Do You Think It's A Good Idea For Parents To Push Kids Into STEM?

[ucbalumnus]

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@collegealum314

Yeah, exactly. I took statistics in college and found it took a lot of time to think through things. The fact that people take AP stats because it is apparently easier to AP calculus tells me that stats must be really watered down. I probably spent more time thinking in stats than I did in calc. It’s a very subtle subject.

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<p>AP statistics usually falls into the list of “easy self-study APs” on the AP forum. Probably means that it is really high school level statistics. It is actually good that high schools offer statistics, but not so good that they needed the incentive of an “AP” label to do so (and it is misleading because acceptance of AP statistics for subject credit in college is significantly less than AP calculus AB or BC).</p>

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@Pizzagirl

I do think that for the vast majority of people, the emphasis on higher-level calculus is silly – statistics is far more useful

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<p>Some college courses and their books in statistics for social studies, business, and biology majors make use of calculus, although a “light” calculus for social studies, business, and biology majors course should be sufficient for that purpose.</p>