<p>cav, I amend my statement. It may help, but it won't do wonders.</p>
<p>Cavalier302: When you say easy to get into for instaters, do you mean 1200/1600 or more along the lines of 1350/1600, which for an out of stater would be easily under par. Thanks and sorry if this is a stupid question</p>
<p>some of you might be interested to discuss this:
the cs dept has a special class, cs101x, geared towards minority students. i'm serious, that's its entire purpose (the prof is huge into gender and minorities/diversity education stuff).</p>
<p>I like being part of a gender minority in engineering because I don't feel like just another kid. But beyond that, I don't want to be noticed/labeled/thought of as a minority. Do I think in general women should be seen as a minority and given some extra help in the engineering field? Dang straight! It's not a wide-spread woman's job yet and we get screwed and looked down on, a lot. But once we get past the getting-screwed-and-looked-down-upon part, we're on our own. Same should be true of any minority. Give them the extra kick in the butt out of the nest, but then, they're on their own.</p>
<p>^^ Do gender ratios change drastically in the higher-level e-school courses? My MSE class is composed of at least 40% girls, and probably more... just so happens the top student for last year who's grading the homework is a girl ... the student who bears the confident, this-material-is-so-obvious attitude (and not unjustified either) is a girl, and the people who give the smartest discussion answers and ask the best questions are girls. In fact, I wasn't reminded of any gender disparity until you told me. Now granted, women professors for engineering don't seem all that common, but it seems more of a generation gap.</p>
<p>
[quote]
the cs dept has a special class, cs101x, geared towards minority students. i'm serious, that's its entire purpose (the prof is huge into gender and minorities/diversity education stuff).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Interesting. Someone told me at the start of the year it was based on skill and computer literacy ... 101x for n00bs, 101 is normal, 101e is for people who know how to use programming languages, etc. Is that still valid?</p>
<p>Virginia abolished its poll tax in 1966, not in the 1970s as a poster above mentioned.</p>
<p>As a Virginia resident, I am concerned when a state university gives preference to racial minorities, because it seems to violate the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.</p>
<p>John2698... Virginia didn't ratify the 24th amendment until 1977...and yes, there were people paying poll taxes in rural counties all the way up into the seventies. I interviewed them for my honors thesis. It's similar to Brown v. Board, a ruling that came in 1954 but took more than a decade to implement.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Interesting. Someone told me at the start of the year it was based on skill and computer literacy ... 101x for n00bs, 101 is normal, 101e is for people who know how to use programming languages, etc. Is that still valid?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's how they publicize it. 101 and 101e are joint classes (different professors, same tests). 101x only gets through about 1/2 of the material 101/e does. 101x is restricted to people with no prior programming experience, especially those who are at-risk/minorities.</p>
<p>As far as girls - girls are decently represented in most engineering classes I believe, except for CS where it is notorious that girls have no desire to be there. Just check out the students listing on the CS dept's webpage, it's, like, 10:1.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
As a Virginia resident, I am concerned when a state university gives preference to racial minorities, because it seems to violate the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.
[/QUOTE]
All of the state universities are careful to abide by the law. Government observers make their way around to make sure of this and all schools have their data reviewed.</p>
<p>That's pretty damn funny about CS 101x, hazel.</p>
<p>What do you mean by that, Dean J?</p>
<p>gal: some of the brightest people in engineering are girls, but that's usually due to the fact that most e-school girls are shunned upon in general society. Therefor, they have the time/energy/anger to put their lives into their school work. I try to have a life/sanity, so I'm not one of them. But, I hang out with dudes 75% of the time, and as soon as I mention my school in a social situation, guys sometimes try to write you off as a geek. I wasn't implying that they aren't smart or anything, but the pressure of being in the e-school as a girl is overwhelming, at least for most majors (chem/bio/systems all have probably 33+% girls, they don't count). You have to get along with the guys, you have to show you're not lesser (engineering is a relatively new field for girls), and just survive the e-school on top of that. We're supposed to be in the kitchen, not a UNIX lab. It sucks sometimes, unbelievably</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
What do you mean by that, Dean J?
[/QUOTE]
Exactly what I wrote. John seems to think that state schools are violating the equal protection clause. We are careful to follow the letter of the law and there is case law that directs us.</p>
<p>I actually agree with Jumpseat. What makes a minority more important than anyone else? We are all high school students applying to college, it should NOT matter whether you are black, white, red, yellow, Caucasion, Asian, African American, or anything else. We should all be given an equal chance. Funny thing is - we never will be.</p>
<p>Yes, snickers, wouldn't be heaven if we could just all hold hands and sing Kumbaya. Here's the thing. What seems long ago to you is really very recent history. Not too many decades ago, we had government sanctioned and supported segregation. Programs to encourage diversity recognize that the playing field has not been level and support the belief that we benefit as a society when opportunity extends to all ethnic groups. It takes more than thirty or forty years to redress three hundred fifty years of oppression. Do you think we should just pretend that segregation never happened and go on as if everyone has always had equal opportunity? The University of Virginia recognizes that it is their best interest to have a diverse student body and I applaud that recognition.</p>
<p>In addition, there are studies that show that students of every race learn more and better in a diverse environment. Universities have a vested interest in making sure they have the best environment for learning. Hopefully, more equal scores will appear and this will one day no longer be necessary to maintain the best environment for learning. The same applies for male/female ratios, except with desirability instead of learning.</p>
<p>Chris Rock has offered a few opinions on this issue. Well not on UVA specifically, but ...</p>
<p>YouTube</a> - Chris rock - C Grade Students
YouTube</a> - Chris Rock about black slaves</p>
<p>yeswecan - so what message are we sending to these URMs? "Go ahead and slack off because you'll never be held to the standard others are held to"? And the sole existence of the term "URM" means that there are minorities who have overcome these "entrenched subliminal racism" to succeed and not be underrepresented. *ahem asians lol</p>
<p>Those people, particularly Asians**, who keep complaining they are somehow "disadvantaged in admissions due to being part of race X", need to look at something called Simpson's Paradox. Geez guys, for all your purported merit and intelligence you could at least /not/ commit statistical fallacies.</p>
<p>** I say this being Asian myself.</p>
<p>I never say asians are disadvantaged, only that they are held to the same standards as non-URMs and still are well-represented</p>
<p>Nice Yeswecan ignore the systemic advantages for whites</p>