<p>What reforms are you talking about?</p>
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<p>For example:</p>
<p>[Hollywood</a> Spurs Surge in Computer Science Majors - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/technology/11computing.html?_r=1]Hollywood”>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/technology/11computing.html?_r=1)</p>
<p>Here’s another example of reform – changes to an intro CS course at Harvard:</p>
<p>[Volatile</a> and Decentralized: The changing face of Computer Science education](<a href=“http://matt-welsh.blogspot.com/2011/06/changing-face-of-computer-science.html]Volatile”>Volatile and Decentralized: The changing face of Computer Science education)</p>
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<p>No doubt, he badly overestimated his technical skills and jumped into coursework that was far too advanced for him. For example, he thought that his AP coursework permitted him to jump ahead to math 54, Physics 7B, and other courses that he didn’t realize were notorious weeders. He should have eased into his Berkeley coursework. He was wrong, and he freely admits that he was wrong. He made a serious mistake - nobody is denying that. </p>
<p>But like I said, no matter how severe of a mistake that may be, should he really have to pay for that for the rest of his life? He was merely 17 years old - still not a legal adult - when he embarked upon that difficult coursework. Most minors who are convicted of petty crimes will have their cases remanded to juvenile court where the records of the proceedings will be sealed and the conviction will be wiped from his record after a few years of clean living. Similarly, a personal bankruptcy, as a matter of Federal law, will be wiped from your credit record after a 7-year period. Moving violations will be eliminated from your driving record after a certain waiting period. But failing grades remain on your academic record for life. </p>
<p>Why? He didn’t rob anybody, he didn’t punch anybody out in a fistfight, he didn’t stiff his creditors, and he didn’t endanger the public through unsafe driving. The only person he hurt was himself. If evidence of poor driving, poor personal financial management, and even petty crimes will be eventually wiped from your record, what’s so outrageous about the notion of wiping out failing grades too? </p>
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<p>Fair enough. If you don’t have sympathy for him, then I would argue that you shouldn’t have sympathy for all of the students in creampuff majors who have 2.5’s or less, for I would argue that those students are just as irresponsible as the engineers who flunk out. The only reason why those students manage to stay at all is because the creampuff majors simply never confer truly bad grades. </p>
<p>Which leads back to the question that I must continue to ask: if we should kick out all of the unmotivated and irresponsible engineering students, why don’t we kick out all of the unmotivated and irresponsible American Studies students as well? Why single out the engineers? </p>
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<p>While I can’t speak for other state universities, I would say that that argument gains little sway at Berkeley, which already rejects the vast majority of applicants, particularly within admissions to the engineering programs. Let’s face it: there’s practically no difference between rejecting 80% of your applicants - as Berkeley does now - versus rejecting 85% of your applicants. Either way, you’re still rejecting the vast majority of your applicants. But that final 5% of admittees surely represents a large chunk of students who are likely to perform poorly. </p>
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<p>I could actually argue that the opposite might be true. We have to keep in mind that there isn’t a fixed number of jobs in engineering (or any industry for that matter). The number of jobs in any industry is a function of the economic health of that industry, which is itself determined by the talent level of the people in that industry. For example, if more talented and creative people are drawn to study engineering, more innovation and entrepreneurship will be spurred, hence increasing the overall demand (and hence salaries) of engineers. Just consider all of the engineering/CS jobs spawned by the social networking and smartphone/tablet boom.</p>
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<p>Something does not fit in this story.</p>
<p>If he repeated the courses in which he got D and F grades, [the</a> first 12 units of repeated courses would have caused the new grades to replace the original grades in the GPA calculation](<a href=“http://berkeley.edu/catalog/policies/repetition.html]the”>http://berkeley.edu/catalog/policies/repetition.html). So if he got B grades in all of his courses (assume 4 units each) the second time, his GPA would have been calculated on (4 * B + 1 * (D or F)) / 5, which would be a GPA of 2.4 or 2.6 (depending on how they count the “first” 12 units out of 16 units repeated – i.e. whether the course where the original grade was not replaced is a D or F grade). That GPA would have been enough to get off of academic probation.</p>
<p>As far as the “cream puff” majors go, remember that they have effectively shut themselves out of many academic and professional paths, even if they graduate. So after finding poor job and career prospects in their major after graduation, they may find that switching to something else is very difficult – many universities accept very few students for second bachelor’s degrees, and have very high standards for such applicants to get admitted.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone who isn’t a math major should have to talk math beyond college-level algeb to be honest.</p>
<p>Sorry, I’ve been gone for a while, but let me dive back in…</p>
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My academic record has a ton of F’s from when I flunked out. I received good offers from every company where I interviewed, and received funded PhD program offers from 4 out of 5 schools to which I applied. According to you, that simply cannot happen? No matter what your situation, you can supplant old failure with new success. Fail out of an engineering program, and there are plenty of options for you, including going back into and completing an engineering program.</p>
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I admit that I find it quite funny that you are apparently very forgiving to supposed adults who do poorly in one specific college but are willing to immediately condemn not-yet-adults based on their performance. Someone who gets a C- average in high school should not even be given a chance, but someone who gets a C- average in an engineering program should be immediately and completely forgiven? </p>
<p>FWIW, I graduated in the bottom 50% of my high school, and in the top 5% of my college. My high school Valedictorian dropped out of my same school after only a couple of years.</p>
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Your argument then hinges on the idea that these failing/failed engineering students are the ones that are going to contribute the most to society and their profession. What makes you think that someone unable to either complete the program or save themselves from complete failure prior to flunking out is then going to go out and somehow apply their astonishing creativeness and talent in a productive way?</p>
<p>From my experience (both as a working engineer and as a failed engineering student) the very qualities that will make a student fail out of an engineering program are the same qualities that make it highly unlikely that they will be able to function as an engineer. My turnaround occurred when I accepted that I had not done everything I could, made changes in myself, and went at it with seriousness and passion, and that took time - I didn’t flunk out on Monday and start churning out components on Friday.</p>
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Why? It takes a fair amount of calculus just to get through an electrical engineering program, and my time in aerospace was no different. It would be nice to limit things to algebra, but the basic performance of capacitors and inductors (very very basic electrical components) operate in a manner that requires calculus to represent.</p>
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Engineers need to know the next step of math, applied analysis (calculus and differential equations) and enough about linear algebra to compute with matrices.
Really, until you have had a course where you read theorems and constructed proofs, you have not done “mathematics”, per se, but… applied quantitative reasoning, maybe.</p>
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<p>It is relatively uncommon for non-math majors to take the junior level abstract algebra, number theory, and intermediate/advanced linear algebra courses, so you are not likely to hear non-math majors talking a lot about groups, rings, fields, etc. (other than perhaps computer science majors with a strong interest in cryptography and physics majors with a strong interest in quantum mechanics).</p>
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<p>It strikes me that over the past ten years, at least, there have been numerous complaints about how difficult it has become to be admitted to UC schools. There have been all sorts of allegations of discrimination. So any attempt to further limit admissions, especially based on rather questionable criteria (e.g. it was “statisically” determined that you fit a profile of students that generally don’t graduate (with engineering degrees), so you were not admitted), would be met with further complaints, it seems.</p>
<p>Even you have argued, in the past, that some students don’t even know what they want to major in, let alone pursue as a career, before they go to college. So why would you refuse admissions to those who might not even major in engineering, if they meet the admissions criteria for all students?</p>
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<p>There is a fixed amount of money available for paying salaries (or money earned from stocks). The number of jobs will vary with the salaries the workers expect to get. While some people may opt to work for free for a while (if they think they will eventually be paid from selling company stock), eventually, people will expect to be paid. (Certainly, if they borrowed money for their educations, they will need to be paid.) Therefore, there are some upper bounds on the number of jobs that can exist.</p>
<p>The innovation and creativity that has led to increased salaries for some people in social networking, smartphones, tablets, and a few other subspecialties of the software industry has not spread to all people interested in working in that field. Other companies, such as Cisco, Juniper, and Yahoo! are not growing nearly as much (and there has been talk that Cisco may even lay people off).</p>
<p>[Valley</a> gains jobs amid intense competition for engineering talent](<a href=“http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_18107906]Valley”>http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_18107906)</p>
<p>[In</a> Silicon Valley, select tech workers are in high demand](<a href=“http://www.siliconvalley.com/jobs/ci_18357227]In”>http://www.siliconvalley.com/jobs/ci_18357227)</p>
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<p>Even if “creampuff” majors implemented more rigorous standards, how would this help engineering students?</p>
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<p>After thinking about my previous statement, I should correct myself. There is a bounded amount of “wealth” that is available for paying salaries. The amount that is paid might fluctuate quite wildly, e.g. if there is an economic bubble (which some feel the social networking phenomenon to be). But there is no infinite supply of “wealth” that can pay salaries. At some point, some people will be turned away, unless either they are willing to work for free, or all workers agree to take pay cuts in order to keep more workers employed.</p>
<p>Engineers don’t do math. Lol</p>
<p>That is the biggest misconception about the engineering field from the outside. People always have this notion that engineers are mathmaticians. This is the biggest myth. Engineers would even admit to you that they don’t do any kind of calculation. For the most part, they are just paper pushers. They might design for a few projects, but those said projects don’t require the engineers to do any equations. Computers do the job. </p>
<p>Engineering is problem solving. This has nothing to do with math. </p>
<p>By the way, there is a discussion similar to this on a popular math site of engineers admitting that they do no kind of calculation on the job.</p>
<p>@knowledgeiskeyy:
I’d probably have said it differently, but I agree with the message: engineers don’t do “math”. They may need to learn how to use some elementary mathematics so that they can tell when there’s a bug in the code they’re using or when their calculator is in radians and they expect degrees… but even if they sat down and solved systems of differential equations by hand, this doesn’t constitute “math” for me or for most “math” people, I imagine…</p>
<p>I agree. Computers do math; engineers solve problems and figure out what to put into the computer. Computers need to know equations; engineers need to understand where equations come from, how they relate to each other, are they theoretical or empirical. Without this understanding that an engineering education imparts, you can no more engineer than anyone who knows how to read.</p>
<p>As for the rigor, if you can’t understand a few simple thermodynamic relations (it DOES take time, maybe even a repeat of thermo), I don’t want you helping to design the buildings I work in and the bridges I drive on. I understand not every engineer does strictly “engineering work,” but there are many skills engineers develop (problem solving, communication, writing) that are applicable to many professions.</p>
<p>As a quick note on the whole math debate, while most of the actual calculations are done by computer these days, engineers must still understand how to apply them, how to correct them, and where the equations are valid, and that is not trivial.</p>
<p>Remember that computers have that GIGO effect - Garbage In, Garbage Out. Engineers need to know enough math to ensure that they are not putting in garbage and getting what they think is quality. I have personally run into several problems in my career so far that could only be resolved by going back to the equations, and even in some cases re-deriving them to make sure that what I was asking the computer to calculate was mathematically valid. I have yet to see any engineers run into problems because they took too much math, but I have seen several trip and fall embarassingly because they did not take or did not retain sufficient math.</p>