Cortopassi wrote: ↑Mon Aug 26, 2019 11:08 am
You guys are doing this whole woke thing a bit much.
Let me see if I can get you on my side.
First, look at it from the student perspective. Stanford is essentially saying "we have kids that want to major in physics, but they don't have the knowledge to even start our program." So they created a new class to tutor kids through it. That's gotta be one of the most expensive ways to impart high school knowledge there is! That kid is going to be paying Stanford University prices to get
up to a pre-freshman level of understanding, if even that. Or, they are taking out student loans that, in all likelihood, us taxpayers are going to be on the hook for.
Now, a more rational approach to achieve the same goal of getting under-prepared kids ready for undergraduate physics and calculus courses is the time-tested method of doing it at a cheaper community or junior college. It's like if you have a medical problem, like you're fat, have sore joints, and high blood pressure. You go to a doctor and tell them to solve your problem, and they prescribe you medication and plastic surgery, Expensive stuff. The type of solution I'm talking about with the college stuff would be if that person stopped buying unhealthy food and soda and started working out a bit. Like, you
could go the more expensive route, but there is a different way. If you thought the expensive route was the only option, or the best one, then you might appreciate someone telling you about a cheaper way to arrive at the same place.
To lead me into my next point, what are the student's advisors telling them? What I'm picturing is some 18 year old kid, doesn't know shit about the real world, who took "little to no" calculus or physics classes in high school... getting it in their head that they want to major in physics and become a physicist. That's not a *bad* thing, per se, since some of them might have been studying calculus and physics in their spare time while attending a high school that didn't have the classes or something. But that evidently isn't what Stanford is finding. They're finding that these kids can't even pass the basic classes and fail out. We can't expect university advisors to advise kids to switch their major to something easier because they're woefully unprepared, or to tell them to save some money and go to a community college or get a tutor for a while then come back in a semester. But when you are a hammer, all you can do is hammer nails. They're going to make their own class so they can milk more tuition.
And that's my second perspective; Stanford is using a diversity smoke screen to virtuously fleece kids of money. Instead of treating everyone the same and letting kids who can't hack it cut loose and find something they have a higher aptitude for, they string them along with the pre-undergraduate class and the other bullshit class mentioned, about faculty diversity. This isn't just aimed at Stanford's advisors, but their high school ones and parents too. What is going on there? Like I said above, Stanford employees aren't likely to go against their own interests, so guidance counselors and parents who don't tell kids that if they want to major in physics, they should take some relevant courses are really fucking them over. They're also fucking them over if they're saying something like "oh, don't worry that you didn't take any relevant classes, you can just take the remedial course once you get to Stanford!"
The way I see it, the students are both unprepared, and they're scrambling at the last second in an incredibly cost-ineffective way, and the university is enabling them, because unless there is a hit to their reputation (which I think is unlikely, because the "increasing diversity" smoke screen is effective), they aren't going to be the ones who suffer the consequences.
Anyone think offering this is an issue if kids have come from a school district where there isn't a boatload of AP level courses?
Kids can still be intelligent and prepared without AP classes; the only AP class I took in high school was English, it was useless, but I did just fine in college. That said, I'd hope that smart kids who are motivated to become physicists (definitely a specifically nerdy major) would find a way to get into an AP program, or take college classes in HS, or get a tutor, or SOMETHING to help them prepare. But I do think it's a whole 'nother discussion talking about how high schools fail kids.
I know I didn't graduate high school knowing calculus!
Me either, but I had no plans to major in physics
You there, Ephialtes. May you live forever.