<p>“Uh, sure you can do pure math research as an undergrad. Why not? There are math undergrads who have proven some (minor) theorem. Or who have collaborated on a math proof with professors as part of an active research study. Or otherwise contribute to the mathematics literature In fact, that’s the whole point of both the Math 199 independent study designation and the Math 196 thesis designation (for those in the honors program). Why even have these course designations at all if nobody ever uses them?”</p>
<p>Well, I think you assume too quickly that I don’t know about these things. I did a Math 199 as a freshman, and am in both an undergraduate and graduate reading course this year [the latter being even less common]. I am certainly aware of the extent to which undergrads can accomplish pure math research, and it generally is limited to certain topics. Mainstream, abstract math is very hard to get into without courses that maybe 1-2 undergraduates per year at Berkeley even attempt as <em>starting points</em>. Hence, math Ph.D. programs will look significantly at how much math you <em>learned</em> more favorably than feeble attempts to prove theorems. </p>
<p>I have a hard time believing that most students getting into top graduate schools in engineering come in without both stellar GPA’s and stellar work outside of classes…even Stanford doesn’t award its entire class A’s in engineering, I’m certain, as it still sees value to maintaining some integrity of the grading standards. I’m not asking for more than that. </p>
<p>“It all gets back to my basic question: why exactly should the grading in hum/socsci be so much easier than in the technical majors?”</p>
<p>Well, as I said, I was agreeing with you when you said it’s ridiculous how easily some of these majors scrape by. You don’t want those guys to go to law school happily while some engineering fellow fries without having a chance, right? There are alternate solutions, like not allowing flaky majors to be so flaky. Certainly better than giving out A’s to every engineering student and making grades in engineering worth utterly nothing to those who evaluate them. If getting an A in American studies means nothing, I see it a more direct approach to the problem to correct American studies than to try to give everyone A’s in engineering [though I, as always, agree the current situation with engineering is too severe]. We’re both talking about theoretical changes, so might as well agree on the best one, and I think even you said earlier that you’d be in favor of humanities majors not being way easier than tech majors – I even asked then whether you think maybe there isn’t as clear a distinction between good and bad humanities work, and you, I think, agreed with my gut response to my own question, which is that there really is distinction, and the so-called “objective” grading measures in engineering are far from objective, depending on the random selection of exam questions + grading curve settings.</p>