<p>^^agree with @awcntdb. Let me get some more popcorn…</p>
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<p>These conversations always remind me of the elevator scene in Working Girl. “So I started to think, Trask, radio.”</p>
<p>I literally just heard today from one of my D’s friends that another girl in their grade is in her own girl scout troop with just her and her mom - no other kids - and it has been this way for a couple of years. Since I don’t know anything about scouting, I’m not quite sure how this develops into a fake hook, but they must be doing it for a reason… (There are other troops that she could join, apparently.)</p>
<p>But it’s not a hook in and of itself to be in your own GS troop, ReadytoRoll. It’s about what this says ABOUT YOU. This is not about firefighting or juggling or breeding guppies. It is about how you approach these activities and what you get out of them say about you. Why is this so hard?</p>
<p>Couldn’t agree more Pizzagirl. It’s one thing to sing well, and another to sing in front of 10,000. Talent or interest can be taken to many levels. It’s what one does with those activities that colleges want to see. If you’re a world champ yo-yoer (is that a word??), how are you using your talents? Teaching others? Doing birthday parties for money? Inventing new tricks no one has seen before? Etc. </p>
<p>Nowhere do I see ore of a breakdown between the literal thinkers and the conceptual thinkers than on this topic. The literal people see the cat-juggler or firehouse-baker got in, and they conclude that colleges look for cat-jugglers and firehouse-bakers. The conceptual people don’t see the activity in and of itself: they see the story, approach, insight, lessons learned from the activity and the actual activity itself is just a vehicle to express a concept. </p>
<p>Pizzagirl, re your recent post (4 of your posts back, actually): It is very competitive to obtain a faculty position, at least in my observation. Simultaneously, the number of really talented American students who choose to go to grad school is relatively low. How can these circumstances be consistent? The offshoot of this is that faculty hires are increasingly coming from other countries, particularly in STEM fields at state flagships. To some extent, that is good–increasing the diversity of the faculty gives the students a broader view of the world, and when so many of STEM students’ credits are tied up in STEM subjects, that element is all to the good. </p>
<p>But I think it is still problematic when the proportion of new faculty hires from other countries gets to be quite high. In my opinion, it is often hard for a foreign faculty member to relate well to the experiences of American students. It is also a bit hard for them to take someone seriously as an aspiring scientist, if the student is taking at 18 the same math that the professor took at 14. What pushed me past the tipping point on this was a colleague from outside the US saying, “American students are stupid.” </p>
<p>The relative lack of interest in pursuing Ph.D.'s situation could be purely economically driven, based on salaries, other opportunities, and the relatively low raw odds of obtaining a faculty position. I am just not sure that’s all of it.</p>
<p>lookingforward, I agree with you that within the largely American (domestic) context, the students who are admitted to the “top” schools tend to do it all. I’ve seen a small slice of that. </p>
<p>But my point is that they are not doing STEM subjects at the level that their international counterparts are–because that is just not possible for anyone to do it all, at that level. I don’t believe in “magic people”–which is what it would take. I haven’t seen any of those (Well, maybe 2 Nobel Laureates and one person who may receive the Nobel Prize in the future.) In the “olden days” I was told by a program officer at the National Science Foundation that American students catch up during college. I don’t deny that there are some truly stellar American students going to grad school in STEM fields. But I am less certain that the general range of top-school admits are catching up as well as they used to.</p>
<p>QuantMech, most American kids have been raised with the expression “Those who can’t do, teach” dinning in their ears. They have been raised to think that success=money. They have been raised to think that being a sports hero or “hot” is the goal of school and that intellectuals are geeky losers. They have heard negative remarks about the “ivory tower” vs “real life.” They have absorbed the anti-intellectualism of popular culture through their pores.</p>
<p>Even on CC, the prevailing opinion is that anyone who does not major in something that leads to big $$ in an obvious way is a loser who is barely worth educating. We hear lots about “easy” majors from people who haven’t the faintest idea of what it means to actually excel in those fields, not just get by a minimum major at St Mary’s by the Roadside.</p>
<p>Given the decades of derision kids will have heard directed at intellectual activity, it is hardly surprising that few persist in it. </p>
<p>I think that, though QM says it is “very competitive,” at the same time she’s saying there aren’t enough US kids to fill them, so they go to foreigners. I don’t find that consistent. DH saw over 300 PhD apps for a humanities position that would only teach undergrads. Many PhDs we know patch together work at more than one school, as adjuncts. It’s true that, the better you are (however that can be measured,) the better the chances one will land a cushy teaching/research job. But the jobs, for the moment, are limited. </p>
<p>^^^The problem with that perspective is that you no longer need to be affiliated with a specific university or have a specific degree to have your viewpoint heard and respected and even stolen. The internet is the 18th century salons of Paris times infinity. There are fascinating discussions going on all over the world at all times of day and night. No doubt it’s easiest to receive funding to pursue your passion if you’ve got a fellowship from Harvard, but it’s no longer necessary to have one to gain an entrance ticket to the great discussions, particularly if you’ve got something of value to add.</p>
<p>I think you make a good set of points, Consolation.</p>
<p>I also think that the general view of science and scientists has changed since I was in school, fairly shortly post-Sputnik. It is hard to recognize the culture in which one is immersed, without any external points of reference. So I was unaware that I was being strongly encouraged to go into science, along with many others in that era. Science fit my interests exceptionally well, so the encouragement took root. But now I think that American students receive much less encouragement–to the point that sometimes they are going against the cultural grain, by going into science.</p>
<p>There was a period when the villain in children’s cartoons was frequently a mad scientist: Dr. XXX and Professor Coldheart come to mind. I think that scientists and mathematicians are over-represented among the perpetrators on TV dramas now, at least on a proportional basis. </p>
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<p>Hmmm. Very interesting! Perhaps because they are seen as being capable of wielding more power? </p>
<p>I think that American students receive much less encouragement
Not sure how you get this perspective.<br>
Kids still want stem majors. See it on CC, see it in real life. Some can’t cut it, sure. But the interest is there. Rather than point to mad scientist imagery, the new marker is Discovery Channel. All the technology around us. Still, the jobs need to be there. </p>
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<p>You would think that with this many applicants that the ONE chosen would be pretty darn good. It is humbling, exasperating and disappointing to learn just how many classes at elite institutions are taught by confused, unhelpful teachers who, in many cases, are actually being corrected by the undergrads when the teachers can’t do basic geometry in a math course, for example (true story).</p>
<p>^She is darned good, a young expert in her field, highly engaged in her work- and, ha, well rounded as an individual, in her life and the efforts beyond her chosen academic field. And nice. And still there. Students love her. A win. But there were many qualified candidates. </p>
<p>I don’t know about the faculty hiring patterns in the humanities, other than to say that there are many applicants for a small number of positions, and some humanities Ph.D.s decide to go for adjunct positions. I have not observed increased number of foreign-born professors in the humanities.</p>
<p>In STEM fields, though, there is definitely an increase. (I’m not advocating STEM “uber alles,” just saying that in this area, I think it has become problematic–unless you think that American university faculty should reflect world demographics, which is a defensible point of view.)</p>
<p>lookingforward, I suspect that you may have gone to K-12 a bit after I did, when the Sputnik-inspired panic and the curricular reactions to that had damped down. At least in my area, and among the undergrads I teach, the level of encouragement for STEM careers has dropped quite a bit. This is true in physics and mathematics particularly–less true in engineering and biology/medicine.</p>
<p>@QuantMech, what do your physics undergrads do after graduation? </p>
<p>I remember looking up in the sky, when it passed over. Just about the same time Mr Science (who was it?) became a rage. I remember the fears the USSR would plant their flag on the moon before we could (and how hard it was to understand the moon could be so claimed.) I don’t see this present discouragement. Granted, I view a slice (then again, so do you.) More and more girls, especially. Kids you’d like to work with. It’s not dumb luck, some rare kid studying Goldstein on her own because the teacher is low quality and just no one around her understands. These kids are getting to where they are because they are encouraged and exposed.</p>
<p>Some parent may rebut, how his or her girl wasn’t encouraged- but things change. </p>
<p>This is my first post on CC. I was reading this forum and it is quite shocking, I think a lot of what is posted here is hearsay, not direct experience. Most American students are encouraged to go "STEM” The problem? It’s a lot of work, and it takes a certain level of computational/abstract/spatial ability. I found STEM professors to be very aggressive in trying to encourage students to switch from “soft” to “hard” As a grad school applicant you have an advantage over foreign students. Whether teaching a section or tutoring the ability to better relate to the undergrads (accent and language too) is an advantage that is not lost on the department admitting you. As for the comment about not being able to compete with students that took a math class at 14 that I took at 18, hogwash! You get up to speed very quickly. The emersion in undergrate STEM curriculums quickly sorts out who can dance and who can’t. It DOES NOT MATTER when you took Calc 1, just that you truly understand it. You have to know it like someone else can spell “dog”, only then do you eventually get through Dirac et al.We seem to automatically believe that earlier is better. I would rather have my students learn material as they are fully able to grasp it and have the maturity to integrate it with other aspects of their development. Most 14 year old prodigies that I have run into burnt out or were advanced because of effort/environment rather than a superior intellect. At the end of the day having the innate intellect to handle the load gets you part way home. Fortitude and maturity to get through finishes the job, you must have both. </p>
<p>PS, every reasonably talented STEM student of American birth I know went PHD full ride. Almost every student from my advanced elite high school chose to do something outside of STEM, to much work. Theoretical physics hurts your head</p>
<p>Re: The advantage native-born Americans have because of their “ability to better relate to the undergrads (accent and language, too).”</p>
<p>I present what a younger friend once told me. He was a math PhD student at an Ivy League university, who discovered that he despised teaching freshman calculus, especially to pre-meds:</p>
<p>“There was only one thing I liked about teaching. It was watching the slow but inexorable progression from the first day when everyone was thrilled because their teacher was a native English speaker to the day they finally grasped that they would have been better off with someone who only spoke Chinese but who gave a s*** about them.”</p>