EPTCollege is not necessary - Page 5
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
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Epicfailguy
Norway893 Posts
At least I have my own appartment now, and im getting 30.000 NOK (5.000 USD) if I dont fail. <3 europe. | ||
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fusionsdf
Canada15390 Posts
On February 18 2009 19:29 gchan wrote: About the difficulty of majors, it really depends on what type of person you are. At the bachelor's level, hard science and math majors tend to have a very heavy focus on memorization, whereas social sciences/liberal arts tend to have a focus on developing analytical skills and expression. If you can memorize well, you will excel in the sciences; if you have excellent analytical skills, you will excel in social sciences/liberal arts. To really do well in either field though, you will need to do both and that doesn't happen very much until the tail end of college and/or grad school. Evidence: personal experience. Triple major of molecular biology, economics, and a major combining the two. yeah compsci is basically like 10-16 hours of problem solving a day. there is barely any memorization other than theory or syntax | ||
JWD
United States12607 Posts
On February 19 2009 00:12 StarN wrote: lol hey. How's it going? I mostly agree with what you have to say. I only said American yet I never said it was exclusive to American society (I just don't have enough research on other societies and their college attendance rates). And if you read my post better you would know that I am dropping out of school. (it's in the last paragraph fyi) Anyways I think a lot of people are taking my post the wrong way. College is an option always open for people. You don't HAVE to enter it straight out of high school. I realize that college degree holders generally make more money and acknowledged that in my post. But then again, those that go to college are usually more motivated people in general than those who choose not to. I think what I forgot to mention in my post is that I guess the reason so many people go to college is also because so many people genuinely want to live normal lives and have normal jobs such as engineering, teaching, etc. (which is what makes them 'normal') My post is meant to force one to question themselves to the reasons of why they are going to attend university. I don't want you guys to drop out of college and try to become pioneers in math and science or anything. I just think there are too many people out there going to college for the wrong reasons and with the wrong ideas in mind. Fair enough...sorry for missing the part about you dropping out. Anyway, GL to you man. | ||
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JeeJee
Canada5652 Posts
On February 18 2009 13:50 benjammin wrote: what does that tell you about the subject you are studying? uhm, nothing? the question you should've asked was either "what does that tell you about the people you meet?" or "what does that tell you about the people that go to college?" unless you're referring to something else entirely, in which case feel free to elaborate | ||
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
On February 18 2009 13:31 JeeJee wrote: seriously? shit how much do you make on your co-op jobs exactly? being up 20k is crazy (about 3-4k per workterm i guess?). my math certainly doesn't add up to that. one term is about 10k for me (7k+change tuition and 2k+change living expenses, plus books, etc.), with a 4k surplus? 14k/16wk = 23/hr after tax which is like at least 26/hr before tax? plus living expenses for the actual work term, unless you're living at home? damn hook me up with some of those jobs :O mine are just hovering in around low 20s or flat 20 so far =/ edit: although i guess if you worked in usa i can see that. i.e. my friend who works at nvidia makes 22/hr + 1k/month on living expenses + subsidized lunches and shit which is basically 30+/hr hmmm maybe i should go to usa CA costs 7k???? I pay 5k and I thought it was ridiculously high! | ||
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Slaughter
United States20254 Posts
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Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
On February 18 2009 19:29 gchan wrote: About the difficulty of majors, it really depends on what type of person you are. At the bachelor's level, hard science and math majors tend to have a very heavy focus on memorization, whereas social sciences/liberal arts tend to have a focus on developing analytical skills and expression. If you can memorize well, you will excel in the sciences; if you have excellent analytical skills, you will excel in social sciences/liberal arts. To really do well in either field though, you will need to do both and that doesn't happen very much until the tail end of college and/or grad school. Evidence: personal experience. Triple major of molecular biology, economics, and a major combining the two. I wouldn't call biology one of the "Hard sciences" really, you just explained the difference between a heavy soft science course and an easy soft science course. If you study physics you get all formulas you need for each test so there is zero memorization, instead it is all analytical thinking, math is roughly the same but you need to learn some basic expressions in most courses which you then can derive the rest of the course from. The reason I am reluctant to call biology a hard science is just because of the reason you mentioned: It is just like the social sciences a lot more about memorization than understanding. In social science they don't want you to think, they want you to repeat what some great thinkers have said before you. Edit: And with this I mean in terms of how it is to study, Biology is of course a hard science due to the fact that the experiments you set up can be repeated with near 100% accuracy even though it is less so than chemistry and physics it is still infinitely more accurate than the real soft sciences. | ||
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Deleted User 31060
3788 Posts
and btw all your teacher is belongs to me now. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On February 19 2009 04:49 Klockan3 wrote: This is just patently false. Everything that's been done before is constantly under review for selection bias and other methodological errors and developing new ideas happens all the time. You speak as if there's a universal authority in each of these fields, when if you go down the line through every single social science, everything is up for dispute including the viability of observation itself. In social science they don't want you to think, they want you to repeat what some great thinkers have said before you. Seriously, this has to be one of the most ignorant opinions I've ever read on here, probably based on nothing more than a 100 level class. At the undergraduate level, the exact same system exists for the hard sciences. Everything you do is practicing and mastering the previously accomplished. Edit: And with this I mean in terms of how it is to study, Biology is of course a hard science due to the fact that the experiments you set up can be repeated with near 100% accuracy even though it is less so than chemistry and physics it is still infinitely more accurate than the real soft sciences. Their experiments are more accurate and selection biases are more easily identifiable, but qualitative and quantitative research in human sciences follow the scientific method as well and must be open to re-testing. | ||
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Klockan3
Sweden2866 Posts
On February 19 2009 05:52 Jibba wrote: This is just patently false. Everything that's been done before is constantly under review for selection bias and other methodological errors and developing new ideas happens all the time. You speak as if there's a universal authority in each of these fields, when if you go down the line through every single social science, everything is up for dispute including the viability of observation itself. Seriously, this has to be one of the most ignorant opinions I've ever read on here, probably based on nothing more than a 100 level class. At the undergraduate level, the exact same system exists for the hard sciences. Everything you do is practicing and mastering the previously accomplished. I am fairly sure that this thread is about undergraduate studies, and in undergraduate studies you are not allowed to think in social sciences while doing out of the box solutions are encouraged in the fields of physics/math. "You speak as if there's a universal authority in each of these fields" And you know, all of the social sciences worship a few figures and those figures views are what is taught and is the only acceptable views of the undergrads. If you don't solve the task in the way the supervisor intended you to solve it you wont get much score, the correct solution is subjective and not objective. (Edit: Of course there is never an universal figure, didn't say that) The difference to this is of course that in the hard sciences there is an objective truth to everything taught at an undergraduate level, as long as the answer you provide is correct it do not matter if it was the views of some old genius or not, what matters is that its the truth. Technically you could ace a master in math without doing anything but reading up on the definitions and then derive all formulas from that yourself, try doing that for some social science... It can't be done since there are an infinite amount of correct answers and the supervisor only wants one or maybe a few of them depending on what the course is based on. Of course this is not to say that social sciences are all about memorisation, since then it would be an awful amount to remember, so what you instead need to do is to understand the views of the major figures of your field and then apply that logic to the assignments. On February 19 2009 05:52 Jibba wrote: Their experiments are more accurate and selection biases are more easily identifiable, but qualitative and quantitative research in human sciences follow the scientific method as well and must be open to re-testing. I don't say that social science is not fit being a science, why is this explanation necessary? Edit: On February 18 2009 13:17 benjammin wrote: all degrees are hard, don't be a douche You could say that the difficulty of a major is related to how many fails at taking that major because it was too hard, and I am fairly sure that there are more who fails at hard science majors compared to social science ones. What was the drop out rate of engineering now again? Of course you could say that the difficulty of a major is compared how much work you must put in to get a good job afterwards and then some obscure social science major would be by far the hardest. | ||
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ahrara_
Afghanistan1715 Posts
there is an objective truth to everything taught at an undergraduate level Really? I think your understanding of science is lacking. There is nothing objectively true about Newton's laws of physics. They have been empirically denied, but remain useful. Theories in physics can be described more accurately in math because it is easier to control for certain variables, but it is the same process utilized by the social sciences. Without understanding newton's ideas you can't understand relativity, just like you can't delve into heidigger without first reading neitzsche. While math isn't a science, the same applies: you learn algebra before you do calculus. No, you cannot "read up on the definitions" and understand it. Try. I dare you. It's true that social sciences tend to only introduce "mainstream" understandings. But so do the hard sciences. There is nothing "objectively true" about undergraduate studies. Yet without first being "indoctrinated," you can't develop your own theories. Before you can credibly bitch about how string theory doesn't have any experimental basis, you have to understand string theory to begin with. Get what I'm saying? | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
Students don't have the time or resources to put high level theorems together, and when they're proven, they're done so in a step by step basis so they can determine each rational move. | ||
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Slaughter
United States20254 Posts
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fusionsdf
Canada15390 Posts
and at least some of the people who didnt drop didnt exactly have As in the course. And this was considered normal. Until I see that happen in a social sciences first year course, I'm not really going to call it equal. If you see first and second years slacking off, its usually humanities, social science, or business. There is a difference between those courses and medicine/compsci/engineering/hard science whether it bruises people's egos or not. | ||
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infinity21
Canada6683 Posts
On February 18 2009 19:29 gchan wrote: About the difficulty of majors, it really depends on what type of person you are. At the bachelor's level, hard science and math majors tend to have a very heavy focus on memorization, whereas social sciences/liberal arts tend to have a focus on developing analytical skills and expression. err there is barely any memorization in bmath... | ||
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CTStalker
Canada9720 Posts
i mean, yeah, vector dynamics is hard, but the real shitty thing is having to do an assignment on it every week. take a group of engineering or cs majors, and get them to do weekly assignments on doing critical readings of a text using post-structuralism or modernism and they'd probably have a hard time. one of the reasons it's like this anyway, is that it's generally more of a labour to produce one great essay than 1 great assignment, but it's a lot easier to bullshit your way through an essay. again, this is based on my academic experience | ||
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ahrara_
Afghanistan1715 Posts
On February 19 2009 09:08 fusionsdf wrote: All I know is my first compsci course started with 40 people and finished with 7 and at least some of the people who didnt drop didnt exactly have As in the course. And this was considered normal. Until I see that happen in a social sciences first year course, I'm not really going to call it equal. If you see first and second years slacking off, its usually humanities, social science, or business. There is a difference between those courses and medicine/compsci/engineering/hard science whether it bruises people's egos or not. of course there's a difference, genius. it is harder to crack down on students who don't do the reading in the social sciences, because the grading system is different. but doing all the required reading in most humanities courses is just as difficult. the social sciences tend to attract more slackers for the reasons above. but that doesn't make it a less legitimate major. most of the really intelligent people i've met have been social science majors, and believe me, i've spent equal amounts of time in "hard major" courses. i would love to see somebody as well-versed in hard science as yourself try to understand foucault. since your intellect is so far ahead of ours, why not try it yourself? | ||
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fusionsdf
Canada15390 Posts
as soon as you write a functional 5000 line program | ||
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Works out to be around 7k for me total per study term. Plus I live at home during work terms 
