MIT Admissions Have Become A Complete Joke

pebbles · April 22, 2007, 11:44am

"using the excuse that "we want our students to have an education that extends as far as possible". A mile wide, an inch thick. Completely useless."

What do you think students are? Little robots programmed since birth to study one narrow slice of the universe? Most students entering college, even MIT and YES even Caltech (I kid you not!) have not yet decided on their life's calling. Gaining exposure to many fields early in the college experience is hugely valuable to students who are undecided (or even decided, as it helps create confidence in the decision).

"The scientist who is able to get into MIT or Caltech should be able to think critically and argue logically in any field. It shouldn't take training. This is particularly because the logic behind science and humanities is very similar."

MIT does not admit scientists. MIT graduates scientists. Little 17 year old boys and girls refreshing the admissions decisions webpage and updating their blogs are not scientists. They're high school students. There's a lot of potential there, absolutely. But what in our high school education really ever taps into that? And what, exactly, about writing a poem is so similar to doing physics problems?

These are Caltech's graduation requiremtns:

<ol>
<li>Freshman Mathematics (Ma 1 abc).......................................... 27</li>
<li>Sophomore Mathematics (Ma 2 ab)......................................... 18</li>
<li>Freshman Physics (Ph 1 abc).................................................... 27</li>
<li>Sophomore Physics (Ph 2 ab or Ph 12 abc1) ............................18</li>
<li>Freshman Chemistry (Ch 1 ab).................................................15</li>
<li>Freshman Biology (Bi 1)2.............................................................9</li>
<li>Menu Class (currently Ay 1, Ch/APh 2, ESE 1, Ge 1, IST 1, or
IST 4) ...........................................................................................9</li>
<li>Freshman Chemistry Laboratory (Ch 3 a)3 .............................. 6</li>
<li>Additional Introductory Laboratory ......................................... 6</li>
<li>Scientific Writing4 .................................................................... 3</li>
<li>Humanities Courses (as defined below).................................. 36</li>
<li>Social Sciences Courses (as defined below) ............................ 36</li>
<li>Additional Humanities and Social Sciences Courses.............. 36</li>
<li>Physical Education .......................................................................... 9</li>
</ol>

[quote]
Menu Classes
Menu classes are specifically designed for breadth. The intent of
the menu class requirement is to introduce students to a subject
that they did not plan to study. In many cases, it is the only class in
that subject that they ever take; in other cases, they may decide to
take more classes in that subject as a result. Students cannot take a
menu class in a subject that they have already taken classes in or in
their current option.

[/quote]

I looked this up because I was curious. I found it really hard to believe that Caltech wouldn't have any humanities requirements.

[quote]
Humanities and Social Sciences Requirements
All students must complete satisfactorily 108 units in the Division
of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Of these, 36 must be in the
humanities (art, English, film, history, history and philosophy of
science, humanities, music, philosophy, and, with certain restrictions,
languages) and 36 in the social sciences (anthropology, business
economics and management, economics, law, political science,
psychology, social science), in each case divided equally between
introductory and advanced courses. The remaining 36 may be
drawn from humanities and social sciences, including HSS tutorial
courses. They may not include reading courses unless credit has
been granted by petition to the Humanities or Social Science faculty.
In general, no more than 18 units of freshman humanities
may be counted toward the 108-unit requirement.
Entering freshmen are required to take two terms of freshman
humanities; that is, humanities courses numbered 10 or below in
the Catalog. These classes introduce students to the basic issues in
the three core disciplines of English, history, and philosophy.
Successful completion of two terms of freshman humanities is
a prerequisite for all humanities courses, except for foreign languages.
It is not a prerequisite, however, for introductory social
sciences. The freshman humanities classes may be taken in any two
terms of the freshman year. Other humanities courses numbered
30 or greater are open only to students who have fulfilled the
freshman humanities requirement.

[/quote]

MIT requires a total of 8 humanities classes. Essentially you can pick from any field of your choosing. I have no idea how many humanities classes constitutes 108 units at Caltech. But clearly BOTH schools find it important to introduce even their most hardcore nerdy little physicist to a whole spectrum of experiences. All the logic of wanting to make truly educated citizens aside (you know, people who can communicate in more than just their own field of study), even the hermit mathematician who hasn't spoken a word to anyone in 20 years has to publish papers in order to make progress in his field. Believe it or not, the ability to write clear, concise, and illuminating prose is immensely important in the sciences. Bullcrap?

And have you taken a look at just how many physics requirements there are at Caltech? MIT has 7 required science classes, physics requiremtns up to E+M. I think Caltech requires up to Quantum Mechanics. Not everyone is a physicist. What geologist is really going to need to find wave functions of odd-looking potentials? What biologist? You think a chem lab is overkill-- 4 physics classes? That hardly seems to make sense.

So let's do away with requirements altogether then, and students can do whatever they want. But in doing so you lose the standard of your university. It's no longer guaranteed that every MIT/Caltech graduate will have that BASELINE education. Maybe it's not important to theoretical scientists, but to those students who want to go into industry after graduation, reputation (and quality assurance)is very important.

I'm studying physics right now, and I wouldn't be if I hadn't taken physics as a part of the core freshman year. I'm taking biology right now. I'm not going to become a biologist, but it isn't useless to me. I think as a scientist it is very important to understand the impact your work will have on other fields.

I dunno, I had other things to say, but now I'm going to go grocery shopping. One more thing though, if you want no requirements, you should seriously think about going to Brown.

phuriku · April 22, 2007, 1:01pm

"Gaining exposure to many fields early in the college experience is hugely valuable to students who are undecided (or even decided, as it helps create confidence in the decision)."

Okay, then I have a new proposal for you. How about we take a measly little quarter or semester, make a course where you're exposed to every single science (not only physics, biology, chemistry, but also things like geology, astronomy, etc). The students would be exposed to all scientific fields and, if they dont know what they want to go into, then they can think about it after they take this course. Good idea?

But, hell. This doesn't expose students ENOUGH, right? Well, you could also argue that you don't expose students enough to other areas. What if someone is destined to be an economist? You don't even have any requirements for economics! I think you should make some, or else there wouldn't be enough exposure to certain fields. This is the same for statistics, psychology, and a variety of foreign languages.

Basically, what I'm arguing here is that students shouldn't be exposed to certain things by requirements. It's the student's job to research a particular area if it interests him. That's what Wikipedia's for! (In fact, this is how I started studying economics a few months ago... not by anyone requiring me to take any classes.) You shouldn't be required to do actual coursework just to gain exposure.

"MIT does not admit scientists. MIT graduates scientists. Little 17 year old boys and girls refreshing the admissions decisions webpage and updating their blogs are not scientists. They're high school students. There's a lot of potential there, absolutely. But what in our high school education really ever taps into that? "

If you're admitted into MIT and Caltech and you rely upon your high school education to deliver everything you need, especially in terms of critical thinking, then you have problems and probably shouldn't have been admitted. It should be up to the individual student to teach himself logic. (Can you even teach proper "general" logic?)

"And what, exactly, about writing a poem is so similar to doing physics problems?"

I'm not going to argue here if you're a liberal arts-y person, but I don't think writing a poem counts as "critical argument" or "logical analysis". (Is poetry really required at MIT?) Analyzing literature or history, on the other hand, is very related to science. One often has to think creatively to solve problems in all fields mentioned, and certainly, historical analysis is very methodical. I think I wrote a report on that last semester.

"All the logic of wanting to make truly educated citizens aside (you know, people who can communicate in more than just their own field of study), even the hermit mathematician who hasn't spoken a word to anyone in 20 years has to publish papers in order to make progress in his field. Believe it or not, the ability to write clear, concise, and illuminating prose is immensely important in the sciences."

Yes, but what I've seen from this thread, it's not just writing classes. I've heard someone say that he avoided the social science requirement by taking economics. If you need a basic writing class, then fine, the school can require a 1-semester writing course. In fact, this is required at Caltech and probably at MIT. But anything beyond basic writing classes (that should be aimed at writing in science) is unnecessary.

"And have you taken a look at just how many physics requirements there are at Caltech? MIT has 7 required science classes, physics requiremtns up to E+M. I think Caltech requires up to Quantum Mechanics. Not everyone is a physicist. What geologist is really going to need to find wave functions of odd-looking potentials? What biologist? You think a chem lab is overkill-- 4 physics classes? That hardly seems to make sense."

It doesn't. That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm not saying Caltech is innocent in this whole ordeal. In fact, it's far from it.

"So let's do away with requirements altogether then, and students can do whatever they want. But in doing so you lose the standard of your university. It's no longer guaranteed that every MIT/Caltech graduate will have that BASELINE education. Maybe it's not important to theoretical scientists, but to those students who want to go into industry after graduation, reputation (and quality assurance)is very important."

So, in other words, the 'theoretical scientist' is hurt because other students often rely upon MIT's reputation. Hurting some students for the sake of helping others. Great philosophy you got going there.

And I'll go back to my Cambridge argument. If your argument had any validity, why are Cambridge graduates so successful?

"One more thing though, if you want no requirements, you should seriously think about going to Brown."

No, I'm going to a university that I would be even more critical of than MIT in this area.

tech_fan · April 22, 2007, 1:11pm

phuriku -- I couldn't disagree with you more on everything you've said :). Caltech requires way more humanities and social science classes than MIT (108 units = 108/9 classes = 12 classes, one for every term you're here). Stringent requirements are what makes a high quality university, and MIT is flaking out precisely by getting rid of many of the harder requirements for its easier majors.

You act like breadth precludes depth; it doesn't. College is four years. Four years is long time. You can delve deeply into your subject of choice AND get a solid grounding in other subjects. Plus, since almost every great discovery in the past 100 years has come at the intersection of two previously distinct fields, your diatribes against breadth are truly barbarous :). Finally, the simple truth is that most people can't handle more than two serious university math courses at a time (and most people who think they can are tricking themselves), so filling that other time with a broad education is not the worst thing that could happen to you.

I'm glad there's a market in this area and that people can choose a school like Brown or Princeton where the general requirements are rather liberal and they can direct their own course. But the ability to commit yourself to a genuinely comprehensive scientific education is what makes Caltech wonderful.

But it's surely not wonderful for everyone. I'm happy I had the chance to do it.

phuriku · April 22, 2007, 1:31pm

"phuriku -- I couldn't disagree with you more on everything you've said . Caltech requires way more humanities and social science classes than MIT (108 units = 108/9 classes = 12 classes, one for every term you're here). Stringent requirements are what makes a high quality university, and MIT is flaking out precisely by getting rid of many of the harder requirements for its easier majors."

Wow, I guess I totally misunderstood the argument (probably from not reading enough earlier posts). Well, then, I'm going to be a traitor and argue for MIT, then. No, wait. I'm going to argue against MIT AND Caltech, as I think both have silly requirements for graduation. :D Man, I just keep increasing my popularity on this board, don't I? I might as well just argue against the entire American university system.

"Finally, the simple truth is that most people can't handle more than two serious university math courses at a time (and most people who think they can are tricking themselves), so filling that other time with a broad education is not the worst thing that could happen to you."

Meh. I've seen people at Cambridge take 4 math courses per semester/quarter/whatever they are over there, and ace all of them. (And these courses are obviously far from shallow.) I don't know why someone from Caltech or MIT couldn't do the same. It obviously takes a lot of dedication, though, but I think admission to Caltech or MIT shows that the person already has a lot of it.

<hr>

All in all, though, I guess I do agree that there should be a place like Caltech where you can really be dedicated to science. I don't know why you think MIT needs to be like this, though. If they were really 'flaking', then you wouldn't see so many very good scientists from MIT out there. MIT and Caltech have different personalities, but meh. They're both good at what they do, and I don't see a need for them to be like each other at all.

Plus, Ben: Caltech has 200 undergraduates coming in a year. If they had 1000 like MIT, you just couldn't have that much dedication to science BECAUSE you just don't have 1000 American students a year being that dedicated to science. If they really are that dedicated, then they can choose to come to Caltech. It's that simple.

I've been peeved a bit that there aren't many schools that lets the student study freely anything that he wants, but I apparently didn't research enough, if Brown and Princeton really do offer an education where you can do what you like without a myriad of requirements. I guess it's my own fault.

tech_fan · April 22, 2007, 1:44pm

Doing well in the classes does not mean really getting it. Trust me. The best math students studying in America are better than the best math students at Cambridge, on average, and the very top people in the US that I know are very hesitant to overload.

Plus, remember that in England there ARE NO REQUIRED PROBLEM SETS. In America, you solve five hard problems every week in every real math class and hand in the answers.

But look, go to a place that fits you. I personally think being a mile deep and and an inch square is worse than a lot of other possibilities, but I'm all for people doing what they want to do. (Though there's something to be said for forcing youth to do things they don't like for their own good. Like brushing their teeth.)

simfish · April 22, 2007, 1:53pm

Haha phuriku, your arguments have won a couple of people who respect you. I, for one, certainly do (of course, there's another reason for this :p).

[quote]
I've been peeved a bit that there aren't many schools that lets the student study freely anything that he wants, but I apparently didn't research enough, if Brown and Princeton really do offer an education where you can do what you like without a myriad of requirements. I guess it's my own fault.

[/quote]

Don't forget the state universities. :p Some of them have requirements that can be fulfilled by APs, and then the student can go take graduate level courses. Or just skip the required classes and get an okay grade on them (seeing that many graduate schools only care about in-major GPA). As I've said much earlier (and sakky as well), a truly motivated and intelligent student can get a good and self-directed education at a state university. But the student will have to be able to motivate himself by means other than social motivation.

I'm of the opinion that taking courses is not the only route to understanding a subject (especially considering that there are only courses in a few disciplines - so you don't get much choice over what you read). Personally, I'd check out some books on behavioral economics, evolutionary psychology, or neurobiology, and read on them to make myself more well-rounded. I think that American culture has defined well-roundedness in a frustratingly narrow way - in that "well-roundedness" is not inclusive of any of the behavioral sciences. I think that students would be much better served if they read Dawkins/Pinker/Dennett/E.O. Wilson instead of Austen or Shakespeare prepares to get flamed.

Certainly, there are no mandatory essays out of doing such independent reading, but I haven't seen a causal connection between college writing classes and writing ability. Writing is a product of thinking, and good thinking does a lot more to good writing than 10s of essays.

The more pressing question, of course, is if we allow the undergraduates to have a free curriculum, will they actually pursue the learning of other subjects? Many undergraduates would rather do something else than to study, if given the opportunity to do so. Again, there's the prevailing mentality that "you need to take a course to learn a subject". Nonetheless, it seems that people who have to go through a well-rounded education still never chance upon reading about evolutionary psychology/behavioral economics/neurobiology (which are arguably more insightful than Shakespeare - one could take the route of David Barash and analyze literature by means of evolutionary psychology). And of course, they forget.

There's also the option of doing research in a behavioral science. Or reading a lot of research papers and writing papers on them. I'm not quite sure about the distribution of such courses in various universities though - many are graduate/senior undergrad level

Steven Pinker:

Unfortunately, most high-school and college curricula have barely changed since medieval times, and are barely changeable, because no one wants to be the philistine who seems to be saying that it is unimportant to learn a foreign language, or English literature, or trigonometry, or the classics. But no matter how valuable a subject may be, there are only twenty-four hours in a day, and a decision to teach one subject is also a decision not to teach another one. The question is not whether trigonometry is important, but whether it is more important than statistics; not whether an educated person should know the classics, but whether it is more important for an educated person to know the classics than to know elementary economics. In a world whose complexities are constantly challenging our intuitions, these tradeoffs cannot responsibly be avoided.

<a href="http://www.edge.org/q2003/q03_pinker.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.edge.org/q2003/q03_pinker.html</a>

sakky · April 22, 2007, 6:00pm

[quote]
"Even the prospective Cambridge Physics major has had 4 years of history and at least one foreign language in high school, even the prospective Oxford "Comparative Literature" major has had Calculus in high school."

How is this any different from American high schools? The typical English major (who ends up going to a "prestigious" university) takes AP Calculus AB, at least, by their senior year in high school. Also, most of the people majoring in science that I know have taken AP classes in history and English and received 5s on the examinations.

[/quote]

Uh, it seems to me that the major difference is quite obvious - and in fact is consonant with the libertarian philosophy that you yourself espoused. Specifically, you don't * have * to take AP Calculus if you want to end up as a college English major, even at a prestige college. I agree with you that many do, but you don't * have * to. Similarly, the future scientist doesn't * have * to take AP history or English. It's free choice.

Again, contrast that with the European system which basically forces you to learn things even if you don't want to learn them, because if you don't, you won't even be able to pass the national exam to graduate. So the future brilliant English major who is terrible at math may not even be able to graduate from high school if he is in Europe.

[quote]
Most American public school systems require 8 semesters of English, 4 semesters of social sciences, 6 semesters of science, and 6 or 8 semesters of math to graduate. Also, I think they're making a policy in some high schools where you have to have at least 2 years of foreign language as well.

[/quote]

Well, the major difference here is obviously that the American high school system is quite mediocre, particularly when it comes to setting standards. Yes, there are graduation requirements, but they are basically jokes - anybody with a modicum of motivation can complete them. And you may not even need that modicum. My high school was quite highly regarded in that state, and yet there were still plenty of students with arguably 'negative' motivation who managed to graduate anyway. They didn't get great grades, but they still managed to graduate. I shudder to think about what happens at lesser-regarded high schools. Similarly, US employers no longer see the high school diploma as a strong mark of quality as plenty of extremely lazy and anti-intellectual people nonetheless have high school diplomas. European high school tends to be more rigorous.

The point is, whether we like it or not, US universities have to pick up the pieces of the mediocre US high school system. I would love to be able to fix all the problems of the US high school system, but these problems are politically entrenched. So we have to deal with the system the way that it is, not the way that we might like it to be.

sakky · April 22, 2007, 7:08pm

[quote]
The more pressing question, of course, is if we allow the undergraduates to have a free curriculum, will they actually pursue the learning of other subjects? Many undergraduates would rather do something else than to study, if given the opportunity to do so. Again, there's the prevailing mentality that "you need to take a course to learn a subject". Nonetheless, it seems that people who have to go through a well-rounded education still never chance upon reading about evolutionary psychology/behavioral economics/neurobiology (which are arguably more insightful than Shakespeare - one could take the route of David Barash and analyze literature by means of evolutionary psychology). And of course, they forget.

[/quote]

Actually, I think the problem is more profound than that. Give undergrads free choice, and you know what's going to happen - a lot of them are just going to choose the easiest possible classes and/or classes on things that they already know well, just so they can get a bunch of easy A's. I know people who were completely fluent in a particular language who took all of the intro courses in that language anyway, just to get a string of A's.

The truth of the matter is, like it or not, a lot of people just see school as an obstacle to be overcome in order to get what they really want, i.e. a good job or entry into graduate school (which in turn is an obstacle towards the good job that they want). They don't really care about realy getting educated, they just want to get goo enough grades to get the job they want. Of course it doesn't help matters when you have companies out there that have GPA cutoffs for getting interviews without regard for how difficult certain schools are (hence, somebody with a 2.5 GPA from Caltech might not get an interview, but somebody with a 3.2 from some no-name school might get an interview), and that many graduate professional schools, especially law and medicine, are highly GPA-intensive with little regard for the difficulty of certain schools.

becmojo · April 22, 2007, 8:08pm

[quote]
My high school was quite highly regarded in that state, and yet there were still plenty of students with arguably 'negative' motivation who managed to graduate anyway. They didn't get great grades, but they still managed to graduate. I shudder to think about what happens at lesser-regarded high schools.

[/quote]

Haha. Many great things happen in 'lesser-regarded high schools', notably mine. :) (Average grade size : 16 people) There are two boys who aren't going to graduate this year, and the only reasons for that are because they slept in class, didn't do their homework EVER and/or came to school intoxicated.
I have a friend who is a junior who has to retake Algebra I because she doesn't have the drive to try (she's 'naturally' better than math than I am) and she's content with turning in her assignments weeks late.
She's also taking 'Consumer Math' which is basically simple division/multiplication.

I guess what I'm trying to explain is that there are people who have the potential to earn nearly perfect scores who get stuck into small public schools with mostly mediocre teachers. These kids don't have a choice about who is teaching them, nor what material they are given to learn. I think that what MIT & other bigger, more prestigious schools are taking those situations into account.

phuriku · April 22, 2007, 8:31pm

"The more pressing question, of course, is if we allow the undergraduates to have a free curriculum, will they actually pursue the learning of other subjects? Many undergraduates would rather do something else than to study, if given the opportunity to do so. Again, there's the prevailing mentality that "you need to take a course to learn a subject"."

I think we're thinking the same, but I'll still ask the question "Does it matter?", which I think you pointed out. This semester, I took a total of 6 classes, and all of them were extremely easy. Now, I've taken quite a bit of criticism for this. What most people don't know, of course, is that I'm reserving time for the stuff I want to do (after all, I am a second semester senior), like... for example, reading Nietzsche or Murakami Haruki (I'm actually at the library reading the latter right now). By the general population, I'm seen as "slacking off", but I think I'm learning more than anyone else at my school by taking time off to read and absorb things I want to read and absorb, things that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Of course, you can't expect everyone, or even the majority, to do this. A great deal of the scientists I know do enjoy reading literature in their spare time, but there are also a few who absolutely despite anything related to the humanities. And sure, the latter group will miss some stuff if they're not required to take humanities courses. But the first group (might I note that most people belonging to this group love literature, but hate their English classes) will be better off, because they'll have more freedom to do what they want, and they'll learn more because of it. And frankly, I don't know why you should make the latter group suffer through the humanities courses just for the sake of the former group. It's not like the former group will take anything out of the humanities courses anyway... I know from experience.

"Uh, it seems to me that the major difference is quite obvious - and in fact is consonant with the libertarian philosophy that you yourself espoused. Specifically, you don't have to take AP Calculus if you want to end up as a college English major, even at a prestige college. I agree with you that many do, but you don't have to. Similarly, the future scientist doesn't have to take AP history or English. It's free choice. "

Well, then, how about this? Perhaps "elite" institutions should start granting AP credit in the humanities. Problem solved.

"The point is, whether we like it or not, US universities have to pick up the pieces of the mediocre US high school system. I would love to be able to fix all the problems of the US high school system, but these problems are politically entrenched. So we have to deal with the system the way that it is, not the way that we might like it to be."

Well, the problem here is that we're not speaking of the bottom 90 or so percent of kids. We're talking (at least I'm talking) about kids at MIT and Caltech, who are probably all 99th percentile or higher (with some obvious exceptions) in terms of intelligence in relation to the American populace. And these students should be able to move beyond the failure of their school system.

I talked to a person in 9th grade who changed my entire way of thinking. I wanted to learn physics but I kept saying that my school was awful at physics and that even if they let me take a course (which they wouldn't allow until 11th grade), it would be useless and I wouldn't learn anything. This person's response was simple: "If you want to learn physics, learn it by yourself. You can't blame the failure of your school system for your own failure. Your education is your own responsibility." And it's absolutely true. If they're smart enough to get into MIT, then they should be smart enough to educate themselves in general logic, writing, whatever. Period.

"Actually, I think the problem is more profound than that. Give undergrads free choice, and you know what's going to happen - a lot of them are just going to choose the easiest possible classes and/or classes on things that they already know well, just so they can get a bunch of easy A's. I know people who were completely fluent in a particular language who took all of the intro courses in that language anyway, just to get a string of A's."

This is where the admissions process comes in handy. You don't let people who do such things into "elite" schools. Period. It's the admission team's responsibility to handle these problems. There are tons of Chinese people here who just take Chinese I and II, get As since they're already fluent, take the SAT II Chinese and get an 800, and this somehow looks impressive to colleges. I know people like that who got into MIT, actually, sadly enough. In addition, I see some of the most passionate people denied.

"I guess what I'm trying to explain is that there are people who have the potential to earn nearly perfect scores who get stuck into small public schools with mostly mediocre teachers. These kids don't have a choice about who is teaching them, nor what material they are given to learn. I think that what MIT & other bigger, more prestigious schools are taking those situations into account."

Yes, MIT does seem to be taking that into account, which is quite pathetic on MIT's part. Like I said above, education is your own responsibility (which is why I didn't feel quite so bad at getting rejected by both MIT and Caltech), and if you can't handle it... well, you really don't deserve to be at MIT, IMHO.

molliebatmit · April 22, 2007, 9:31pm

[quote]
We're talking (at least I'm talking) about kids at MIT and Caltech, who are probably all 99th percentile or higher (with some obvious exceptions) in terms of intelligence in relation to the American populace.

[/quote]

Do enlighten us about the obvious exceptions.

I found MIT's humanities requirement to be very helpful for my growth as a writer and as a scientist. My high school never taught me how to effectively write multi-page papers (the five-paragraph essay was about as far as it went), so it was extremely helpful to me to take CI (communication-intensive) HASS classes. I am not a big fan of writing, and I wouldn't have taken those classes on my own, but I don't think I'd be an effective scientist if I hadn't learned how to communicate clearly and succinctly. It's difficult to develop good writing skills without someone to critique you at all the steps along the way.

Self-study is a great thing, and if you're psyched about it, get psyched. Personally, I'm a lecture learner -- I get much more out of somebody yapping at me for an hour than I do from reading independently. I prefer to read in depth after I've been given some background in the subject by somebody who knows what he or she is talking about. Some people are not like this. It's a wonderful thing, I imagine.

I suppose I don't see the problem with MIT's core requirements -- there are no caps on the number of classes one can take per term, so if one is interested in taking four math classes, two physics classes, and a humanities class in one term, that's perfectly allowed. Education being one's own responsibility and all.

phuriku · April 22, 2007, 9:47pm

"Do enlighten us about the obvious exceptions."

I was subtly complaining about MIT's affirmative action policies and giving privilege to females over males in the admissions process. But let's not diverge here...

"I suppose I don't see the problem with MIT's core requirements -- there are no caps on the number of classes one can take per term, so if one is interested in taking four math classes, two physics classes, and a humanities class in one term, that's perfectly allowed."

Uhh, yeah. And how feasible is 7 courses in a semester? Where I'm headed, anything above 4 classes per quarter is deemed insane, and I doubt anything's different at MIT.

simfish · April 22, 2007, 9:59pm

[quote]
Of course, you can't expect everyone, or even the majority, to do this. A great deal of the scientists I know do enjoy reading literature in their spare time, but there are also a few who absolutely despite anything related to the humanities. And sure, the latter group will miss some stuff if they're not required to take humanities courses. But the first group (might I note that most people belonging to this group love literature, but hate their English classes) will be better off, because they'll have more freedom to do what they want, and they'll learn more because of it. And frankly, I don't know why you should make the latter group suffer through the humanities courses just for the sake of the former group. It's not like the former group will take anything out of the humanities courses anyway... I know from experience.

[/quote]

Well, I think mollieb's comment addresses this issue. Many people who don't realize that they'd appreciate their Humanities courses wouldn't take those courses unless they were requirements. Which requires us to split the group of people who otherwise wouldn't take Humanities classes into 2:

a) those who are forced to take them, and actually learn a lot from them in the end.
b) those who are forced to take them, and forget everything they learned from such courses.

The question is, is a) a larger group than b)? Another question is the additional complication of forcing students in category b into the same classes as those in category a, which could potentially hurt the educational quality of those in category a (as well as those who would naturally pursue those courses). But I don't think that b) really does hurt the educational quality of those in a).

Theoretically, it would be nice if everyone had the knowledge to know everything that they'd appreciate, and everything that they wouldn't appreciate. Unfortunately, many people don't have such knowledge by the time they enter college. This is a problem unique to the United States - where people are expected to be well-rounded up to the point that they hit college - and even for some time when they're in college. But the question is - do they really benefit from this well-roundedness?

Are American students really superior to non-American students in this part? Keep in mind that America has a larger population than most other countries, so the top 0.1% of American students is likely to contain more people than the top 0.1% of European students. (this is also why I don't think that America has a science education problem - while the math/science average scores in the U.S. are lower - the TIMSS studies indicate that the top American students are just as good as the top students in other countries, if not better).

[quote]
If they're smart enough to get into MIT, then they should be smart enough to educate themselves in general logic, writing, whatever. Period.

[/quote]

A surprisingly large number of people who are intelligent enough for MIT still don't have much initiative to self-educate themselves (beyond what the curriculum tells them to). I've read of studies that illustrated the surprising logical fallacies that a surprisingly large proportion of even Harvard/MIT graduates commit.

I've heard the "if they are intelligent enough to do theoretical math, then they should be intelligent enough to realize this" argument many times. Yet, you see very intelligent people in top universities deny that evolution exists or start becoming . One of the problems comes with the parents of grads at top universities - I think we can assume that the majority of them send their kids to public schools. But if they were rational enough to realize that kids can learn on their own, then we'd have more people who'd promote unschooling. I think one of the problems lies with the fact that the original system works (even if it wastes a lot of resources unnecessarily) and that people naturally don't like change so they'll go with the same system as long as it works (and it does for most people, until graduation from college).

While I agree with you on many things, it wasn't until this year that I finally decided to take responsibility for my own education. And it took hours of times wasted on lectures for me to realize this (taking notes that were in the book or on the Internet, counting on the teacher to cover everything, etc). It took some huge setbacks on my part to finally do it in. I even had to defend my "self-studying APs and SAT IIs" against other people in 10th grade, but even after my self-study 5's, I still had the mentality that "you need this course to learn the material - only that the material was at the college level." People often don't notice that they could teach themselves the course material until they run into problems with the traditional route.

The other issue is that it wasn't particularly easy for people to really take responsibility for their own education until the advent of the Internet (now they can find problem sets for other universities and download textbooks off BitTorrent). And old attitudes are difficult to change.

[quote]
Uhh, yeah. And how feasible is 7 courses in a semester? Where I'm headed, anything above 4 classes per quarter is deemed insane, and I doubt anything's different at MIT.

[/quote]

I suppose it depends on the student's intelligence and prior knowledge (and the requirements of the course). Some courses are purely based on problem sets, and students who already have had prior exposure to the material should be able to finish them very quickly (for example, you, phuriku, had you got into Caltech and took Math 1a, seeing that Math 1a's weekly problem sets are 5 problems each, and that other Caltech math weekly problem sets also consist of small numbers of problems). In fact, there are numerous Caltech students who overload (source: cghen earlier in this thread). Some do fine, some don't. Oftentimes, overloading is best done when the student skips classes since the student should be able to learn the material on his own faster than the lecture can teach him. I would expect MIT classes to be easier to overload than Caltech ones.

I've taken a look at some of MIT's material off OCW, and many of their math/science courses are also primarily based off problem-sets (which don't have that many problems).

==

As I said earlier, truly self-motivated and intelligent students can get a self-directed curriculum and still land very nice positions in graduate school (even if they go to state universities). I know one person who's doing that. It's only that very few students are really self-motivated enough to pursue such a curriculum (seeing that the educational system in grade school is based on lectures and people then really like what they have always been used to).

simfish · April 22, 2007, 10:19pm

Also phuriku, I find it interesting how we both tend to edit our long-ish posts after we post them (whereas others don't). I wonder it it's due to some similarity in thinking style.

===

Edit of post I was too slow to edit in 20 minutes:

simfish:

I've heard the "if they are intelligent enough to do theoretical math, then they should be intelligent enough to realize this" argument many times. Yet, you see very intelligent people in top universities deny that evolution exists or start becoming . One of the problems comes with the parents of grads at top universities - I think we can assume that the majority of them send their kids to public schools. But if they were rational enough to realize that kids can learn on their own, then we'd have more people who'd promote unschooling. I think one of the problems lies with the fact that the original system works (even if it wastes a lot of resources unnecessarily) and that people naturally don't like change so they'll go with the same system as long as it works (and it does for most people, until graduation from college).

One of the assumptions is one that comes with the assumption of general intelligence (or g). People often tend to overrate the impact of g as it relates to other subjects. People can be intelligent enough to do theoretical math/science and yet be blatantly oblivious to other fields/thought patterns. Sometimes, it's a result of the arrogance of certain mathematicians/scientists. Sometimes, it's the result of the lack of an impetus to "branch out" as a result of high natural talent in one field.

Oftentimes, it takes failure/disappointment with the original route/path/thought pattern in order for one to actually branch out into another route/path/thought pattern. In Thomas Kuhn's words, anomalies. (though this is respect to personal beliefs, rather than scientific paradigms)

==

Also, here's an interesting study: (Highly Accomplished People More Prone To Failure Than Others When Under Stress)
<a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070218130822.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070218130822.htm</a>

Which may have relevance to highly stressful environments such as those that exist in Caltech/MIT. Again, it depends on how the person responds to stressors, since some obviously handle stress better than others.

==
And here's an interesting take on someone taking a huge number of courses in a quarter (bear in mind that it's an anomaly, but more could pursue it, if they actually had the self-initiative)
<a href="http://slashdot.org/articles/06/09/20/1552236.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://slashdot.org/articles/06/09/20/1552236.shtml</a>

LauraN · April 22, 2007, 10:30pm

Yeah, please, let's not get distracted from the other useful wanking that's going on just because the mumbling you did about females and minorities being stupider than whites and males didn't actually manage to slip under the radar.

simfish · April 22, 2007, 10:41pm

[quote]
"Uh, it seems to me that the major difference is quite obvious - and in fact is consonant with the libertarian philosophy that you yourself espoused. Specifically, you don't have to take AP Calculus if you want to end up as a college English major, even at a prestige college. I agree with you that many do, but you don't have to. Similarly, the future scientist doesn't have to take AP history or English. It's free choice. "

Well, then, how about this? Perhaps "elite" institutions should start granting AP credit in the humanities. Problem solved.

[/quote]

Zahavi's handicap principle applies to AP Calculus w.r.t the Humanities, but not to Humanities w.r.t. math. The reason is that not everyone in the Humanities can do AP Calculus, but most people in math can do Humanities. A variant of Zahavi's handicap principle has been discussed earlier in this thread (how a degree is a useful signal of a person's ability, even if that the person learns little information in the university that actually turns out useful in his career). I don't think a lot of Humanities majors really appreciate having to go through calculus (though a few might), seeing that they have an alternative option to take a course in logic once they enter college.

phuriku · April 22, 2007, 10:41pm

"Yeah, please, let's not get distracted from the other useful wanking that's going on just because the mumbling you did about females and minorities being stupider than whites and males didn't actually manage to slip under the radar."

If you want to talk about it, PM me (AIM's fine). I'm not going to argue this out on CC. I'll get flamed.

"Also phuriku, I find it interesting how we both tend to edit our long-ish posts after we post them (whereas others don't). I wonder it it's due to some similarity in thinking style."

After looking for a long time at your name, I realized who you are. You're InquilineKea, the person I talked to about a month ago! Of course we think alike.

molliebatmit · April 22, 2007, 11:45pm

I took 6.75 classes two semesters in a row, and I'm even female. Hey, if you want to do it, you can do it.

sakky · April 23, 2007, 2:33am

[quote]
"Uh, it seems to me that the major difference is quite obvious - and in fact is consonant with the libertarian philosophy that you yourself espoused. Specifically, you don't have to take AP Calculus if you want to end up as a college English major, even at a prestige college. I agree with you that many do, but you don't have to. Similarly, the future scientist doesn't have to take AP history or English. It's free choice. "

Well, then, how about this? Perhaps "elite" institutions should start granting AP credit in the humanities. Problem solved.

[/quote]

And you think they don't? Seems to me that most offer some sort of method to get some sort of credit or advanced standing for AP humanities (especially for foreign languages).

<a href="http://www.fas.harvard.edu/%7Efdo/publications/advancedstanding0607%5B/url%5D">http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~fdo/publications/advancedstanding0607</a>
/general.htm#3 
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/yalecollege/publications/ycps/chapter_ii/criteria.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/yalecollege/publications/ycps/chapter_ii/criteria.html</a>
<a href="http://registrar.stanford.edu/pdf/AP_Chart_2007-08.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://registrar.stanford.edu/pdf/AP_Chart_2007-08.pdf</a>
<a href="http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/ap/table.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.princeton.edu/pr/pub/ap/table.htm</a>

[quote]
Well, the problem here is that we're not speaking of the bottom 90 or so percent of kids. We're talking (at least I'm talking) about kids at MIT and Caltech, who are probably all 99th percentile or higher (with some obvious exceptions) in terms of intelligence in relation to the American populace. And these students should be able to move beyond the failure of their school system.

I talked to a person in 9th grade who changed my entire way of thinking. I wanted to learn physics but I kept saying that my school was awful at physics and that even if they let me take a course (which they wouldn't allow until 11th grade), it would be useless and I wouldn't learn anything. This person's response was simple: "If you want to learn physics, learn it by yourself. You can't blame the failure of your school system for your own failure. Your education is your own responsibility." And it's absolutely true. If they're smart enough to get into MIT, then they should be smart enough to educate themselves in general logic, writing, whatever. Period.

[/quote]

But that statement is not relevant to the discussion. Keep in mind the backdrop of our discussion. You stated that it is silly for US universities to enact breadth requirements, when European universities don't. The response to that is that European universities don't enact breadth requirements because they don't * need * to, as the admittedly better European high school systems do it for them by forcing everybody to demonstrate broad knowledge before they can even graduate. Your response to that was that US high schools also attempt to enact breadth requirements through a required sequence of courses. And then * my response * is that those 'requirements' are basically so loose as to not even really exist, because like I said, you don't exactly have to be a genius to pass, or even to do well, in most US high school classes.

Hence, this US high school 'breadth requirement' isn't a true requirement in any practical sense. I've known Americans who have taken 4 years of high school history who, frankly, know practically nothing about history. Like I said, US high schools do not enforce high standards. So we are left with the situation that was stated before - that US colleges have to pick up the pieces.

Your foray into the notion that people can choose to learn subjects is therefore irrelevant. Sure, they * can * choose to learn it. But the question is not what people can choose to learn on their own time. The question is, what do the high schools systems * require * students to learn? When you're talking about US high schools, the answer is 'not much'. That's why foreigners come flocking to US colleges, but they don't exactly come flocking to US high schools.

And besides, like I said before, of course people can choose to educate themselves on a wide range of subjects. But what if they just choose not to? That's a segue to the next topic...

[quote]
Actually, I think the problem is more profound than that. Give undergrads free choice, and you know what's going to happen - a lot of them are just going to choose the easiest possible classes and/or classes on things that they already know well, just so they can get a bunch of easy A's. I know people who were completely fluent in a particular language who took all of the intro courses in that language anyway, just to get a string of A's."

This is where the admissions process comes in handy. You don't let people who do such things into "elite" schools. Period. It's the admission team's responsibility to handle these problems. There are tons of Chinese people here who just take Chinese I and II, get As since they're already fluent, take the SAT II Chinese and get an 800, and this somehow looks impressive to colleges. I know people like that who got into MIT, actually, sadly enough. In addition, I see some of the most passionate people denied.

[/quote]

lFirst off, I'm not even sure that it these 'GPA-gunners' are really doing a bad thing. The truth is that * much of the world * is superficial. The problem is therefore not with these particular students, but with the world at large. For example, I think it is now widely understood that if you want to maximize your chance of getting into law school or med school, you basically have to 'protect' your undergraduate GPA. Like it or not, that's the "game" of law/med-school admissions. If you don't have a stellar GPA, the top law/med-schools won't care why, all they'll see is that you don't have a stellar GPA. Similarly, there are a lot of employers out there who won't even interview you if you don't meet a certain GPA cutoff (usually a 3.0/4). Many of the major international competitions like the Rhodes Scholarship and Marshall Scholarship also weight GPA heavily.

Like it or not, this is the world that we live in. Hence, somebody who has shown that he knows how to protect his GPA in high school is probably also going to know how to protect his GPA in college, and will therefore go on to a have a successful career. It may not sound particularly noble, but that's the reality of the world we live in. Every school, MIT included, would like its alumni to be successful in whatever pursuits they choose. But, whether we like it or not, we live in a world where success is often times dictated by how well you can play the GPA game.

collegeguy2k7 · April 23, 2007, 2:57am

l0l, I'd say mollie is one of those humble smarties...

There is NO way I could take that many classes and stay sane... :P

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