This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Since you're talking about university students I have to ask: does this mean they've learned how to decompose an Abelian group, or that they've learned the quadratic formula?
I still remember long ago being asked for geometry help by a neighbor, a smart man who owned his own white-collar business, because his business math only required (grade school) algebra and arithmetic, and by the time he was remodeling his sailboat he'd forgotten how to use the Pythagorean Theorem on a real problem. I'd feel more smug, except later there was an entire math class I forgot 90% of, during several years interlude between "I'll take this for fun" and "wait, this could actually be used for something?".
This depends to a significant extent on the school--and I don't mean "more prestigious schools will require more." Sometimes it is quite the opposite! There are a variety of contributing factors, here.
For example, faculty at a community college are sometimes less demanding than those at a major university, given the demographics of their student body (which also vary dramatically between community colleges, tending to track the demographics of their respective communities). But community college faculty also typically emphasize teaching over research, and small class sizes over large lecture halls, and actual professors over grad students. As a consequence, a community college in a middle-class suburb is often a much better place to learn algebra than a major research university. This is something middle-class students often consider when weighing the benefits of doing two years of study at a more-affordable community college before transferring to a state university to finish a bachelor's degree.
Or for a different example, the "introductory" math and science classes at a STEM-focused university will often be substantially more rigorous than "equivalent" courses at large state universities. Accreditation processes are supposed to smooth this out somewhat, but in practice the "Algebra 101" class offered by Big State U has to be passable by large numbers of non-STEM students. This can sometimes lead to disputes over general education requirements as STEM programs in large universities like to really load up specialized credit hours; they don't want their students wasting credit hours (as they see it) passing an "Algebra 101" class with content students "should" have already learned in high school (e.g., the quadratic formula). Indeed, it's not unheard of for STEM majors to be expected to pass derivative and integral calculus courses in their freshman year, or else to just plan on spending at least five years completing their studies, including a semester or two of, functionally, remedial mathematics.
Or for yet another example, faced with the foregoing, some universities just outright offer "non-STEM-major" classes. I'm personally aware of this happening in the sciences rather than math--like, "BIO 101 for non-major general education credit, or BIO 110 for STEM majors"--but I have heard of similar things happening with math.
Yeah, I completed a semester of calculus in my university studies, but I didn't understand the use of calculus until many years later, by which point I had long since forgotten how to conduct operations any more complicated than getting the first derivative of x^2. The last time my mathematical abilities really counted for anything more complicated than household finances was probably when I took the GRE.
My state school alma mater still has calculus I and II as freshman-level (100-series) classes, though they now have a pair of lower classes ("Precalculus" and "College Algebra and Trigonometry" which appear to cover the same ground) which are freshman-level also. Regular algebra is remedial (000-series).
The school has separate calculus curricula not only for non-STEM majors but for life science majors. Not sure if this reflects on the calculus ability of life science majors or is just meant to make sure the women in STEM are kept safe from the bulk of the geeks.
The non-STEM calculus is usually horribly watered down, and in a weaker school may never deal with anything more complicated than polynomials. Life science calc, where it exists, cuts out trig in favor of early work with exponentials and logs, and is much more computational, but at least it doesn’t purge limits from the curriculum.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
"Geology 101: Rocks For Jocks" was the joke at my school.
The bifurcation I saw in math was "math for future engineers" vs "math for future mathematicians", where the latter versions of classes would cover more material at a more theoretical level, but the former were nothing to be ashamed of. "Math for non-STEM students" was just "math for future engineers but you're allowed to stop taking it sooner". Even the lower-level calculus that many STEM kids had tested past would still be taught quite rigorously. ... which was a very good idea; some kids hadn't had as many opportunities in high school, some changed majors (although changing out of STEM was more common than into STEM...), etc.
There was one "CS for future engineers" sort of class, taught by the engineering department, that should have been much tougher ... but in between "half the kids have never written Hello World" and "they all need to spend time on Fortran for when they're thrown into legacy codes", maybe they did the best they could in one semester.
More options
Context Copy link
I've seen a trend at some big Universities that seems designed to choke off the community college option and solve the non-STEM-major math course problem. STEM majors that are designed as pure, four year programs with tight prerequisite chains of degree requirements starting in the first year such that missing or failing one course sets back progress a year (especially if classes in the sequence are only offered one semester out of the year), that cannot be fulfilled by community college courses so at best the only benefit there are general education requirements but the blow may be softened somewhat with university offered humanities-for-STEM-majors courses that are credit and workload light to accommodate STEM workloads but fulfill the larger University's requirements. It can lead to a rather segregated student population, more so than normal (especially if you have dorms similarly segregated, there is usually at least one quieter STEM focused dorm that may or may not be combined with the substance free themed offering).
More options
Context Copy link
I did this in the late 90s. Took a physics and a geology class both explicitly for non-stem majors. My main take away was that the professors loved teaching those classes and were open about how much more they liked us as students than their stem students. They also happened to be good professors generally. Rest in peace Dr. Aaronson.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link