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<p>Which then naturally begs the question of why only science/engineering majors tend to weed out less capable and less motivated students while other majors don’t, hence the pejorative but truthful term ‘soft majors’. Why should those other majors permit less capable and dedicated students to remain? Shouldn’t all majors strive to eliminate those students? </p>
<p>I can think of a number of former engineering students who found the major to be too demanding, often times to the point of nearly flunking out, and so was forced to switch to an easier social science or humanities major. How many humanities/soc.sci students find the major to be too hard to the point of flunking out and so were forced to switch to engineering? I’m going to go with ‘zero’, and I don’t think I will be far off. </p>
<p>See below.</p>
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<p>The underlying premise here along with the remainder of your post is that while US K-12 students may not be well-prepared in science/math, they are proficient in humanities and arts and social sciences. I must challenge this premise. Is there really any clear evidence to support that notion? Seems to me that US high school seniors, even many of the very best ones, don’t seem to be particularly knowledgeable about literature, arts, history, philosophy, sociology, or economics, relative to their peers from other (developed) countries. </p>
<p>While obviously much of this knowledge is socially-specific and therefore difficult to compare across countries, the evidence seems to be quite clear when it comes to language and modern culture because of the infamously monolingual and solipsistic state of American society. For example, it is far more common to find a high school senior in continental Europe who speaks passable English and has some familiarity with US history & US culture, especially pop culture, than to find an American high school senior who speaks a passable continental European language and is familiar with the history and culture of that country. {Let’s face it: the typical 4 years of high school language schooling, even if you earn straight A’s, does not really provide you with a passable command of the language that really allows you to interact with native speakers.} People throughout the world are familiar with American movies, TV shows, and pop music; Brad Pitt and Madonna are worldwide icons. How many Americans are familiar with foreign language movies, TV and pop music? {The navel-gazing extends even to the granting of official honors: doesn’t anybody else find it suspicious that not even once has a foreign-language film ever won the Academy Award for Best Picture?} Practically every educated foreigner in the world has heard of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. How many current and recently retired foreign political leaders do most Americans know? {Pop quiz: without looking it up, who are the former Prime Ministers of Canada who left office in 2003 and 2006? Heck, who’s the current Prime Minister of Canada? }</p>
<p>Hence, while I can agree that US high school students may not be well prepared in the hard sciences or math, I’m not sure that they’re well-prepared in the arts, humanities, or social sciences either. Yet the fact remains that the corresponding college majors are significantly less demanding and allocate higher grades than do the technical majors. Let’s face it: as a college student, you can weasel your way through many softer majors while doing very little work and learning very little while still earning passing grades. You try that in engineering and you will fail.</p>