<p>epiphany, I understand. I took a few philosophy courses that were pretty demanding. One was Logic and another was an ethics course with a heavy emphasis on St Thomas Aquinas. I seem to also remember that Kant was especially difficult. Sorry, none of those matched physics, organic chem, physical chem, or even embryology. Since my background and skills are in the sciences, I should have been heavily challenged by some of the humanities courses.</p>
<p>edad -- sounds like a man's point of view to me. :) </p>
<p>I am confident that my daughter would not be <em>weeded out</em> of a weed out course, but rather that she would dislike that approach so much that she might decide not to pursue her interests for that reason and not because she can't do science. My belief is that a teacher can teach a challenging course and be supportive at the same time, and that is what I hope my daughter will find in college. There is more than one way to approach this. I believe that this kind of approach, one where the professors care about their individual students, is one of the reasons a school like Kalamazoo ranks so very highly in percentage of their students that go on to achieve PhD's in science and math.</p>
<p>I appreciate that clarification, anitaw, but in that case I still don't quite agree. In my experience (and I went to an amazingly demanding high school in the humanities areas -- ALL humanities areas), there was also a quantum leap (to borrow from an opposing discipline) between high school & University in the humanities, as well. Again, perhaps it depends on the institution in question. Perhaps science courses have an equivalent level of college demand regardless of the level of the institution, whereas that may not be true of the humanities. In the better colleges, departments can be practically "closed systems" in themselves. I don't mean socially or politically. I mean that the emphasis is slanted toward those who are already specializing -- grad students, if you will. A language or a social sciences major may find the philosophy or English deparment as different & as challenging as the Physics major finds biology. You had better learn the "language" of that discipline, the methodology of that subject matter, if you expect to earn even a B. </p>
<p>Or to put it another way, perhaps some of the Intro Humanities courses at some colleges being referred to are more of the level I received in my very demanding high school, and which some students are today receiving at their similar prep schools.</p>
<p>If what is posted in this thread about humanities is true, American universities must be rubbish as teaching them. Subjects like History have infamously high workloads at Oxford and Cambridge - some colleges expecting 30+ hours a week reading...</p>
<p>Octafish,
Interesting that you mentioned something that I was about to add in an earlier post about this, that is that the demands of an institution of international reputation, such as Oxford, Cambridge, Berkeley, Chicago, etc. will not & should not include very many, if any, watered down humanities courses. </p>
<p>...and it's not just high volume, which you mentioned, but difficult analysis & attack of that material.</p>
<p>^True, thanks for adding that. I just know that undergrad scientists often think they do a lot more work than arts students so I thought that Oxbridge's infamous humanities slog might impress them.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if we've established that those saying humanities courses are un-demanding are largely former science majors who may have mostly taken lower division humanities courses, perhaps to fulfill gen ed requirements. If so, they may not really have a fair basis for evaluating the difficulty of a humanities major.</p>
<p>My S is an Engineering major who is not going to delve too deeply into the humanities or social sciences. But I've seen the level of work required for some that he has taken - because he likes me to read his essays and reports. I think, even though his have been 100-level courses and seminars, that they have been quite demanding in workload. What's different is not how hard he has to work, but rather the relative ease of getting a B or an A. Versus his science and Engineering courses graded on the curve.</p>
<p>I also think that science and Engineering majors are reluctant to take heavy-reading and heavy-writing load hum/soc sci courses. Understandably, because the class hours, lab hours and prep hours for their science courses put such heavy demands on their time. So they look for the hum/soc sci courses that will be a little "lighter." Can't say I blame them. Also can't say whether those posting here fit this description; but if so, it might affect their perspectives.</p>
<p>You know I loved history in high school and got a five on the AP. But I just couldn't manage to love college history courses. Unless you count architectural history as history. :)</p>
<p>
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some colleges expecting 30+ hours a week reading...
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Compared to spending 40+ hours a week writing complex programs - not so bad.</p>
<p>
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Compared to spending 40+ hours a week writing complex programs - not so bad.
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</p>
<p>That's on top of their actual work. Not to mention that my brother took programming at Oxford, Cambridge and MIT and he's never done 40+ hours of it as far as I know. So I'm not sure where these schools that do that are...</p>
<p>mstee:
I am not aware that I made any gender-specific comments. The differences between science and humanities applies to both sexes for both students and for teachers. My D is facing the same challenges with the science weed out courses that I had. Right now she is worried, i.e., challenged, with second semester physics. She had one exam and placed about the bottom third of the class. That is a C or C-. If she drops a little bit on next week's exam or the final, she will have a serious setback and will not be able to continue with higher level courses without retaking physics. Physics in college is a lot different than high school where she had no problems with A's in AP physics and AP calculus.</p>
<p>It appears that she is facing a challenging course and the teacher is supportive. She attends a weekly study session with a TA. Both the TA and professor have office hours and will spend time helping a student. She has a study buddy. The course includes interactive online exercises. If she requests it, she can get free tutoring. I would call that supportive. The challenging part is also there. My D is at a selective college where all her fellow students did really well in high school science, but the bottom quarter or third will not meet the standards and will be weeded out. The weedout can be even worse at much less selective State U. I TA'd for intro chem at a State U and we usually weeded out 60-70% of the students. They just did not have the skills to meet the standards and progress to higher level courses. There can be very large differences in the standards between highly selective and less selective colleges. We all want our kids to be accepted into their reach schools - along with good FA. That may not be best for all students. Some might be happier at a match or safety school where they are towards the top of the pile and are less challenged in meeting standards.</p>
<p>
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My D is facing the same challenges with the science weed out courses that I had. Right now she is worried, i.e., challenged, with second semester physics. She had one exam and placed about the bottom third of the class. That is a C or C-. If she drops a little bit on next week's exam or the final, she will have a serious setback
[/quote]
Sending a little empathy your way, edad. Been there done that with a similar course at same school last term with DS. He did the same things your D is doing and pulled it out with a C+ in the end. Major celebration - can you imagine celebrating a C+? We can. He's in a bit of the same status with another course this term, though trended upward on the second test, landing above average on that one. Still a nail-biter for him.</p>
<p>Not all students get better grades in the humanities than in the sciences / math. My daughter has always had more difficulties in the humanities than science or math. This has persisted her freshman year at Harvard. As a premed student, its the core course requirements that are killing her.</p>
<p>I would like to add that the best thing that happened to my A- student high schooler was to get into her reach (highly ranked) school. She never put out too much effort in high school but felt very deserving of her grades. Made it through freshman year with a A- type average. It all hit the fan first semester soph year and she really struggled-lots of Cs on tests and actually received her first C ever in a class. I really worried that she would redefine herself and give up surrounded by such higher achieving students. Kept my mouth shut (how hard is that!) and lo and behold she went back determined to kick it up a notch. Seems to be paying off in her grades this semester and more importantly her work ethic is 100% improved. What a great life lesson-these are the people she will be living and competing with in the "real world" so better to deal with it now than later.</p>
<p>Congrats to you tammy for doing the hardest thing ever, keeping your lip zipped when you needed to! </p>
<p>By the way, I literally "zipped my lip" on a recent college tour. When the tour was starting, I realized it was quite cold and as a bent my head over and zipped up my winter coat -- OUCH. I zipped my lip. So was dabbing my bleeding lip with a kleenex for the entire tour. The tour guide and other parents/students graciously pretended not to notice. Fortunately my daughter was elsewhere (visiting a class) at the time. She would have been mortified. When she saw me, she jsut says, "Mom, what did you do to your lip?"</p>
<p>Okay, I'm from CA. I haven't had much practice zipping up a winter coat with a hood for the past three decades . . . :)</p>
<p>Okay edad -- your last post sounds like something I can agree with. State U's are probably the most notorious for thinning the herd right off the bat.</p>
<p>My sister took physics in college years ago, and decided it was not for her. She was at a small school. Not weeded out by flunking, but just decided she didn't want to work that hard at something it that became not that interesting to her at the college level. So she weeded herself out, I suppose. She is now a pastor.</p>
<p>I have a son who has decided not to major in physics. Same reason. (He is a math major, which basically he decided to major in because it was the easiest major for him; he is done with his major except for one more course next year and mostly taking music classes and core requirements now and enjoying doing that). He didn't find physics interesting at an advanced level, though at one time he thought he might double major in math and physics (a lot of the requirements overlap). He got excellent grades in the classes he took, though. </p>
<p>Another son, my oldest, is still majoring in physics. I really don't know why. He <em>should</em> have been weeded out long ago, but he just keeps repeating classes until he gets it. Very stubborn. He is 24 and has hit a few rather large bumps in the road along the way,but it looks like he is going to graduate with a degree in physics at some point . . . We'll see. He doesn't seem, as you put it, suited for science, but yet he persists . . . I have no idea what he plans to do when he graduates. But I'll be very proud of him when he finally does graduate.</p>
<p>At any rate, do you think your daughter isn't suited to study science because she is struggling in this class? She may have to retake it, but I'm told that is not uncommon with science/engineering majors. It doesn't necessarily mean that someone is not suited for science when they have a difficulty in a class like that.</p>
<p>Anyway, we'll see what happens with my daughter. I just want to set her up to have the best experience possible, so that it becomes clear to her whether or not science is her thing. Don't want it to be because the experience of taking science class is oppressive. If she decides not to do science, I would like it to be because she realizes it is not what she wants to do, not because of a horrendous weeder class experience. It's okay if it turns out that higher level science is not her thing. But she seems interested at this point, so I don't want her to think she is not suited for it right off the bat because of the weeder approach.</p>
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She may have to retake it, but I'm told that is not uncommon with science/engineering majors. It doesn't necessarily mean that someone is not suited for science when they have a difficulty in a class like that.
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I agree with this - especially for the early classes. Some students aren't as prepared as others (ex - some might have taken Physics C in HS and others not) and some just take a bit longer to get focused on the level of effort but they can still sometimes retake the course and end up doing well.</p>
<p>My D is a math major at an LAC. The LAC's president's husband is a math professor (or was) at UC Berkeley. Once, when speaking with TheMom, he said that having seen both the way Berkeley does it (weed out) and the way D's LAC does it (full system support), he prefers the latter and thinks there is little, if any, qualitative difference in the students at the end of the process.</p>
<p>Right now she's in an abroad Math program with some pretty high-powered students from around the country. ("I've never been with a smarter group of people" was the most recent comment and that's saying something.) She's more than holding her own with students from Harvard, Yale, etc. Well...she says the Yalie is brilliant. But she is doing very well in the proof-based problem sets, actually seeming to have an advantage over some who have come from "weed out" schools.</p>
<p>Follow your passion... Mstee, it sounds like your older son really likes physics - he's kept at it until he gets it. If he gets a job in the field he'll be a happy working man.</p>
<p>I was a computer science/engineering weed out at a large UC 30+ years ago, landing as a math major instead. I've always wondered "what if". My D is at a LAC and weed-out isn't even a term used there. D is a junior chemistry major, and truly has a passion for the subject even though she had subpar grades in O-Chem after practically working 24/7 on those courses (2 semester sequence). Fortunately, that isn't the only chemistry field, and she's finding analytical and physical chemistry very stimulating and more suited to her "mathiness". After being below average in O-Chem, she found herself at the top of her classes in A-Chem and P-Chem, with a plum summer research position. If she had been at big U, she may have bailed after (during) O-Chem and never gotten to the areas where she possesses a stronger chemistry aptitude. She says she still doesn't get O-Chem even after working as a lab assistant for the course last term. I really hate that atmosphere that "half of you will be gone by the drop date". Most 18-20 year olds don't have the experience to get past that message.</p>
<p>OP - Ginger40:</p>
<p>Now that the responses are 7 pages long by now, what are your thoughts? Has it been enlightening, encouraging, discouraging?</p>