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United States24775 Posts
On February 19 2009 14:08 ahrara_ wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2009 13:58 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2009 13:51 ahrara_ wrote:On February 19 2009 12:48 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2009 11:13 ahrara_ wrote:On February 19 2009 10:55 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2009 10:44 ahrara_ wrote: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. Your claim is that 'doing all the required reading' is as difficult as the homework and other assessments in technical major? I think you meant something else. Also, I don't think you mean to assume that the only hurdle in completing a humanities majors is to complete the reading... 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 don't think anyone was saying humanities aren't legit... they were just comparing level of difficulty. 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? The technical people are usually the ones who flaunt this idea (let's trade) because it favors them XD I have completed every lower division math course available at my school. On top of that I've done mechanics, modern physics, political theory, comp gov, and international relations. So in reply to your first question, yes, I do think it's just as difficult. I'll give that grade inflation is a more serious problem with the humanities. + Show Spoiler + Er.... I'm glad you are wonderful but your post doesn't seem to respond to mine at all. ya it does. i combined an opportunity to boast about myself with establishing credibility for my claim that both are equally difficult, after accounting for grade inflation. I think you are going to need to write what you really mean when you say completing the reading is as difficult as the work of technical majors... because as you stated it, you are completely wrong. A 5 year old can complete the reading. How do you use the reading and test yourself on the knowledge/understanding gained? That's where it really is. Also, how well rounded you in particular are, has almost nothing to do with it. i was talking about workload. from my experience, doing the reading for a social science course, especially when the material is from primary sources, takes a lot more time to complete than your typical math assignment. a 5 year old can never complete the reading because he would never understand it.
Ah you are clarifying now. Which math courses exactly did you take? When you say lower division I assume you mean calc1-3, diffeq, linear algebra? Depending on where you take it, the workload for those could range from pretty light to pretty heavy. But.... those are lower. You are comparing the workload of upper level humanities courses with lower level math courses? That hardly seems fair.
Also I can understand that understanding a reading can be a lot of work... but you said so yourself that there isn't proof that you've read it elicited from you (often), so why does it matter if you do it? We aren't talking about learning here, we are talking about getting a degree :p
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i'm actually comparing lower div to lower div. i'm still technically a sophomore.
well, as far as getting a degree, i will admit u are absolutely right about it being much easier. i just don't like to hear people dismiss social sciences as valueless which is what i thought people were doing.
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United States24775 Posts
On February 19 2009 14:14 ahrara_ wrote:
i'm actually comparing lower div to lower div. i'm still technically a sophomore.
well, as far as getting a degree, i will admit u are absolutely right about it being much easier. i just don't like to hear people dismiss social sciences as valueless which is what i thought people were doing.
Ah good point.. that we should make the distinction between the difficulty of getting the degree, and the potential difficulty the field can provide for you if you actually take it seriously. I've seen people make fun of business or humanities majors, but I don't think they usually actually thought the disciplines were 'bad' so much as their negative views were a reflection on its role in the academic (college) community.
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United States22883 Posts
On February 19 2009 14:16 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2009 14:14 ahrara_ wrote:
i'm actually comparing lower div to lower div. i'm still technically a sophomore.
well, as far as getting a degree, i will admit u are absolutely right about it being much easier. i just don't like to hear people dismiss social sciences as valueless which is what i thought people were doing. Ah good point.. that we should make the distinction between the difficulty of getting the degree, and the potential difficulty the field can provide for you if you actually take it seriously.
How would you actually quantify difficulty in either case?
Someone earlier mentioned drop out rates would indicate difficulty of field, but there is no clear deducible connection between drop out rates and difficulty of field. There is an inference to be made, but in this case the methodology would be extremely flawed. First, you would be assuming that the end goal is to measure 1a. conceptual difficulty or 1b. workload difficulty, which varies in importance for every single individual. Then there's the obvious selection bias of choosing drop out rates (which is inherent in any standard chosen, whether the number benefits our side or not, but is more pronounced in this case because of the familiarity of it to the engineering fields.) Depending on whether you want to measure 1a or 1b, you would need to exclude the other type, as well as any other group, such as full dropouts, or those who fall in love with an elective and move towards that, those that get addicted to BW, etc.
You would also be making the assumption that the people who dropped for 1a/1b truly had their heart set on being an engineer but dropped because they realized they "couldn't cut it", and not simply because many indecisive people are inclined to go towards engineering at the beginning because of potential salary or some other reason. If sociologists made $80k straight out of undergrad, you could potentially switch the class sizes around and find that just as many prospective social science students drop to rediscover themselves in the hard science fields. Unlikely, but not dismissable either.
Another obvious issue is the assumption that lower level classes are indicative of the field as a whole, and that both classes are being taught in similar manners. I know engineering classes usually like to weed out prospects with heavy workloads, largely for the professor's benefit because there are so many students to handle, but if that's not the intent of professors in social sciences, does that automatically indicate a higher level of 1a or 1b across the entire field? Isn't this an artificial representation of difficulty on the part of the hard science professor? Our physics exams were specifically designed to make people score 20%~ lower than a normal bell curve representation, and were often a step above what we were prepared for. If the teaching goal were the same, a professor in the social sciences could also recreate that scenario.
You would also need to qualify that in this case the difficulty is relative to products of the American education system, where math and science are largely neglected from 6-12.
There's plenty of other methodological errors in trying to show X is harder than Y, especially in this case, but I'm pretty sure the only nerds that are going to read this are ahrara and micronesia so I'm going to stop and just end with: apples and oranges, unless one of you mother fuckers can complete this research project.
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On February 19 2009 16:00 Jibba wrote:
You would also need to qualify that in this case the difficulty is relative to products of the American education system, where math and science are largely neglected from 6-12.
They are in all parts of the world, the lower grades are almost only teaching social sciences.
Basically it takes as long for them to go through half a language as it takes to go through plus, minus, multiplication and division. And people still have problem with math at those stages.
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United States24775 Posts
On February 19 2009 16:00 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2009 14:16 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2009 14:14 ahrara_ wrote:
i'm actually comparing lower div to lower div. i'm still technically a sophomore.
well, as far as getting a degree, i will admit u are absolutely right about it being much easier. i just don't like to hear people dismiss social sciences as valueless which is what i thought people were doing. Ah good point.. that we should make the distinction between the difficulty of getting the degree, and the potential difficulty the field can provide for you if you actually take it seriously. How would you actually quantify difficulty in either case? Someone earlier mentioned drop out rates would indicate difficulty of field, but there is no clear deducible connection between drop out rates and difficulty of field. There is an inference to be made, but in this case the methodology would be extremely flawed. First, you would be assuming that the end goal is to measure 1a. conceptual difficulty or 1b. workload difficulty, which varies in importance for every single individual. Then there's the obvious selection bias of choosing drop out rates (which is inherent in any standard chosen, whether the number benefits our side or not, but is more pronounced in this case because of the familiarity of it to the engineering fields.) Depending on whether you want to measure 1a or 1b, you would need to exclude the other type, as well as any other group, such as full dropouts, or those who fall in love with an elective and move towards that, those that get addicted to BW, etc. You would also be making the assumption that the people who dropped for 1a/1b truly had their heart set on being an engineer but dropped because they realized they "couldn't cut it", and not simply because many indecisive people are inclined to go towards engineering at the beginning because of potential salary or some other reason. If sociologists made $80k straight out of undergrad, you could potentially switch the class sizes around and find that just as many prospective social science students drop to rediscover themselves in the hard science fields. Unlikely, but not dismissable either. Another obvious issue is the assumption that lower level classes are indicative of the field as a whole, and that both classes are being taught in similar manners. I know engineering classes usually like to weed out prospects with heavy workloads, largely for the professor's benefit because there are so many students to handle, but if that's not the intent of professors in social sciences, does that automatically indicate a higher level of 1a or 1b across the entire field? Isn't this an artificial representation of difficulty on the part of the hard science professor? Our physics exams were specifically designed to make people score 20%~ lower than a normal bell curve representation, and were often a step above what we were prepared for. If the teaching goal were the same, a professor in the social sciences could also recreate that scenario. You would also need to qualify that in this case the difficulty is relative to products of the American education system, where math and science are largely neglected from 6-12. There's plenty of other methodological errors in trying to show X is harder than Y, especially in this case, but I'm pretty sure the only nerds that are going to read this are ahrara and micronesia so I'm going to stop and just end with: apples and oranges, unless one of you mother fuckers can complete this research project.
I agree that quantitatively comparing them is very difficult. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's an 'apples and oranges' thing... since most people would actually find one major more difficult than the other, overall, if they tried both. I can't think of any methodology to check this that isn't highly flawed though, short of recruiting random people and forcing them to try different majors XD
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United States22883 Posts
On February 20 2009 02:13 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2009 16:00 Jibba wrote:
You would also need to qualify that in this case the difficulty is relative to products of the American education system, where math and science are largely neglected from 6-12.
They are in all parts of the world, the lower grades are almost only teaching social sciences. Basically it takes as long for them to go through half a language as it takes to go through plus, minus, multiplication and division. And people still have problem with math at those stages.
My Chinese roommate disagrees.
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United States22883 Posts
On February 20 2009 03:16 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On February 19 2009 16:00 Jibba wrote:On February 19 2009 14:16 micronesia wrote:On February 19 2009 14:14 ahrara_ wrote:
i'm actually comparing lower div to lower div. i'm still technically a sophomore.
well, as far as getting a degree, i will admit u are absolutely right about it being much easier. i just don't like to hear people dismiss social sciences as valueless which is what i thought people were doing. Ah good point.. that we should make the distinction between the difficulty of getting the degree, and the potential difficulty the field can provide for you if you actually take it seriously. How would you actually quantify difficulty in either case? Someone earlier mentioned drop out rates would indicate difficulty of field, but there is no clear deducible connection between drop out rates and difficulty of field. There is an inference to be made, but in this case the methodology would be extremely flawed. First, you would be assuming that the end goal is to measure 1a. conceptual difficulty or 1b. workload difficulty, which varies in importance for every single individual. Then there's the obvious selection bias of choosing drop out rates (which is inherent in any standard chosen, whether the number benefits our side or not, but is more pronounced in this case because of the familiarity of it to the engineering fields.) Depending on whether you want to measure 1a or 1b, you would need to exclude the other type, as well as any other group, such as full dropouts, or those who fall in love with an elective and move towards that, those that get addicted to BW, etc. You would also be making the assumption that the people who dropped for 1a/1b truly had their heart set on being an engineer but dropped because they realized they "couldn't cut it", and not simply because many indecisive people are inclined to go towards engineering at the beginning because of potential salary or some other reason. If sociologists made $80k straight out of undergrad, you could potentially switch the class sizes around and find that just as many prospective social science students drop to rediscover themselves in the hard science fields. Unlikely, but not dismissable either. Another obvious issue is the assumption that lower level classes are indicative of the field as a whole, and that both classes are being taught in similar manners. I know engineering classes usually like to weed out prospects with heavy workloads, largely for the professor's benefit because there are so many students to handle, but if that's not the intent of professors in social sciences, does that automatically indicate a higher level of 1a or 1b across the entire field? Isn't this an artificial representation of difficulty on the part of the hard science professor? Our physics exams were specifically designed to make people score 20%~ lower than a normal bell curve representation, and were often a step above what we were prepared for. If the teaching goal were the same, a professor in the social sciences could also recreate that scenario. You would also need to qualify that in this case the difficulty is relative to products of the American education system, where math and science are largely neglected from 6-12. There's plenty of other methodological errors in trying to show X is harder than Y, especially in this case, but I'm pretty sure the only nerds that are going to read this are ahrara and micronesia so I'm going to stop and just end with: apples and oranges, unless one of you mother fuckers can complete this research project. I agree that quantitatively comparing them is very difficult. I wouldn't go so far as to say it's an 'apples and oranges' thing... since most people would actually find one major more difficult than the other, overall, if they tried both. I can't think of any methodology to check this that isn't highly flawed though, short of recruiting random people and forcing them to try different majors XD Another problem still exists between measuring people who have tried both: who are better college students, 18 or 20 year olds?
Personally, I was way too immature when I first entered to be a productive student in any field.
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i was better at 18, i started drinking at 20 ><
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On February 20 2009 05:43 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On February 20 2009 02:13 Klockan3 wrote:On February 19 2009 16:00 Jibba wrote:
You would also need to qualify that in this case the difficulty is relative to products of the American education system, where math and science are largely neglected from 6-12.
They are in all parts of the world, the lower grades are almost only teaching social sciences. Basically it takes as long for them to go through half a language as it takes to go through plus, minus, multiplication and division. And people still have problem with math at those stages. My Chinese roommate disagrees.
Did he go to a normal school?
I mean, just because I did university physics in 8th grade do not mean that that is a good representation of the Swedish school system as a whole.
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you guys are more sensitive than D level protosses.
It doesnt mean that your business/non-science majors are easy. Just easier than some other majors.
But you can keep arguing if you want that every major has exactly the same difficulty.
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Honestly, engineering/science majors are harder. But so what??? The real reason they're harder is because the assholes that teach them grade you harder. It's not that math/science is intrinsically harder than humanities, in fact as far as 'advanced education', math is a joke: students all around America routinely finish their first two years of calculus in 10-11th grade and could conceivably learn linear algebra or multivariable calculus if schools would incorporate that into the curriculum. I've seen too many 'trained math monkeys' to believe that something is intrinsically hard about math. Many people get an A in their vector calculus class without even being able to visualize a surface, let alone a solid and while still making basic algebra mistakes.
What makes engineering/math/science hard is the brutal curving and all the damn problem sets, and while these are legitimate difficulties--they are difficulty of the lowest caliber. The only thing you can claim from having a harder workload is that you have masochistic tendencies. It doesn't make you smarter or more deserving, it doesn't mean you learn more. It just means you get worked harder.
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On February 20 2009 07:09 KOFgokuon wrote:
i was better at 18, i started drinking at 20 ><
ROOKIE
20 year old me was a much better student. I dropped out at 19 cuz I spent a year and a half partying
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EPT
