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On November 12 2010 05:15 Insanious wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 05:04 FishForThought wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On November 12 2010 04:54 Insanious wrote:
I think one of the bigger things to look at with university is that grades don't matter as long as you pass. If you pass with 55% or with 95% you still only have say a BCom(or BA or BCS, etc...) on your resume. The real question is did the 55% student do other things with high time at university? Work, Co-op, volunteering, student associations, clubs, sports, etc...
So what is happening is your having students who come to university, get 95% and leave with nothing else. This reflects poorly on the student (no employer is going to ask "so what grade did you get in ADM 1104?"), and it reflects poorly on the school.
How does it reflect poorly on the school? Well businesses recruit from schools (for example RBC exclusively recruits from the University of Ottawa), if a school cannot put out students that are both book smart and street smart then what use is that educational institution?
Its great and all to get 90's but if you have no social life, that detracts from your eligibility as an employee as well as your desirability as a student. So they fudge numbers, they get less Asians in, and they get a more diverse student body, which means the school can offer a more diverse set of students to employers and can get them nice recruitment contracts because their students offered are of a higher quality.
The only times that grades matter in school is if you want to get into grad studies (med school, law school, Masters degree, etc...) and even then, once you are in, everything after that depends on your social skills.
A more sociable doctor is less likely to be sued
A more charismatic lawyer is more likely to win their case
A more confident business person is more likely to seal a deal
Knowledge is only part of the reason you go to university, the rest is to learn life skills to be a productive member of society. If you don't do both then you aren't as strong of a member of society as many other students that do get social skills as well as knowledge even if their CGPA is 30% lower than yours.
I mean heck for me, I'm a Finance student, 99.999999999% of everything I learn in University is 100% useless. Every formula they force me to memorize there is a computer program that does it. Is there any point in my life that I'm ever going to need to calculate a NPV, beta, CI, etc... by hand? Hell no. You learn it simply to say that you can.
The paper you come out with says "this person can learn stuffs" it doesn't matter how well you can memorize a text book, that is what intranets, the internet, and computer programs are for.
But if you cannot talk to another human being, if you cannot be sociable at a restaurant meeting, or at the bar/club after wards then you wont get very far... Actually I get asked a lot about my GPA and Engineering course marks when I was interviewing for graduate jobs. It is even more important to have good grades, if you are looking for co-op jobs as well unless you think you can compete without co-op or any work experience. I'm in co-op in my school. My grades are not amazing, but I still have a job and others do not simply because I have previous work experience and have social skills. But ya grades are important if you choose to continue your academic career. But for example If i interview at say Investors Group as a financial assistant. They will never know my grades and will never ask them. So if I got a 55% or a 95% it doesn't really matter it will be based more off my co-op and previous work history, my extracurricular activities and how sociable I am. Although I'm generalizing this, there are probably some fields that are different (I assume most things in the maths/sciences/engi departments might have some sort of a "what kind of grades did you get" but no commerce, arts, social studies, etc... positions will ask you what you got in university. Actually thinking about it now... if I were to say be a sciences/engi/maths student and interview at say ALCan or Dupont they wont care what my grades are, they will care if I have any previous experience working in the field and who I know personally...
Yeah.. problem is that you probably don't have hands-on experience working in the field when you are fresh out of University, so the only thing they can look at are your course projects and they will definitely ask you how well you did on those courses.
Grades are not everything, but they certainly contribute to your competitiveness in the job market. Even if they don't ask you about your grades, if you can brag about them in an interview, it would give them more reasons to hire you.
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As a white guy who did his undergrad at uoft mississauga, and is currently in law school at western, i approve of this thread.
/has no extra curriculars to speak of.
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This is crap...utter and complete crap.
I did my genetics undergrad at UofT, as well as a pharmacology masters. I'm Italian (white) and can tell you that asians are in no way "smarter" than the rest. While true that UofT houses a considerable asian student population, that says nothing about their intelligence. This is my personal impression based on 6 years at UofT: Asians are as intelligent as any other demographic. They may have a SLIGHTLY better work ethic, however, I have encountered enough asian slackers throughout my career to disprove this. I think the important thing to remember is that since Asians represent a larger population, there will inevitably be a larger proportion of them who are intelligent or have greater ethic. This in no way makes them "smarter" as a people, its just simple statistics.
My impression is that while some asians are quite intelligent and have great work ethic, they sometimes lack the stress-management or coping skills that are a necessity for many careers. For example, I started my life science degree with a predominantly asian student population all wanting to become physicians. Now that I am in med school, I have seen few asians among most Med classes. This could be explained by admission demographics on behalf of the universities, OR it could simply be fewer successful asian applicants.
I just want to point out that I am in no way prejudice towards asians or anything of the sort. Im just not fond of the mentality that many non-asian students have wherein they feel they will never be able to compete. It is not true. Success is determined on the individual basis, not by demographics. If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, then chase that dream. Saying that you can't compete with asians is a cop-out.
I hope this helps, I'll welcome any discussion.
PEACE
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a) nothing can be too korean
b) korean is asian
-> nothing can be too asian
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I'm at Waterloo.
It's pretty Asian and being in Mathematics/Chartered Accountancy. It's SUPERAsian.
3 Caucasian's in the whole class of 70ish kids.
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I wish there were more white kids in the class so I don't feel like I'm studying in China.
I count 5 white kids still left in math/ca.
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On November 12 2010 06:44 Tempest186 wrote:
This is crap...utter and complete crap.
I did my genetics undergrad at UofT, as well as a pharmacology masters. I'm Italian (white) and can tell you that asians are in no way "smarter" than the rest. While true that UofT houses a considerable asian student population, that says nothing about their intelligence. This is my personal impression based on 6 years at UofT: Asians are as intelligent as any other demographic. They may have a SLIGHTLY better work ethic, however, I have encountered enough asian slackers throughout my career to disprove this. I think the important thing to remember is that since Asians represent a larger population, there will inevitably be a larger proportion of them who are intelligent or have greater ethic. This in no way makes them "smarter" as a people, its just simple statistics.
My impression is that while some asians are quite intelligent and have great work ethic, they sometimes lack the stress-management or coping skills that are a necessity for many careers. For example, I started my life science degree with a predominantly asian student population all wanting to become physicians. Now that I am in med school, I have seen few asians among most Med classes. This could be explained by admission demographics on behalf of the universities, OR it could simply be fewer successful asian applicants.
I just want to point out that I am in no way prejudice towards asians or anything of the sort. Im just not fond of the mentality that many non-asian students have wherein they feel they will never be able to compete. It is not true. Success is determined on the individual basis, not by demographics. If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, then chase that dream. Saying that you can't compete with asians is a cop-out.
I hope this helps, I'll welcome any discussion.
PEACE
Hmm I had to read your post a couple times to figure out your tone. It starts off rather antagonistic, but I can ignore that. I will agree with your last two sentences...but wow.
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if the prospect of not being able to party hard enough is hindering your university choices then one needs to reevaluate their personal goals.
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On November 12 2010 04:59 domovoi wrote:Show nested quote +On November 12 2010 04:41 Zorkmid wrote:
I'd be curious to hear what Law Schools ask potential students about? Any law students doing interviews right now? 'Tis the season Law schools don't do interviews. They only care about two things: - LSAT - GPA (weighted by school, so an average GPA at Harvard/Princeton/Yale >> average GPA at some no-name school) Sometimes they care a bit about any post-undergrad experience.
GPA is not weighted by school, although they are slightly impressed by HPY. They do however give Engineering GPAs a very slight boost. This is how I got into a top10 law school with a bottom 5% undergrad gpa without being a beneficiary of affirmative action.
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(being asian) I have to say that asian parents largely have no idea what they are doing these days. A large part of their emphasis on academics is driven by conformity (ie they are doing it because other asian parents are doing it, and no one wants to look like they have a 'dumb' kid), so they usually put little rational thought into this issue. Once the educational part of their children's life finishes (ie they graduate from university), a lot of these parents are at a loss as to how to relate to their kids.
A part of the issue for mainland Chinese is that the parents of people who are in university today had to go through the Cultural Revolution (in the 70s) where there was widespread anti-intellectualism (schools were closed and teachers were attacked). So the ironic fact is that a lot of these parents who push their kids to be academic are actually not that well educated themselves. So the situation you have is literally one where idiots are trying to force OTHER people to be "smart", and there are obviously inherent problems with this.
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On November 12 2010 06:56 Mykill wrote:
I'm at Waterloo.
It's pretty Asian and being in Mathematics/Chartered Accountancy. It's SUPERAsian.
3 Caucasian's in the whole class of 70ish kids.
That's because it's Waterloo though. The only people there are Asians or nerdy white guys. The demographics differ really wildly sometimes within the universities in Ontario.
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my parents are white as shit and never pushed me. It took me literally 20 years to get my shit together and start acting like I cared, and in the end it payed off. I guess.
I think I have mentioned this in another thread, but my program is more than half Chinese citizens. Many others are from South Korea. I don't mind it that much, except it sure would be nice if it wasnt so cliquish.
Anyway, my personal observation is that most of the students in the program (which is a top 25 graduate program) who are foreign residents of south east asian countries have little in the way of personality or individuality. I want to say that I think this is not at all a race issue, because the "americanized" asian students do not suffer from this same problem nearly as much.
I try very hard to be open and talk with these students but often they will let you talk at them for 10 or 15 minutes at a time with no replies longer than a few words no matter how much you invite them to talk.
When we had the big department meet and greet, I had to ask people where they were from, what they thought of the city, did they like the food, what were their expectations constantly and it was a fight to get anything out of them.
I have to say that to me life is about learning but studying is not the same thing as learning. There are many, many things to learn and I think one day a lot of these kids will wake up and realize they havent really learned anything important. I know I havent, and Ive spent my time learning about things I actually like and care about instead of sitting in the library studying for a stupid exam.
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On November 12 2010 06:44 Tempest186 wrote:
This is crap...utter and complete crap.
I did my genetics undergrad at UofT, as well as a pharmacology masters. I'm Italian (white) and can tell you that asians are in no way "smarter" than the rest. While true that UofT houses a considerable asian student population, that says nothing about their intelligence. This is my personal impression based on 6 years at UofT: Asians are as intelligent as any other demographic. They may have a SLIGHTLY better work ethic, however, I have encountered enough asian slackers throughout my career to disprove this. I think the important thing to remember is that since Asians represent a larger population, there will inevitably be a larger proportion of them who are intelligent or have greater ethic. This in no way makes them "smarter" as a people, its just simple statistics.
My impression is that while some asians are quite intelligent and have great work ethic, they sometimes lack the stress-management or coping skills that are a necessity for many careers. For example, I started my life science degree with a predominantly asian student population all wanting to become physicians. Now that I am in med school, I have seen few asians among most Med classes. This could be explained by admission demographics on behalf of the universities, OR it could simply be fewer successful asian applicants.
I just want to point out that I am in no way prejudice towards asians or anything of the sort. Im just not fond of the mentality that many non-asian students have wherein they feel they will never be able to compete. It is not true. Success is determined on the individual basis, not by demographics. If you want to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer, then chase that dream. Saying that you can't compete with asians is a cop-out.
I hope this helps, I'll welcome any discussion.
PEACE
Law is almost devoid of Asians.
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This quote pretty much sums up that article; "... many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like". I do have to say though, my pharmacy course is pretty much 90%+ Asian.
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I myself am an south asian at a top 50 school (ranking taken with grain of salt...)
That being said, I notice a large amount of asians on campus and those that I know do fit stereotypes unfortunately.
But what are you gonna do, these kids have the grades so they get in, simple as that.
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the problem is that grades are definitely NOT the best evaluation of the quality of the students. There are many other intangible qualities, but none of those can be measured in a fair/unbiased fashion. So as a result grade ends up being the predominant metric and it is so easy to get good grades if you have the slightest idea how to study. Asians have the grade thing figured out back to front. Dunno about other countries, China has it figured out.
Let me make an example:
I was sent back to China over one summer of 2006? To study for the SAT. Now why would I study SAT in China? Because there's this school in China, called "New Oriental" which destroys all U.S. college entrance tests. They have instructors who purposefully take the GRE multiple times, failing them, just to memorize the exam questions. There is an entire floor worth of library devoted to the standardized tests. The school hosts many cases, from TOFL to LSAT, with a very centralized goal of getting its students into the top U.S. schools.
So as a culture, we understands how the tests are being done, we know how to get good grades. That being said, Chinese are no better at theory nor practice nor anything, its just they get good grades.
This problem is worse in China, where all the Chinese top universities admission is taken up by people who only knew how to take tests, but does not know how to do anything else.
Sad, really.
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A lot of people in here dunno where South-East Asia is.
China, Korea, Japan aren't there folks lol.
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On November 12 2010 11:58 evanthebouncy! wrote:
the problem is that grades are definitely NOT the best evaluation of the quality of the students. There are many other intangible qualities, but none of those can be measured in a fair/unbiased fashion. So as a result grade ends up being the predominant metric and it is so easy to get good grades if you have the slightest idea how to study. Asians have the grade thing figured out back to front. Dunno about other countries, China has it figured out.
Let me make an example:
I was sent back to China over one summer of 2006? To study for the SAT. Now why would I study SAT in China? Because there's this school in China, called "New Oriental" which destroys all U.S. college entrance tests. They have instructors who purposefully take the GRE multiple times, failing them, just to memorize the exam questions. There is an entire floor worth of library devoted to the standardized tests. The school hosts many cases, from TOFL to LSAT, with a very centralized goal of getting its students into the top U.S. schools.
So as a culture, we understands how the tests are being done, we know how to get good grades. That being said, Chinese are no better at theory nor practice nor anything, its just they get good grades.
This problem is worse in China, where all the Chinese top universities admission is taken up by people who only knew how to take tests, but does not know how to do anything else.
Sad, really.
Very doubtful about this. We are not talking about China, and I do not know one Asian person who has spent a significant amount of time in the west who does this.
Have you never considered that if this was true, they'd drop out of said universities very quickly?
Even assuming it is true, it would be the fault of the universities. This is like having an unstoppable 6pool in SC2, and when all the Koreans start 6pooling saying that all Koreans know how to do is 6pool.
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So asians are, on average, better students than the lazy ass white americans.
OH NO!!!!! FUCKING ASIANS, THEY TOOK 'R SPOTS!!!
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All I have to say is that anyone who thinks or says that Asians never party or club or drink and only study... know no Asians.
I am Asian-American. The vast majority of my friends are either fobs or Asian-Americans. I have friends who only party/drink. I have friends that never party/drink. I have friends that study and party/drink. It's just the same as every other race.
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EPT
