Why do Asians excel in engineering, science, math?

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<p>Why do Asians excel at engineering, science, and math?</p>

<p>At the Cornell Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) graduation ceremony, several of us noticed that the graduating class was about 80% Asian. This didn’t really come as a surprise after four years but it was the first time the entire “Class of 2006” ECE students was assembled in one spot.</p>

<p>The class was predominantly Chinese but also a large representation from India, Pakistan, Korea, Japan, other southeast Asian countries, and Middle Eastern countries. (There was also a fairly large representation of women, by the way.) I developed a sense over the years that roughly half were international students and half were Asian-Americans, maybe second or third generation. </p>

<p>My family’s roots are entirely western Europe. Most of my ancestors came to America in the 1600s. I was definitely part of a small minority.</p>

<p>I also noticed from the grad student directories on various university web sites that the large majority of grad students in ECE at various universities were Asian.</p>

<p>One of the administrators at Cornell mentioned that graduation was truly a family event because successful students almost invariably have strong family support. This started me thinking…</p>

<p>Some possible reasons why Asians excel:</p>

<p>(1) strong motivation and encouragement from family during the school years
(2) families value education especially in technical subjects
(3) cultural differences/societal differences
(4) excellent child care during the first 5 years of life (I have read that nurturant, attentive parents are half the reason for intelligence)
(5) native intelligence…intelligence due to genetics (We all have gifts but we are not all gifted in the same way) I have read that genetics accounts for half of intelligence.
(6) the educational system (but why do so many Asian-Americans excel in American school systems?)<br>
(7) tight-knit families (emotionally close-aside from valuing education)
(8) different styles for raising children
(9) more wealth - can afford better education including college education
(10) Are international students valued by universities for financial reasons?
(11) stronger work-ethic</p>

<p>These are just a few possibilities.</p>

<p>What are your thoughts about this? What’s the secret to their success?</p>

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<p>they are extremely motivated…</p>

<p>i think to assume that Asians are typically smarter on average than caucasian counterparts is a gross overstatement</p>

<p>i think that in America, we get a skewed look at them, b/c we see so many as leaders/academic all-stars in our school. This is probably because many of the Asians that migrated to the U.S. did so with the mindset that they wanted a better lifestyle. With this said, many came here with such determination that it showed in their hard work and relentless work ethic. That is why so many do so well. There are so many ppl out there that dont live up to their potential, and Asian Americans in large quantities are maximizing their potentials and living up to their family and cultural expectations.</p>

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<p>motivation and respect of engineers in their culture.</p>

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<p>China and India both have over a billion people, isn’t it likely that the ones we see emigrating to the USA these days are the top .2% in wealth and brainpower? My guess is there are hundreds of millions of unmotivated and not-particularly-bright people in those countries, but they are not the ones coming over here right now. And they go into the sciences because in those fields it’s more a case of what you know rather than whom you know–so they are more likely to get hired and promoted based on their skills, not based on their ability to go out drinking and golfing with the boss.</p>

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<p>The Asians who are in America are the smartest ones, and most of their parents came to America because of there skills in areas such as engineering…plus they work really hard and thus end up doing difficult coursework</p>

<p>As second and third generation Asians become more common, you will see their academics becoming more and more average probably as their work ethic gets diminished as they get used to middle-class American life…I read this idea somewhere else and think its a good theory</p>

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<p>I believe that the confucian value system partially explains the importance of excellence in education.</p>

<p>Confucianism values education and hard work. Math, science and engineering are high on the confucian prestige scale. Moreover, Intellectuals are highly valued by confucian standards. Where as business people (merchants) has a low prestige rank.</p>

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<p>Wasn’t confucianism from a long time ago?</p>

<p>Or did Mao keep using the same value system?</p>

<p>I should really know more about this, since I’m a history and political science major lol</p>

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<p>because they work really hard and are really motivated</p>

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<p>Businesspeople not intellectual? Stop kidding yourself.</p>

<p>There’s a teacher at my school who used to be a stockbroker and he’s quite intellectual actually. He’s funny and personable and whatever. I would say that most Asians there are forced into it by their parents and they do well because they have no choice…the Asian Parent attitude is “I’m going to choose your major, but if you flunk out of school because it doesn’t fit your personality, that’s your problem.” This attitude is rather irrational in my opinion. Anyways I’m planning to major finance in college because I’m tired of that very fact…most Asian kids also have no idea what they really want to do…that’s why parents decide for them. My parents wanted me initially to do med/engineering/science, but I came off as a total a$$hole about not wanting to do it, and I was really proactive and assertive about it, and I refused to acquiesce on ANYTHING. So they gave up. </p>

<p>I think it has less to do with values or whatever, it’s because asian kids don’t know what they want to do and most of them aren’t very proactive or assertive about what they want to do. Face it, we live in a capitalist society. People are shallow. When we live in a system where the person who drives a BMW and lives in Greenwich gets more respect than someone who drives a Toyota and lives in Ann Arbor regardless of what the occupation of the guy sitting in that BMW is (even if an investment banker (“merchant”) is sitting in the BMW), the whole “prestige” system goes out the window.</p>

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<p>“Wasn’t confucianism from a long time ago?”
^I can tell you without a doubt, yes. </p>

<p>Are the ideals that he outlined still practiced? Now, I’m interested in knowing that :-p. As a guess I doubt that Mao would still keep that value system… I remember part of the Confucianism system stuff culminating in a national test which would indicate if certain students would get positions in government. </p>

<p>Apparently it was extremely competitive and fostered many bright Chinese folks back in the day… I think…</p>

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<p>The reason is because they are extremely motivated (by their parents). Asian families tend to value intelligence a lot, compared to more Western families who emphasize having a good time and learning the process (not just memorization)</p>

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<p>I personally think that the main factor in intelligence is nurturing as a child. By nurturing, I mean a lot of working with stimulative material at an early age. It’s been theorized after all that the reason humans diverged into truly intelligent species and apes didn’t is because the growth of the human brain is so much slower in early years, allowing for much more ‘impression’ in those years that really matter and make a difference. Supposedly humans today are just as ‘intelligent’ as humans some 30,000 years ago were. Maybe that’s why.</p>

<p>Maybe there’s also something to the intelligence by genetics argument. I do find it kind of interesting that my mother’s top subject in school was English, where she scored the highest in her class, and I also happen to fall into the upper 99% percentile area on standardized tests in: you guessed it - English. I wonder if there’s been any studies done on that.</p>

<p>In any case, I wish us ‘Westerners’ would start taking the same approach to intellect as we do sports. Sports is so overly hyped in our culture and intelligence so underrated that it is truly sad to see.</p>

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<p>Being a second-generation Asian American, I can tell you that a key reason for the motivation from parents is due to the conditions they grew up in. My father had to endure China’s Cultural Revolution, when many schools were actually shut down, and citizens were forced to farm. Consequently, since he was our age during those times, he couldn’t even get a post-secondary education, and so had to go through many hardships until he finally attained a college degree in, you guessed it, electrical engineering. </p>

<p>Thethoughtprocess brought up a really good point. Since others and I, and probably our children and so forth, won’t have to live in such conditions, the motivation will probably slowly diminish as we grow more used to affluence. That’s why my parents always try to push me, and though I resisted before, now I know how lucky I reallly am. It’s the simple idea that we shouldn’t take the opportunities we can afford now for granted that should motivate everyone, not just Asians.</p>

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<p>Because we have to. :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>A few things:</p>

<p>I don’t necessarily buy that the successes and motivations of ALL Asian Americans are the result of the Cultural Revolution. How does that explain the Indians, the Koreans, the Japanese, or the Chinese from Taiwan? </p>

<p>Second, unless I see some hard proof of the fact that Asians are superior intellectually because of genetics, I simply can’t believe that. Rather, the theories that those who have the resources to immigrate to Western countries are those who are better off or intelligent than the average bunch in Asian- seem like a more plausible explanation.</p>

<p>As for Confucianism- yes, business and merchants were viewed as inferior in status when compared to the intellectual elite, or the literati. But here’s the catch: The intellectuals in the thousand years of ancient China were schooled in Confucian philosophy! They were required to learn poetry and the art of writing essays. Many were also great calligraphers and painters. In the end, the elite were those in government positions- essentially-management positions. </p>

<p>The idea that science and technology were always the central focus of Asians is perhaps largely mistaken. I’m not a historian, so please don’t start attacking me if I’m wrong. But I’m proposing a more logical explanation: Asians were completely humiliated throughout the 19th century by European powers because of the lack of technological development in Asia as a result of isolationist policies. By the early 20th century, Japan realized that they must catch up scientifically and technologically- they did and they caused a racket in WWII. </p>

<p>Today, that mentality remains. Asians say: look where all that literati stuff got us! Poetry, essays, art etc. are useless. The only way to not be humiliated again is to become well versed in science and technology! And hence the motivations today. These motivations somehow because a more general: you must do well in school and get a good education.</p>

<p>In the end, I doubt many young Asian Americans- esp. those of the second and thrid generation even realize why there is this general pressure to be involved with math and science.</p>

<p>Now obviously this is probably a vast generalization.
But for any to say that Caucasians and other non-Asian minorities are less capable in the sciences is completely bogus. It’s just that in the last 20 years or so, white America has become less engaged in intellectualism and education because of the 2 decades of perceived prosperity. There’s no incentive to go into the sciences. However, as China and India’s economy grows and as new challenges such as global warming come to the forefront, I’m sure many non-Asians will soon take to the challenge of studying math, science and fields like engineering.</p>

<p>Guys, remember that the AP program was started during mid century (I think sometime in the 60s) to advance education in order to compete with the Soviet Union! There was an incentive: Sputnik and the Moon!</p>

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<p>Most Asians in the US, as tourguy stated, are either immigrants or come from families with a very strong immigrant tradition. Traditionally, in America, the immigrant ethic has been to work hard and try to rise in society – and because most of the asian immigrants are legal they (in order to prove useful to society) are educated. So that translates into instilling academic motivation into the next generation.</p>

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<ol>
<li>Natural selection, no questions here, the ones that come are the smartest, the most mativated, and the most adaptive. </li>
<li>Excellent family-based child care at the early stages: it is family members that pay their undivided attention to a young child, interact with him and develop his brain. It is very often highly educated and intelligent people, compared to what you get for $5 an hour.</li>
<li>Excellent work ethics.</li>
<li>The reason you see Asians as being intelligent and successfull in math/science/engineering is just because there are many and many of them. But if you pay attention you will see that Russians, for example, are just as good if not better. Why are they good? See items 1, 2, and 3.<br>
Of course I am Russian :slight_smile: Have a PhD in physics too.</li>
</ol>

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<p>mo24 and fizik, those are interesting points about childcare. In America, lots of little kids are placed in daycare and don’t get as much individual attention and intellectual stimulation from a parent. In psychology, they talk about how much the brain grows in the early years from “enriched environments” (especially being held) and how irreversably impaired children are when they are neglected.</p>

<p>I think childcare is important, but genetics plays a role, too. I think Asians are more adept at science, math, engineering than other immigrant groups who are also highly motivated to succeed in America but who do so in ways other than science, math, engineering.</p>

<p>To reiterate, I am not Asian. All of my ancestors came from western Europe, a group that is no longer well-represented among science, math, engineering.</p>

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<p>nevermind, misread</p>

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<p>one reason i think that a lot of pakistani people, and other asians in general, go into engineering is because it offers the highest paying salary right out of college… my parents immigrated from pakistan and they always tell me the only reason to go through college is to make a lot of money afterwards, they don’t care about a liberal arts education… i think a lot of desi parents are like this…</p>

<p>lol if anyones ever seen the movie “american chai” where the indian kid is a music major but doesn’t want his parents to find out… it’s kind of like that…</p>