<p><a href=“Also,%20you%20might%20say%20that%20many%20Berkeley%20students%20and%20probably%20others%20are%20capable%20of%20doing%20a%20CCIE,%20but%20how%20many%20of%20them%20are%20motivated%20to%20do%20so,%20even%20if%20they%20had%20all%20the%20time%20in%20the%20world?”>quote</a>
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, surely we have seen plenty of people who are evidently motivated to major in engineering despite having little inherent love for the discipline, but just because they want a marketable degree. To inject a possibly controversial racial point, why are the engineering majors at Berkeley so heavily dominated by Asians, to the point that the classes might actually be more comprehensible to the students if taught in Chinese rather than English? Is it because Asians just inherently (biologically) love engineering? Or does it more have to do with Asian cultural and parental pressures to choose a major that provides a professional career pathway? {One might argue that imperfect language skills among new Asian immigrants might also compel them to choose technical majors for which mathematics is the underpinning universal ‘language’, but that doesn’t explain why so few Asians choose to major in Asian Languages or Asian Studies. Far more white students at Berkeley choose to major in English than Asian students who choose to major in an Asian language.} The cultural preprofessional bent also seems explains Asians disproportionately becoming prelaws or premeds. </p>
<p>The point is, plenty of people are motivated to learn topics they don’t even particularly inherently enjoy, simply due to cultural pressures. If Asian parents were to discover the IT gravy train, you’d better believe that armies of Asian kids would storm the CCIE ranks. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And given the selection-bias issue that I previously discussed, I don’t know what to make of this assertion. Such bias almost certainly is more prevalent within the lower division, as that it is during the lower division when students are likeliest to attempt to switch majors if they are not performing to their expectations. {For example, if you’re a freshman or software who is receiving abysmal scores in your lower-division CS coursework, you’re probably going to try to switch out of the major entirely. I know I would.} In contrast, once you’ve made it to the upper-division, you’re far more locked into the major.</p>