<p>I’m a little surprised too, QuantMech, but my source is the most recent Harvard Magazine. :)</p>
<p><a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/09/professorial-permutations[/url]”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2011/09/professorial-permutations</a></p>
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<p>It may be a combination of the bell curve theory at work and a mean to keep the egos in check. At the top end of the scale, even though the students are all very smart compared to the rest of the population, the differences in intellectual capacity among them are actually more significant. Some thinks that a good test for a class of full of bright students is one that will force the best student to think and work hard for a perfect mark.</p>
<p>I had a firsthand experience as a student in such a class in a top university many, many years ago. The mid-term average in my Artificial Intelligence class of 15 people was 34 out of 150. Many students received less than 20 on the test. As the prof handed out each of the graded tests, he would say the score if it was one of the higher scores. One bright grad student got a 78 who I knew had done 3/5 roots by hand in a probability mid-term because his calculator ran out of battery. Lo and behold, the last paper handed out had a grade of 125! The prof then said we all should thank this person for raising the class average above 30. The same person scored 145/150 on the final. And yes, most students didn’t even have time to read half of the test. Oh, please give or take 2 points on the numbers I cited because my memory is fading fast. </p>
<p>I was told Caltech didn’t start out with this level of difficulty, but the profs found it was hard to keep the students challenged (and respectful?) unless they make the problem sets and tests harder. The students responded to the challenge and so the problem sets had to be recalibrated again and the cycle continues…</p>
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<p>When looking at the foreign policies of George H. W. Bush, the 41st President of the United States and his son George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States, one might conclude that the Bush family is divided by a common language.</p>
<p>One speaks Queen’s english and the other Texan.</p>
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<p>Colleges appear to agree with you, as substituting a required Calculus class with offerings such as “Statistics in the Social Sciences” or “Understanding Statistical Models and their Social Science Applications” is quite popular.</p>
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This is interesting, and it may be a sensible reason to do this. Hopefully the lone supergenius is not the only one who can get an A, though. Something like this is just less likely to happen in a humanities class, I think. You might get a student who is more brilliant than others, but it would not manifest itself in such a quantifiable way.</p>
<p>^^
Why does a vision of a janitor that looks like Matt Damon appear?</p>
<p>For the record I guess I should say I’ve been a grad student here at Caltech long enough where I should begin thinking about graduating soon. I’ve also been the TA for four grad classes and two undergrad classes.</p>
<p>I’ll lead off by saying the students here are distributed just like at any other school. There are some insanely bright, and there are some that make me want to smash my face into my desk every time they ask me a question (not kidding when I was asked by multiple seniors what I meant when I wrote “You need to include error bars on your data.”).</p>
<p>That said, the reason exams are done in such a difficult manner is so that mastery of the material can be tested. If you only have students regurgitate problems they did in the homework you’re testing how well they can reproduce what they did in the homework. The assumption is in the real world, problems aren’t going to present themselves in exactly the same way you’ve seen them in the past. Therefore, you need to be able to look at a problem and figure out how to transform it into things you do know how to solve. This is really difficult to do right, and I’ll definitely agree I’ve had a lot of tests that didn’t do this well. </p>
<p>A large assumption at these schools is that everyone should be able to learn the material satisfactorily, so even if you do really poorly on a test you’ll still probably wind up with at least a C, and likely a B. The really hard tests are there to differentiate those students that excel in problem solving to get them the B+/As. Also, in my experience, grade distributions tend to clump a bit, so when you grade these on a curve it’s fairly obvious where you set cutoff points for each letter grade. As long as you don’t say X% of the class gets an A, then I think it’s pretty possible to grade fairly on a curve.</p>
<p>Finally, I feel really good tests do a good job at tying together all the ideas you couldn’t quite figure out, and you come out of it understanding more of the material than when you came in.</p>
<p>(And for people interested in the variety of testing that goes on at Caltech it ranges from 30 minute, in-class exams (unproctored due to honor code regulations) to unlimited time, open book, open internet, open library takehome exams. I remember one of those I spent roughly 30 hours on. 
Most are takehome, self-timed, and a few hours long.)</p>
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<p>Are 1/4 of that French Lit’s classes in STEM fields?</p>
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No, but at Yale, at least, about a quarter of his classes will be in areas other than French Lit. And most students will take quite a few additional classes outside of their majors. Looking at Caltech’s requirements, it really works a lot like those at a place like Juilliard.</p>
<p>^Are you sure about that? First of all, I was not aware Juilliard had any classes outside of the arts, so I don’t see how it is being compared with Caltech (which does have classes outside of its strength, science/technology.) Also, I know MIT has a pretty large humanities requirement (8 classes.) I assumed Caltech also required something similar.</p>
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<p>Do they need to be? Is there a level of literacy that must be accomplished in STEM, and can that level of literacy only be accomplished by lab-type sciences, not survey courses that relate science to some other field? Because I gotta tell, I’m happy as a clam that all I took in science was Human Repro and Development and Genetics, both science courses that were designed for non-science majors. They were a heck of a lot more intriguing and useful than a chemistry or physics class that would have been a major struggle and bored me to tears. Don’t really care that I apparently don’t have the science chops to impress the Caltech crowd; that’s their problem, not mine.</p>
<p>Well, if we’re talking about a desire for students to be well rounded, then, yes, I think there is a handful of classes one should take to be a scientifically literate person in our world today. I don’t really care if they take the “STEM” version of a class or not, but, to me, it seems ridiculous that someone with a, supposedly, well rounded education isn’t at least exposed to the three seemingly fundamental branches of science.</p>
<p>Likewise, I support engineering programs that require students to get a fairly broad education in their liberal arts classes. I know to fulfill requirements I was taking classes in writing, philosophy, history, psychology, and literature.</p>
<p>(Personally, I think a lot of people would find taking various Intro to Engineering classes a lot more interesting than physics, and think that might be a better way for many people to go.)</p>
<p>I also think that one thing Yale is really trying to do these days is pull the Humanities and STEM departments and students closer together.
What PG said above is exactly what they are doing: creating courses co-taught by science and social and philosophy profs to get a different kind of engagement with STEM subjects.
Personally, I think this is a brilliant idea!!! It is not dumbing down. </p>
<p>To have the STEM students engage in a discussion or think about issues in their sciences is a fabulous thing for our society. Having Humanities students work with the same issues and apply their excellent persuasive skills is bound to create an interesting experience for them. They are both somehow engaged in the creation and use of technologies! There are philosophical, historical, cognitive, artistic, historical, legal, marketing aspects to the sciences that are very important.</p>
<p>To get the STEM profs and the Humanities profs to work together on a course is just WOW! And to the STEM and Humanities students together- there is so much they can share to bend and expand their views when they come into the classroom to discuss what they know and learn from each other.
I for one would love to have Humanities students participate in the entire process of building a bridge- the design, they proposals, the funding, the politics, the budgeting, the community impact, the management of employees, the real-life response to technical difficulties encountered during construction, and on and on. Their perspective would NOT be on the business and scientific aspects, but on everything else.</p>
<p>Here’s a list of “The 12 Colleges with the Happiest Freshmen”.</p>
<p>Note numbers 1 and 6.</p>
<p>[The</a> 12 Colleges With The Happiest Freshmen](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>The 12 Colleges With The Happiest Freshmen | HuffPost College)</p>
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<p>By exposed to, is it your position that a non-STEM major ought to be required to take 3 courses - one in bio, one in chem and one in physics? </p>
<p>What areas of humanities are required for a well rounded education, and how much of each? History / political science - and at a US level only, European, African, Asian? The classics? Music, fine arts, theater? Psychology and sociology? Foreign languages? Literature? </p>
<p>Because based on this thread so far, sounds like STEMmies are fine when <em>they</em> get to immerse in STEM full time, but get upset that others simply don’t have a real interest / need beyond the basics. “Where does the dislike of STEM come from?” Well, where does the dislike of humanities come from? Different people like different things. I have no problem with a school having distribution requirements to ensure exposure to different areas, but I see no reason why they <em>have</em> to be at the same level as hard-core majors in those areas.</p>
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<p>Doesn’t Caltech require plenty of humanities classes? MIT requires 8 classes, the equivalent of a year of school if they were taken at the same time.</p>
<p>Considering that the top places generally expect you to take “the most challenging courseload possible” in high school, it’s not unreasonable to expect that they at least be at the level commensurate with a score of 5 on the AP exams for science. If not, then it might be a good idea for them to take general, AP-level courses in at least some of the sciences.</p>
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That cracks me up. They base it on retention rate. If that was always a good indicator of happiness San Quentin would be the happiest place on earth.</p>
<p>No, I’m not comparing Yale to San Quentin. Just a ridiculous title for the article.</p>
<p>^Interesting list. I found another list on the same website.</p>
<p>[21st</a> Century Einsteins: Unigo List](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>21st Century Einsteins: Unigo List | HuffPost College)</p>
<p>Here is a quote from a student on the Caltech section:</p>
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<p>I think non-STEM majors should have exposure to bio, chem and physics, but I am fine if this exposure comes from an AP course. Ditto that STEM majors should have World and US History, Economics, some sort of college level Literature. I rather like the idea of an engineering course for non-majors. I really enjoyed the engineering I had in architecture school - if I’d known more about it, I might have majored in it as an undergrad.</p>
<p>^ Mathmom, then have your children attend a service academy. The core curriculum includes 30 semester hours of math/hard science and engineering (Elec E, Mech E, Aero E, Astro E, Chem, Physics, Bio) as well as philosophy, psych, history, econ, management, etc.</p>