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Did this guy have a personal problem with community colleges?</p>
<p>sakky, your entire argument has completely missed the point of an engineering curriculum. engineering curriculums are designed in such a way as to TEACH YOU HOW TO THINK AND SOLVE PROBLEMS AS AN ENGINEER. it is NOT so much about what details you remember from class. if you are learning correctly, you will notice a change in how you approach solutions to problems. does it matter if you remember the exact derivation? NO. anyone can be taught to mechanically plug-and-chug, which is exactly why courses are not taught in that manner - engineering is not a plug and chug field. let me give you an example. when you are learning to write, one of the main things you do is practice developing words and then stringing them into sentences. imagine if the teacher instead gave you a sheet with the alphabet and an explanation that these letters form words. teacher then tells you to write an essay, by the end of the day. you have all the tools, so what’s the problem, right? except you have NO IDEA how to go about SOLVING THE PROBLEM. and that is why it is so crucial to go through the “unused” portions of the curriculum. standards for curriculum should not be lowered, but i do think engineering professors are in serious need of teaching method reform.</p>
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And? I am not a chemical engineer, I cannot comment on how important Maxwell’s Relations are to the field. I can say that there is no one single answer to the question of “what skills does an engineer need?”, but there is nothing wrong with any given responsible agency applying its own standards - in this case Berkeley and whatever body accredits it. If between THEM they think it is reasonable to require, why should they not be allowed?</p>
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No, it is defined as core because just about everyone else besides yourself believes it should be.</p>
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Really? Summarize them for us so we can all get caught up. Then tell us why, on a forum for sharing personal experiences, keeping the basis for your ever-controversial opinions is so important. Is this agenda you push personal, academic, or other? When you push these stories, what data set are you drawing from - an anecdote CAN be useful when it is placed in context, something you do not provide.</p>
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And yet you start so many arguments with anecdotes (for example, a Chem E PhD who does not understand MR)…</p>
<p>Anyway, this is not limited to engineering, although it is a prime case in college. I have a friend who went Army - many people washed out of his Ranger School and wound up in places like Signal School, and yet you see few people failing out of Signals training and winding up in the Rangers. How many people try to be accountants and through a lack of native talent wind up as surgeons? </p>
<p>The only way a two-way drift would make sense would be if there were a large number of people with the talent and dedication to be engineers who nonetheless decided to pursue significantly less lucrative and prestigious fields at first, but then drifted back to engineering because those other fields apparently required some faculty that they lacked. One of the reasons the hard sciences and engineering are so much harder is simply because there are actual definite answers to most problems - I cannot argue that 1V across a 1ohm resistor produces anything other than 1A, but an English class can produce twenty seven different interpretations of a book without any of them being wrong. This makes failing at engineering a heck of a lot easier than failing at English.</p>
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No, I am saying that fundamental is not a fixed term, but one agreed to by those party to the decision. Catering to the lowest common denominator pleases only those with the lowest standards.</p>
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Because he or she is apparently to stubborn, ignorant, or dumb to realize the wealth of options available to them short of flunking out. They could consider another major more appropriate to their level of talent and dedication. Or, if they are set on being an engineer, they could transfer to a different program! People chime in here everyday on these boards, saying that they are struggling in a particular program, and many successfully transfer to other schools and a more suitable level of rigor. The reason for having such a variegated array of programs is so that students can find the best school for them, and there is no reason to punish the rest of Berkeley’s students when those struggling can find schools much better for them elsewhere!</p>
<p>Yes, if they overpursue they can severely damage their position. If they are so darned stubborn that they miss all the signs, and wait until no one would want them before finally recognizing that they are in the wrong department for them… then I have little sympathy. The paths exist, it is up to the individual to take them. For someone to fail so thoroughly at Berkeley that they would be unadmitable elsewhere would (I suspect) take a lot more than a simple inability to comprehend Maxwell’s Relations. If someone had a decent transcript with a couple of F’s, they could still get admitted at lots of schools - it is the person whose grades range from F up to C who are in trouble, but those are the people who probably should not be in engineering anyway.</p>
<p>sakky, the goal of an engineering program is not to teach the fundamentals and only the fundamentals. It is to give the students a solid grasp of the fundamentals as well as a taste of some of the more advanced stuff. If you stopped at just the fundamentals, you would never entice people to keep learning. Regardless, I feel like your argument is getting old in relation to Maxwell’s relations. That is one data point. What are some others?</p>
<p>I know that UIUC didn’t deem it necessary to teach the Maxwell relations, so I don’t honestly know much about them other than the fact that they have to do with thermodynamic potentials and understanding potentials in general is absolutely fundamental in engineering. There are so many problems that can be greatly simplified in terms of potentials in engineering across all the branches and the rules hold equally for all of them. Perhaps that is why the Maxwell relations are considered worthy of being taught, particularly (it seems) in some chemical engineering programs where there may otherwise be limited exposure to potentials at the undergraduate level. Meanwhile, the mechanical engineering curriculum that I took as an undergraduate didn’t bother because there were other places where we would run into potential functions that were much more common. Without knowing more about Maxwell’s relations I don’t feel I can speculate further, but understanding potentials is something that every engineer ought to be able to do, and it is really quite easy.</p>
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<p>A more practical reason why two way drift tends not to occur is that engineering majors have long chains of prerequisites, while humanities majors have short chains or no chains (e.g. history courses at Berkeley generally do not have any prerequisites, even other history courses, while six or seven course long prerequisite chains are not that hard to find in Berkeley engineering).</p>
<p>So someone going into his/her fourth semester who wants to switch into history can take the four history courses needed to declare the major and still be on schedule to graduate on time. But trying to switch into an engineering major at that time is almost certain to delay graduation if one has not been taking the needed math and physics courses before then. Of course, if the student who wants to switch into engineering had started as a physics or chemistry major, a late switch is more doable.</p>
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<p>So again, you have conceded that the M.R.'s are not “fundamental” - in the sense that everybody has to learn them - but are a highly idiosyncratic feature of certain schools. </p>
<p>That has been my point all along. The next question then is to determine whether that idiosyncrancy is actually beneficial to students. </p>
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<p>And would that include the M.R.'s? Apparently you yourself have conceded that many schools do not teach the M.R.'s. </p>
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<p>Sorry, you’re not my boss and you’re not my father. I don’t take orders from you. I post and don’t post as I please. You are free to post whatever you want, and I am free to do the same. </p>
<p>I believe I provide sufficient data that back my posts that people are able to judge for themselves the veracity of what I am saying. </p>
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<p>The irony is that that is not how graduate programs - and particularly PhD programs - are run. If anything the completion rate for PhD’s in English is probably lower than that of Phd’s in engineering. There may be 27 different interpretations of anything in literature, but that doesn’t mean that any of those interpretations will necessarily merit a PhD from an English dissertation committee. Far from it, in fact - people often times labor for more than a decade to complete an English dissertation that will be acceptable for a PhD. Many others are unable to devise a PhD-worthy dissertation at all. </p>
<p>That demonstrates that humanities programs can be extraordinarily rigorous and difficult to complete. Obviously while we can’t hold undergrads to the same level of scrutiny that we hold PhD students, we can surely hold them to higher standards than what they are currently to held now. Just because there are myriad interpretations of any piece of literature doesn’t mean that everybody is automatically awarded a Phd, then the bachelor’s degree could also be held to a higher standard. </p>
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<p>Wait, ‘fundamental’ is not a fixed term? Now that’s oxymoronic. ‘Fundamental’ inherently should be fixed. If something is fundamental, then every program at every school should be teaching it. Otherwise, it isn’t really fundamental, now is it? </p>
<p>Furthermore, the decision was agreed to by the parties involved? Think about what you just said. How many 17-18 year old high school kids know what the M.R.'s even are? Obviously they don’t know - if they did know, you wouldn’t have to teach it to them. So are you seriously advocating that people agreed to something that, by definition, they don’t understand? </p>
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<p>And now we’ve revealed what you really think about people who perform poorly - that they are “stubborn”/“ignorant”/“dumb” - the epitome of Job’s comforter. Those guys have already flunked out, and now you’re literally adding insult to injury by besmirching their characters. Frankly, I think we’re all glad that we never had you as a boss or an advisor, or, frankly, as a friend. Don’t make mistakes around cosmicfish, as not only will he refuse to help you, but he’ll also call you names. Honestly, I’m surprised somebody hasn’t punched you out by now. After all, imagine if somebody had just flunked out and then had you call him stubborn/ignorant/dumb, how many people would have enough self-control not to throw down with you right then and there? </p>
<p>I would like to think that I take a far more sympathetic position. Anybody who flunks out of engineering should be allowed to leave with a clean slate. Again, why not? He’s not going to major in engineering at your school anyway - so who cares what his engineering grades are? If he transfers to another school with his cleansed record and then chooses to major in engineering there, then he’s the other school’s responsibility. Schools should take the responsibility for those who perform poorly in a difficult program to transition cleanly to a program more suited for them. {If the school wasn’t going to take that responsibility, then maybe the school should never have admitted that student in the first place.} </p>
<p>But hey, at least we’ve now established how compassionate cosmicfish is to people who make mistakes - that is to say, not compassionate in the least.</p>
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<p>Which was also supplemented with an example of how the entire class did not understand the M.R.'s, if a 25% mean midterm score is any indication. Let’s face it - nobody knew anything. </p>
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<p>And nobody is saying that you should stop at the fundamentals (for which it seems as if we agree that fundamentals are something that everybody in a particular profession I know, rather than the bizarre notion posited by cosmicfish that “fundamental is not a fixed term”, but apparently anything that a school wants it to be). Teach the advanced stuff…as electives. Again, I am not proposing to prevent anybody who wants to learn the M.R.'s from doing so. Those who want to learn should be free to do so as part of an elective advanced course. But why force those who don’t want to learn it, particularly when the knowledge is - as it seems we now all agree - not really fundamental anyway? </p>
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<p>Sure, how about chemical engineering control systems. Note, I don’t dispute the notion that chemical engineers should probably learn control systems of some type. My issue is why should they be forced to specifically take a chemical engineering version of control systems, particularly when given the fact the course had little if any actual * chemical engineering-specific* content within it. Control systems are a general concept that is utilized by the entire gamut of engineering. So what’s so controversial about a chemical engineering student taking the ME or EE version of control systems? </p>
<p>Again, to be clear, I am not saying that ChemE departments not offer their own version of control systems. By all means do so - as an elective. But if a student wants to take the EE version of control systems - which is arguably a more rigorous version of controls - what’s wrong with that? Why must he be forced to take the ChemE version? </p>
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<p>No, I understand the (supposed) point of engineering programs just fine. I agree that engineering curricula are supposedly designed to teach you how to think and solve problems as an engineer. But the relevant question then is, do they actually do that?</p>
<p>To take the example back to the M.R. exam again, exactly how much ‘thinking’ or ‘problem solving’ enhancement was actually achieved? When the mean score of the exam is a 25% and even the best student can score only in the 60’s, seems to me that little improved thinking or problem-solving was accomplished at all. After all, is that the way that real-world engineering works: where even some of the most talented engineers will desperately struggle for an hour to get even 1/4 of some design correct, on pain of being thrown out of the profession completely? </p>
<p>And that’s the heart of the issue, at least as regards to this particular course. The course was not primarily designed to improve anybody’s skills or thinking patterns. Rather the primary goal was to weed people out. Think of it this way: what exactly is the difference between earning a 25% and a 20% on that exam? Either way, you knew basically nothing about the M.R.s. But from a practical standpoint, the difference is vast, because a 25% score meant (barely) passing, whereas a 20% meant that you failed. </p>
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<p>Indeed, that is where he later wound up. </p>
<p>Nevertheless, the point is that he would find it difficult to attend any 4-year college, as they would ask whether he had flunked out of any previous school, to which he would sadly have to answer ‘yes’. </p>
<p>And besides, to start from Berkeley - one of the most prestigious schools in the world - and fall all the way to a community college where you won’t even earn a bachelor’s degree at all is one heck of a vertiginous drop. He is clearly far worse off than if he had never gone to Berkeley at all, but just simply entered the workforce right out of high school, for then he would still be able to apply to (and surely be admitted to) a wide range of strong schools. He can’t do that anymore for his academic record is permanently sundered, and that’s terribly sad. </p>
<p>And I wonder why. Specifically, I wonder what exactly is so wrong with trying something difficult and failing? That’s surely better than never trying at all. I furthermore don’t see why that failure should be an albatross tied around your neck for the rest of your life.</p>
<p>Let me give you an example. Let’s say that I try out for the Boston Red Sox and perform miserably, where I can’t make contact with the ball even once. Who cares? Evidence of that terrible tryout doesn’t follow me around on my resume for the rest of my life. Future employers aren’t going to use that terrible tryout as a reason not to hire me. Grad schools won’t reject me because of my terrible Sox tryout. </p>
<p>I’ll give you another example. After high school, Jennifer Granholm moved to Hollywood to start an acting career. That career basically failed - she never got good roles, and she was never able to break out to become an established player. No problem - she then was admitted to, yes, Berkeley, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa and then went to Harvard Law. She eventually became Governor of Michigan. Again, nobody held her failed acting career against her. Neither Berkeley nor HLS said: “Well, your acting career was unsuccessful, which is basically equivalent to a string of F’s, so we’re not going to admit you.” She was able to move on with her life and become highly successful in other endeavors.</p>
<p>So why can’t the same be true of engineering? Why can’t those people who try engineering and perform poorly be allowed to move on with their lives with a clean slate? Exactly why should those failed grades have to scar your academic record forever? Shouldn’t people be allowed to move on from failure? </p>
<p>Let me give you the most stark example of all. Even a personal bankruptcy is wiped from your credit record after 7-10 years as a matter of law. Yet failed engineering courses stay with you for life. Why is a failed engineering course treated worse than a personal bankruptcy?</p>
<p>Now I’m really confused. Academics decide what their institutions will teach, and sakky disagrees. Academics decide how to treat academic records/histories, and sakky disagrees.</p>
<p>sakky may have reasons and arguments for doing it differently, but are we to assume that academia works the way it does for no reason? Do academics not have justifications? Frankly, I’m more inclined to allow academics to decide how to run academia…</p>
<p>Perhaps sakky could do some research and see why academia is done the way it is? Or if sakky already knows, perhaps sakky could enlighten us? If academia is really antiquated, and sakky can demonstrate that, I think there’d be a much stronger argument here.</p>
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<p>Low scores on a test could mean a lot of things. The test could just have been too hard (as in choosing the hardest problems for the given subjects) or too long to complete in the time allotted for the test.</p>
<p>I remember taking physics when there were three different instructors. One gave tests with a median score of around 50%. Another gave harder tests with a median score that was considerably lower, while the third gave easier tests with a median score that was considerably higher. One can make various arguments about how difficult the tests should be (indeed, too hard or too easy a test would generally not be good at assessing student learning of the subject), but that does not support the claim that a low median score necessarily means that most students did not sufficiently understand the material well enough to make use of it later.</p>
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<p>Why would this be specific to engineering? If you make this argument, shouldn’t you be making the argument that people who failed out of college or university in any subject be able to erase previous courses and grades? (Or even not failed out, if they want to hide an unsightly B+ from a medical or law school application.)</p>
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See, you switched there – I was saying that DESIGN was core, not a specific item. I also noted that “fundamentals” has no universal agreed definition for any field, that it was up to each group for whom it is relevant to produce a definition suitable for them. At many schools (based solely on responses here), Maxwell’s Relations are not “fundamental”, at Berkeley they are. That is their decision, and I see no reason to doubt that they lack reasons.</p>
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Sure, but when you wonder why I instinctively throw the BS flag on your posts, this is why. There are people on here with security clearances who have revealed more about themselves than you do. And since much of what you post is a statement of opinion, your experience and basis for expressing that opinion is relevant.</p>
<p>For example, you state that Maxwell’s Relations are not necessary for Chemical Engineers, but you do not indicate that you have any personal experience in the study or practice of chemical engineering – instead you site an anecdote about a PhD and note that it is hard and people don’t like it. Is it necessary? I see nothing in your argument that really says it is not, just your opinion, offered without foundation.</p>
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Except that there is already an inherently different standard for a PhD than an undergraduate degree – the production of original research. I cannot speak with authority on English PhD programs, but it could be that the production of original research in the humanities is harder than it is in the sciences and/or that graduate students in those fields are getting screwed – in either case, the PhD would be longer without justifying making the undergraduate degrees in those fields more difficult.</p>
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Of course “fundamental” is not a fixed term – it is inherently a matter of opinion. Get any group of professionals and academics together and try to establish a list of fundamentals – the larger the group, the greater the dissent and the smaller list of commonly accepted items. Heck, poll enough and you could distill the “fundamentals” to a single class!</p>
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“The parties involved” refers to the faculty and the accrediting board responsible for creating the program. The students must agree only to selecting the program they will attend, are free to use any standards they choose, and are ultimately responsible for that choice – if they are not looking to get a really hard course of study that goes above and beyond the minimum, they might want to select somewhere other than Berkeley.</p>
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Ah, irony, wonderful irony. I realize that you may have missed this, so let me toss it out there:</p>
<p>I was expelled from my university (PSU, FWIW) for low grades. I flunked out. Admittedly, I later returned to school, excelled, graduated, and am now in a solid PhD program, but still, it happened.</p>
<p>When I say that someone who flunked out messed up somewhere, I am not conjecturing – I’ve been there, and I’ve made those mistakes. Plus, I’ve talked to a lot of other people who have done so, and can usually locate the mistakes they’ve made. Personally, I don’t think that blaming it on someone else helps anyone at all – certainly didn’t help me. The difference between “flunk out” me and “PhD program” me is largely that “PhD program” me identified my mistakes and corrected them to the best of my ability.</p>
<p>If someone flunks out of school, it requires that they miss numerous indicators that they were either doing something wrong or were on the wrong path. Flunking one course won’t do it – flunking a lot of courses is needed. If you flunk 10 courses without changing your path, then who else is to blame? The program is graduating students, so apparently some people are getting through just fine, probably a lot. There might be a dozen different reasons why you are failing, but the one thing that should be clear, LONG before actually flunking out, is that you are in the wrong place at the wrong time.</p>
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Actually, I am very compassionate to people who make mistakes – provided that they come to fix them. I have little tolerance for those who make mistakes, but then blame the world instead of trying to fix the shortcomings in themselves.</p>
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In all fairness, Sakky might be a tenured professor offering a well-considered opinion. Of course, he might also be a disgruntled Berkeley ChemE drop-out desperate to make his problems someone else’s fault. Who knows?</p>
<p>Seriously, who knows? If anyone DOES know, please fill the rest of us in. Apparently he has dropped hints in the past.</p>
<p>For that matter, is anyone agreeing with Sakky? It would be nice to hear more voices on that side of the argument, if there are any.</p>
<p>I hope you two realize that no one cares about any of this.
Take your battle of wits to PM.</p>
<p>I actually somewhat agree with Sakky as far as engineering programs needing to teach things actually useful for grad school/jobs. However, I’m not really sure where the argument is in this thread as all I see is a bunch of things about Maxwell Relations (whatever those are). True enough that the programs need to be challenging and life is filled with things that you (in general) dont want to do but you just have to do them and move on. no way to get around them.</p>
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This is sort of irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. sakky has failed to demonstrate to my satisfaction that the status quo (arguably, dominated by tenured faculty) is not justified and accepted by academia, by and large. In other words, while everything sakky is saying might be true, maybe academia agrees but disagrees with the solution (i.e., knowing the flaws, academia prefers to run like it does). One professor with an opinion wouldn’t change that.</p>
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I don’t think that will be necessary… it shouldn’t matter who sakky is. I tend not to agree with the gist, not because I doubt he’s tenured faculty… but because this feels like more of a rant than an honest discussion.</p>
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<p>So basically you’re saying is that fundamentals are whatever you want them to be: which seems to be ironically precisely the opposite of what ‘fundamentals’ is supposed to mean. Fundamentals is supposed to be something that everybody in a particular field ought to know. Otherwise, we’re truly entering a world where words mean the exact opposite of what they are supposed to mean. </p>
<p>The even greater irony is that on the one hand, you assert that ‘design’ is core because everybody defines it be core. On the other hand, you allow everybody to define ‘fundamentals’ to be a word that everybody can define for themselves. The implication is that somehow ‘fundamentals’ and ‘core’ are words with not only different, but entirely opposite meanings. Either that, or you just enjoy playing games with words. </p>
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<p>Uh, first of all, everything posted on CC is a matter of opinion - yours, mines, and everybody else’s. If you would care to throw the BS flag at you, then I have equal right to throw the BS flag right back at you. {And I would certainly advise others reading your posts to carefully consider the attitude you have displayed towards engineering students who are struggling - that they are all stubborn/ignorant/dumb. What kind of support is that? Like I said, I think we can all be glad that none of us ever had you as a mentor or a friend. }</p>
<p>As for the M.R.'s, I have challenged people time and time again to name as many non-academic chemical engineering jobs where the M.R.'s are routinely used. I don’t know of a single chemical engineer holding a job for which that is true. If you know one, by all means, describe his position. </p>
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<p>But what that also means is that undergrad degrees in those fields could easily be made more difficult. Whether they should be made more difficult is a different question, but what is clear is that they could. </p>
<p>For example, I hardly doubt that it would be so difficult that the bar could be raised such that the type of work that now merits a mediocre 2.0 GPA in English would in the future no longer be considered worthy to graduate. Would that really be so hard? Let’s face it - somebody earning a 2.0 in English probably isn’t writing very good literary analyses, but rather egregiously poor ones. We could surely institute a policy where such poor work will not be acceptable for graduation. </p>
<p>Now, will that be controversial, because we won’t be able to exactly define what is meant by ‘egregiously bad’. Sure, but no more controversial than what happens now with regards to finishing your PhD in English. There’s a fine line between a dissertation that is acceptable for the English Phd and one that is not, and everybody accepts that. </p>
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<p>And surely I could say that same thing about the term “core”, could I not? Could I not poll different people and derive different definitions of ‘core’? In particularly, I could surely find some people who would argue that design is not actually ‘core’ when it comes to engineering.</p>
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<p>So in other words, you are perfectly fine with people continuing to not understand what they are signing up for, and then being screwed once they discover what they actually have signed up for. What’s that you say about compassion again? </p>
<p>See next post.</p>
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<p>Ah irony, wonderful irony. You claim to demonstrate compassion, but I see little if any compassion from you towards people who make mistakes. This is all the more ironic given that you apparently have felt the pain of failure yourself. </p>
<p>To wit: you first of all say that somebody who flunks out of engineering has a shortcoming? I have to stop you right there and ask - why? Not everybody is cut out for engineering. What’s wrong with somebody who tries out engineering yet performs poorly being allowed to move on to something else in his life with a clean slate? Why is his poor engineering performance a “shortcoming” that he needs to fix at all? If I play baseball poorly, is that a “shortcoming” that I need to fix? I think it just means that I won’t be a pro baseball player. </p>
<p>I continue to ask: what is so controversial about somebody who flunks out of engineering being allowed to walk away from engineering with a clean slate? The guy isn’t going to earn an engineering degree anyway, so who cares what his engineering grades are? Let him move to another major with his engineering grades expunged. Heck, why not let him transfer to another school with a cleansed transcript (and if he then tries to major in engineering at that other school, well, that’s the other school’s engineering program’s responsibility)?</p>
<p>Again, I return back to Jennifer Granholm and her “failed” acting career. She never became a star, and indeed, landed very few roles at all. But so what? Her academic record remained pristine. Nobody ever held her “failed” acting career against her. She was able to move on with her life to become highly successful in other endeavors. Her “failed” acting career was not a “shortcoming” that she needed to somehow “fix”. </p>
<p>But to your point, I don’t disagree that the ‘failed’ engineering student deserves some blame. I’ve never argued that the student escape all blame. He should assume some. But so does the school that admitted him. Both sides are to blame. After all, this was a two-sided decision: the decision by the school to admit him and the decision by the student to take the offer. If somebody flunks out, both sides are at fault. Somebody who is as stubborn/ignorant/dumb as you previously claimed should never have been admitted in the first place, right? </p>
<p>Hence, I continue to be baffled by your deeply ironic claim of being “very compassionate” towards people who make mistakes, while demonstrating anything but that. You place the entirety of the blame on the student for a failure, with not an iota to the school. I place blame on both sides. Both sides should learn from what they did wrong. </p>
<p>And if anything, the bulk of the blame should fall upon the school. After all, for the student, deciding where to go to school is (usually) a one-shot decision. In contrast, the school admits/rejects boatloads of students every year. Hence, if anybody should have far greater experience and wisdom about the appropriateness of the match of the program with the student, it should be the school. </p>
<p>To summarize, what I propose is as follows:</p>
<p>1) Schools should not admit students who they feel are going to be so stubborn/ignorant/dumb enough to persist into failure. As to the question of how a school would know who would fall into that category, every school has an ample dataset of the performances of past students, matched with their admissions records, with which to make a statistically predictive determination of future students.</p>
<p>2) Engineering programs should allow students to leave engineering with a clean slate. Again, who cares what the engineering grades are of somebody who isn’t even majoring in engineering at your school anymore? A ‘failed’ engineering student will then have already wasted significant time that he could have spent in another major. That’s surely punishment enough. Poor engineering performance is not a shortcoming that needs to be fixed if the guy doesn’t want to be an engineer anymore. </p>
<p>Not only do I consider these to be compassionate, but I also consider them to be uncontroversial. After all, who is really going to argue that schools should continue to admit people who are stubborn/ignorant/dumb? Who is really going to argue that failed engineering grades be an albatross wrapped around your neck for life, even if you switch away from engineering?</p>
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<p>For that matter, is anybody agreeing with cosmicfish? </p>
<p>In particular, consider the point that the entirety of the blame for a flunkout befall upon the student, with none whatsoever be placed upon the school? Or how about his point that everybody who flunks out of engineering must necessarily be dumb/ignorant/stubborn? How many people support cosmicfish on these points?</p>
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<p>I would indeed support such a policy, except that flunking out rarely seems to happen outside of engineering (and the natural science or math courses, which the engineering students must also take).</p>
<p>Honestly, how many students truly flunk out of English? Or American Studies? Or Psychology? Or History? It seems as if engineering is where a highly disproportionate percentage of flunkouts occur.</p>
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<p>If you can do them, that is. Like I said, plenty of students couldn’t do the M.R.'s - at least, not to the satisfaction of the program.</p>