mercs. Both my son and his friend changed to small private colleges. Everybody was there for an education. But he still had to have the bullshit courses.
Apparently the only reason we have PSU is so we can have a football team
Bozo
:mrgrn:
Fushigi
Storage Is My Life
Bozo - You can thank Reaganomics for the current state of public education. During his time in office Education spending was severely slashed, pushing the burden on to the states, which were ill-prepared to deal with it. The end result was increases in property taxes, which in some communities are being voted down. This has left the school systems with little choice but to cut back on their offerings. Add to that the emphasis on "Reading, Riting, and Rithmetic" and you can see where we're heading.
As to engineering schools requiring non-techinical classes, I must disagree. As a society we should be producing well-rounded individuals. This will benefit the prospective engineers in several ways, including:
- They should have a better frame of reference to use when dealing with non-engineers.
- It is more and more important, no, critical, for technical people to understand the business they are in and not just the technology. For the good of the company and for the engineer's career. At my employer, for instance, some IT staff are involved with client presentations. They have to speak English (or German or whatever); not geek-talk.
- If their engineering career doesn't pan out for whatever reason, they will be better prepared to work in alternative fields.
As to engineering schools requiring non-techinical classes, I must disagree. As a society we should be producing well-rounded individuals. This will benefit the prospective engineers in several ways, including:
- They should have a better frame of reference to use when dealing with non-engineers.
- It is more and more important, no, critical, for technical people to understand the business they are in and not just the technology. For the good of the company and for the engineer's career. At my employer, for instance, some IT staff are involved with client presentations. They have to speak English (or German or whatever); not geek-talk.
- If their engineering career doesn't pan out for whatever reason, they will be better prepared to work in alternative fields.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
It's important to add that the opposite is also true. I can credit my ability to deal with non-techies with the three years I spent managing computer labs in Purdue's Liberal Arts building, but at the same time I don't think educated non-technical people should be excused from fundamental knowledge of technical things, and that's something I've dealt with for years and years. It might be said that the situation with the Kansas State board of Education might not have happened if its members actually understood the rationale behind the scientific method, for example.
Going back to Bozo's point: High School is not the right time to make a rounded person. Kids in high school aren't even their own person yet, and the skills they are learning - algebra, geometry, grammar, civics - are largely geared to making someone functional enough to work a menial or blue-collar job. You seriously can't expect a kid who got a C in a 10th grade lit class (O Henry likes to use irony!) to carry that the rest of his life as his last exposure to critical thought about the written word, can you?
It bothers me to no end that, in my office, all business communication has to pass through me. No one else - even though everyone I work with has a BA or BS in something or other (and mostly technical degrees at that) - fully understands grammar or the standard rules of business communication. These people I know, people who have college education, are not well-rounded individuals.
I was a very fortunate and motivated student. I managed to start college with 36 credit hours, and I'll credit all of that with having wonderful instructors who were both passionate about their field and about education. Per the article, there's simply none of that at the university level. Instruction normally consists of the bare minimum effort, and as a result I can remember exactly three of my professors (two of them weren't even in my academic department!), but almost all my high school teachers.
Going back to Bozo's point: High School is not the right time to make a rounded person. Kids in high school aren't even their own person yet, and the skills they are learning - algebra, geometry, grammar, civics - are largely geared to making someone functional enough to work a menial or blue-collar job. You seriously can't expect a kid who got a C in a 10th grade lit class (O Henry likes to use irony!) to carry that the rest of his life as his last exposure to critical thought about the written word, can you?
It bothers me to no end that, in my office, all business communication has to pass through me. No one else - even though everyone I work with has a BA or BS in something or other (and mostly technical degrees at that) - fully understands grammar or the standard rules of business communication. These people I know, people who have college education, are not well-rounded individuals.
I was a very fortunate and motivated student. I managed to start college with 36 credit hours, and I'll credit all of that with having wonderful instructors who were both passionate about their field and about education. Per the article, there's simply none of that at the university level. Instruction normally consists of the bare minimum effort, and as a result I can remember exactly three of my professors (two of them weren't even in my academic department!), but almost all my high school teachers.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
While we're talking about rounded education before college, I vaguely remember some of my teachers talking about how much more students used to learn in the early grades. I think we read some soldier's diaries from WWI where they were quite familiar with classic literature, music, basic science, and of course English composition. I was dumbfounded to learn that most of them had never even finished high school, let alone college. The length and breath of what schools used to teach a century ago compared to today is astonishing. Maybe they covered more material because they didn't have to waste time with the politically correct subjects of the moment, or maybe the students were just more motivated. I really have no good answer for this paradox.
On the rounding thing, I have very mixed feelings. I think everyone, including engineers, should be required to communicate effectively and clearly. Most of today's graduates are clueless in that area. They can't even spell correctly let alone put their thoughts in a coherent manner. Some knowledge of various fields and how they relate to each other is also important so as to get a big picture perspective. And I agree wholeheartedly with Merc that non-engineering grads should have a good working knowledge of technical subjects. The state of that is even more deplorable than the converse. However, I'm not so sure being able to critique art or literature is of much real use beyond being a hobby. Sure, it's good to get a decent background on these subjects prior to college, but in college I think required non-engineering courses should stick to things which are either at least somewhat useful in the world, or hold an interest as a hobby. If you happen to like abstract art or you're just curious about it, then wonderful, take a course on it. Ditto for literature or music. Don't forget you can get plenty of exposure to things like that on your own.
I'll close for now by adding that a lot of real rounding takes place long after you're out of school. I never really had much time to think about things or myself until I finished school. It probably took well into my 30s before I mostly knew myself as a human being. Trying to cram that into 4 years by taking a few non-engineering courses is a best an exercise in futility.
On the rounding thing, I have very mixed feelings. I think everyone, including engineers, should be required to communicate effectively and clearly. Most of today's graduates are clueless in that area. They can't even spell correctly let alone put their thoughts in a coherent manner. Some knowledge of various fields and how they relate to each other is also important so as to get a big picture perspective. And I agree wholeheartedly with Merc that non-engineering grads should have a good working knowledge of technical subjects. The state of that is even more deplorable than the converse. However, I'm not so sure being able to critique art or literature is of much real use beyond being a hobby. Sure, it's good to get a decent background on these subjects prior to college, but in college I think required non-engineering courses should stick to things which are either at least somewhat useful in the world, or hold an interest as a hobby. If you happen to like abstract art or you're just curious about it, then wonderful, take a course on it. Ditto for literature or music. Don't forget you can get plenty of exposure to things like that on your own.
I'll close for now by adding that a lot of real rounding takes place long after you're out of school. I never really had much time to think about things or myself until I finished school. It probably took well into my 30s before I mostly knew myself as a human being. Trying to cram that into 4 years by taking a few non-engineering courses is a best an exercise in futility.
Tannin
Storage? I am Storage!
No-one who has not studied at least several of the humanities and/or social sciences could ever be properly called "educated". People who have studied only within one narrow and restricted realm are not really people at all, not in the sense of being intelligent, situationally-aware human beings. They are just trained monkeys. Worthless outside of a very narrow and circumscribed field, and generally not particularly good within that field either.
Now take that para above (which aplies to engineers and chemists and the like), and apply it to social scentists and artists and literature people, except read: No-one who has not studied at least several of the hard sciences and/or branches of mathematics could ever be properly called "educated".
Read on from there, using the same words. They will fit.
Now take that para above (which aplies to engineers and chemists and the like), and apply it to social scentists and artists and literature people, except read: No-one who has not studied at least several of the hard sciences and/or branches of mathematics could ever be properly called "educated".
Read on from there, using the same words. They will fit.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
jtr1962 said:
I suspect that the deficiency in the subjects of rhetoric and composition has more to do with the "one size fits all" education that seems to have been implemented for Baby Boomers. My grandmother writes that way - long, flowing, almost poetic letters, as does my eldest aunt (born 1936). My father and his twin (born in 1945, the start of the baby boom) both essentially write business communication at all times.
Stereodude
Not really a
I don't know...
Maybe it's just me, but the article seemed like a bunch of sour grapes.
I firmly believe you can't teach someone to be a good engineer. They either have the right mindset for it, or they don't. All the "impossible" classes are designed to weed and screen out the people who don't have the mindset. If you are able to handle the workload, you either have the proper mindset, or you are really, really, smart, but still not engineering material.
I graduated with someone who was definitely in the latter category. I don't want to buy anything they had a hand in despite their 4.0. Whereas, one of the other guys had a 2.7 (I think) and I would be willing to buy something he worked on in a heartbeat.
Oh, and the article totally sidesteps the fact that an engineering degree isn't actually needed to do engineering. You use virtually nothing of what you learn in college on the job as an engineer.
Maybe it's just me, but the article seemed like a bunch of sour grapes.
I firmly believe you can't teach someone to be a good engineer. They either have the right mindset for it, or they don't. All the "impossible" classes are designed to weed and screen out the people who don't have the mindset. If you are able to handle the workload, you either have the proper mindset, or you are really, really, smart, but still not engineering material.
I graduated with someone who was definitely in the latter category. I don't want to buy anything they had a hand in despite their 4.0. Whereas, one of the other guys had a 2.7 (I think) and I would be willing to buy something he worked on in a heartbeat.
Oh, and the article totally sidesteps the fact that an engineering degree isn't actually needed to do engineering. You use virtually nothing of what you learn in college on the job as an engineer.
jtr1962
Storage? I am Storage!
Yep, the whole point of the degree is to get you to think in a certain way and also to be able to access and learn what you need to know. More than any other profession except possibly computer science, being a good engineer is a continual learning process. Technology waits for no one. By the time you graduate most of what you learned is already obsolete.Stereodude said:
I think part of the illusion people have is that they'll learn everything they need to be an engineer in school, and then it'll just be another 9-to-5 job where they can cruise along but with a big paycheck. Nothing is further from the truth. In fact, no job where you earn big money is either routine or 9-to-5.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
One would hope that both Medicine and Nursing are professions where one needs to learn continuously.
Although I know a lot of GPs don't bother...
Real CS - the kind that isn't taught to undergrads - is more like applied philosophy than an actual science. That's an important thing to appreciate.
Something I learned from undergrad science courses:
CS = applied logic. Physics = Applied Mathematics. Chemistry = Applied Physics. Biology = Applied Chemistry.
Anyway, SD is right that there are engineering skills that can't be taught. The best that can be done is to put someone in an environment where those skills can be learned or intuited. However, that doesn't excuse any educator from his or her task for those skills which can be clearly defined and taught.
Math was always my weak point. My first semester at Purdue I had a Calculus prof who was from Mexico. He'd teach in English for literally about two minutes then lapse into Spanish... I complained. A lot of people in my class complained. But nothing came of it. I ended up paying like $1000 that semester to fail Calculus. If someone had done the most basic and trivial check to make sure that guy spoke English, I might've had even the slightest chance in hell of passing that class. That's how bad it can be at a big school, and there's no reason it should be that way for something as basic and well-understood as a calc class. The author of the article rightly points out that Professors and TAs (at least at Engineering schools) aren't on campus to educate anyone. They're there to get research grants, charitable endowments, patents and public accolade for the school. Students really are an afterthought.
Although I know a lot of GPs don't bother...
Real CS - the kind that isn't taught to undergrads - is more like applied philosophy than an actual science. That's an important thing to appreciate.
Something I learned from undergrad science courses:
CS = applied logic. Physics = Applied Mathematics. Chemistry = Applied Physics. Biology = Applied Chemistry.
Anyway, SD is right that there are engineering skills that can't be taught. The best that can be done is to put someone in an environment where those skills can be learned or intuited. However, that doesn't excuse any educator from his or her task for those skills which can be clearly defined and taught.
Math was always my weak point. My first semester at Purdue I had a Calculus prof who was from Mexico. He'd teach in English for literally about two minutes then lapse into Spanish... I complained. A lot of people in my class complained. But nothing came of it. I ended up paying like $1000 that semester to fail Calculus. If someone had done the most basic and trivial check to make sure that guy spoke English, I might've had even the slightest chance in hell of passing that class. That's how bad it can be at a big school, and there's no reason it should be that way for something as basic and well-understood as a calc class. The author of the article rightly points out that Professors and TAs (at least at Engineering schools) aren't on campus to educate anyone. They're there to get research grants, charitable endowments, patents and public accolade for the school. Students really are an afterthought.
I took a finite math course and had the same problem with the professor. He was from India, and had a thick accent. Smart guy, no question there, but I (and several others) had a hell of a time understanding him. I guess my real point is that it isn't just at big schools where this happens. My school wasn't large.
Pradeep
Storage? I am Storage!
Had a Korean woman teaching us Introduction to Programming (in Java). Her accent was so bad no one could understand what she was saying. Apart from the Korean students. In the lab sessions, they communicated with her just fine, in Korean. You spent so much concentration trying to decipher what she was saying, no chance to actually learn. A bunch of us complained, the head of the computing department came into a lecture one day and we all filled out a survey. Then business as usual.
Howell
Storage? I am Storage!
Fushigi said:
You should read your history more closely. The states were doing fine before the Federal Gov decided to "remove the burden" from the states. The New Deal was one of the worst things to happen to this country.
Dïscfärm
Learning Storage Performance
I once had a professor in a communications circuits class that was from India. He spoke pretty good English (diction), but had a fairly heavy accent -- at least I could understand him well enough.
However, there were two *important* words that he said that sounded exactly alike to everyone -- resistor and register. If you weren't listening closely to his lecture and weren't 100% into the context of what he was talking about, there was basically no way in hell you could figure out if he said resistor or register. Many people soon complained about this pronunciation problem (I believe there were another 3 or 4 words he would say occasionally that were completely obfuscated by his accent). The real problem was that he would pronounce register "ree-jis-ter" instead of rej-ist-er. "Ree-jis-ter" (register) simply sounded exactly like his "ree-zis-ter" (resistor).
Everyone in that class was soon complaining about the infamous resistor/register pronunciation problem, but, ironically, some of the students that chimed in about the problem were natives from... Iran, Saudi Arabia, and, yes, even... INDIA! The professor made a conscious effort to say the words "ree-jis-ter" and "ree-zis-ter" slower, but it made no freaking difference to anyone.
Bozo
Storage? I am Storage!
Schools are one of my pet pieves. I'll try to control my rant.
At the beginning of the last century, a lot of people couldn't read or write. The education system was geared up to teach people the basics. (3R's)
In the middle of the century the idea was to make a better rounded person. English lit, social studies, world history were required to graduate. (me!)
Now, the schools are set for sports and vo-tech. Grades don't matter, just throw the touchdown pass!
Case in point: when the money crunch came in the 80's, our high school repaved the track, built a weight room, and built a separate building for the wrestling team. Meanwhile, the students didn't have enough science and math textbooks to go around. They had to share. And talking to tax payers from other schools, they were doing the same thing.
Up until the mid-point of the century, teachers wanted to be teachers. They were dedicated people that wanted to see the students do well.
Then came the unions. Now, teaching is a well paid, cushy job. Raises are just handed out instead of being based on job performance. Bad teachers can't be fired. Only work (readut in your time) 180 days a year and still recieve salery based on 365 days a year. Collect unemployment during the summer. There is no performance testing or criteria for the teachers.
I put both of my kids in private school when they got to the high school level. What a difference!!! As an example, the public high school graduated almost 300 kids the same year that my son graduated. Less than 50 students recieved scholarships. My sons pivate school graduating class was about 200. There were only about 25 students that did not get a scholarship or grant.
My blood pressure is raising, I better stop
Bozo :mrgrn:
At the beginning of the last century, a lot of people couldn't read or write. The education system was geared up to teach people the basics. (3R's)
In the middle of the century the idea was to make a better rounded person. English lit, social studies, world history were required to graduate. (me!)
Now, the schools are set for sports and vo-tech. Grades don't matter, just throw the touchdown pass!
Case in point: when the money crunch came in the 80's, our high school repaved the track, built a weight room, and built a separate building for the wrestling team. Meanwhile, the students didn't have enough science and math textbooks to go around. They had to share. And talking to tax payers from other schools, they were doing the same thing.
Up until the mid-point of the century, teachers wanted to be teachers. They were dedicated people that wanted to see the students do well.
Then came the unions. Now, teaching is a well paid, cushy job. Raises are just handed out instead of being based on job performance. Bad teachers can't be fired. Only work (read
ut in your time) 180 days a year and still recieve salery based on 365 days a year. Collect unemployment during the summer. There is no performance testing or criteria for the teachers. I put both of my kids in private school when they got to the high school level. What a difference!!! As an example, the public high school graduated almost 300 kids the same year that my son graduated. Less than 50 students recieved scholarships. My sons pivate school graduating class was about 200. There were only about 25 students that did not get a scholarship or grant.
My blood pressure is raising, I better stop
Bozo :mrgrn:
Adcadet
Storage Freak
I think it's mostly well known by now that if you want to make big bucks, medicine is NOT the way to go. Sure, there are a few people in my med school class who I don't think too highly of, but by and large I'd be happy with the majority of them taking care of my mom. Granted, there is some fall off as you progress through classes, rotations, internship, residency, fellowship, etc. Some pre-meds don't understand this, but most people figure this out by the time they apply. Even if you think 6-figures is a lot (which it is), the amount of work it requires encourages most money-seekers to find other pursuits. Hell, even if I go into cardiology (which I am considering, and is one of the best paying fields), that will be 4 years of med school (which tends to run 150-200K total) + 3 years of internal medicine (making 40K + (2K/year out of med school)/year), then 3 years of cards fellowship (same pay scale as during residency, so your final year you top out at 52K/year). And it's not exactly easy work, either in training or in practice. But you do make, on average, 300K/year for 61 hour/week of work.
GIANT
Learning Storage Performance
Bozo said:
Well, I'm going to have to deduct 10 points for that one!
Just a note to those who have complained about mathematics courses: If you ever get the chance, you should take a look at the textbooks that were used to teach Calculus back in the 1800s or even in the 1900s before about 1950 or so. Talking about sparse, dry, terse, and obscure -- those books were all of that and then some. Modern books are far more clearer and logical in approach. In the "old days," you definitely had to figure it out on your own.
Mercutio
Fatwah on Western Digital
AD: My ex- likes to rant about the people who want to just go out and be cosmetic surgeons. Dunno how it is at the UofM but apparently that's the big goal of several people in her classes.
Adcadet
Storage Freak
Oh, I've been known to rant about the people who just want to go out and be dermatologists. But there's only three I that I know of out of about 200 people who have expressed a serious interest in derm. Of course, if they wanted to go into it for the "right" reasons I'd be fine with it.