Why do Asians excel in engineering, science, math?

College Confidential Community
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<p>lol don’t be stupid, people.
Why? because all the Asians that come to the United States are high-tech people, not the rice-picking idiots that make up most of their populations. </p>

<p>Why? because their populations are so damn huge that there are bound to be many brilliant people. </p>

<p>Let’s take China alone, for instance. If there is one genius per 100,000 people, then there’s an army of 15,000 geniuses at China’s disposal, and the Chinese govvernment invests billions in cultivating their potential. Of course, if you count people who are brilliant, but not geniuses (i.e. 130-140 IQ) then you have an army 50 times that size.</p>

<p>So there’s why the Asians “excel”.</p>

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<p>Hard work, motivation, encouragement from family…works for just about every race.</p>

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<p>If you take in the number of Jewish Nobel Prize winners, then you’d see that population and genius have little correlation.</p>

<p>Anyway, here’s my take on this situation:</p>

<p>Numbers don’t discriminate</p>

<p>Even the most socially awkward nerd can command respect if he can cure AIDS or build the impossible bridge, quietly in the confines of his lab. Asian parents are generally terrible when it comes to giving their children social confidence.</p>

<p>Self-perpetuating stereotypes</p>

<p>Asians are supposedly good at math and science, so more Asians go that route because they believe they are inherently gifted, and because they are more comfortable around other Asians. Again, the lack of social confidence comes into play here.</p>

<p>Prestige</p>

<p>Asians are suckers for prestige, enough said. </p>

<p>Safe professional route</p>

<p>For the able minded, going into engineering or medicine is the path of least resistance, and offers a good combination of riches and stimulation. </p>

<p>From my experience, a good many Asian parents consider it almost cultural betrayal if their child tries to break out of the ordinary and seek risky goals, especially in the arts.</p>

<p>For all these Asians going into these fields, most of the power-wielders seem to be consistently white, so don’t worry, there’s not going to be any social upheaval of power anytime soon.</p>

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<p>look at that guy Hung the loser of american idol. </p>

<p>He failed engineering class. </p>

<p>Enough said. </p>

<p>Asians aren’t all smart at math and stuff. </p>

<p>Japans schooling does go all year around though.</p>

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<p>I found this book on amazon.com.
Dumbing Down Our Kids : Why American Children Feel Good About Themselves But Can’t Read, Write, or Add (Paperback)
by Charles J. Sykes, 1996</p>

<p>Here is the Amazon.com review, in part:
"Nowhere has the flight from quality plaguing American life these days been more obvious than in our primary and secondary schools – on the whole, the graduates seem less well-read and less well-spoken, less knowledgeable and less able to compute. In this book, Charles Sykes asks why, and lays most of the blame at the feet of the trainers of teachers, the writers of textbooks and the educational policy wonks who influence them. He convincingly shows that in many different school systems, and in many different academic fields, with the help of goofy text-books, watered-down requirements and “recentered” test grade scales, American students have come to value feeling good about a subject over being good in it. "</p>

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<p>Yea read the book as I entered high school…Also google Inside American Education by Thomas Sowell and Why Johnny Can’t Read by Rudolf Flesch.</p>

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<p>Buddyguy, I assure you that there are many more white kids/non asian kids who decide to drop out of engineering majors. 1 case doesn’t make the rule.</p>

<p>The fact is that culture has a lot to do with it, and asian cultures value education and learning much more than the american culture.</p>

<p>Being asian myself, i do know a lot of slacker/not that smart asians too. There is no clear rule other than the majority of first generation asians tend to do very well in high school (atleast), then again so do first generation russians…</p>

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<p>American students may trail Korean, Finnish, Japanese, and Canadian students in every academic category, but you can place your bet that the Americans will whip them all in the ego category. A Japanese student who got 90% will feel less confident in his abilities than an American who got 75% in the same subject.</p>

<p>Of course, numbers aren’t everything about education. But some people claim that what America lacks in statistical performance, it makes up for “individualistic thinking” and “creative risk-taking”. What a load of crap. Like American high schools aren’t just academia factories with diplomas on the assembly line. Well, maybe the schools for the rich kids aren’t.</p>

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<p>Stuyvesant isn’t just for rich kids, and if I’m not mistaken there is a HUGE asian presence there.</p>

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<p>Yeah Stuy isn’t just for rich kids (it is a public school in a city of amazing private schools… though I’m sure many parents shelling out the big bucks would want their kids to go to Hunter or Stuy if they could) and it’s Asian.</p>

<p>I agree with the people in this thread who’ve said something to the effect of the reason why Asians excel in science and math because these are fields where practice makes perfect. These are fields that based on hard work and lots of memorization (and thus being a diligent student) you are able to excel. Yeah, you get better at writing if you write a lot-- but that won’t help you excel in writing in the same way spending hours working on a math or science problem would. In fact, the best writers are those who read a lot, and maybe the Asians spending countless hours practicing math/science problems don’t read books that aren’t assigned for their high school english classes; they either don’t have the time, or have parents who’d rather them do something more quantitative. yes, that could be a stereotype, but what in this thread hasn’t been?</p>

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<p>Basically, most Asians feel science and engineering are more useful and they usually encourage their kids to go into such fields. Plenty of Asian kids’ll tell you that their parents cant swallow the idea of studying philosophy or something like that.<br>
Also most Asian countries, take for instance, India have very competitive education systems.</p>

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<p>Genetics. When you get down to it, it determines everything.</p>

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<p>This is really more of a matter of class than genetics or culture. Asian culture is incredibly diverse and you cannot simply drop all of us into a bucket and say, “Look at how wonderful they are!”. Many Asians who immigrate to North America and the West were at the very least middle class and above in their countries of birth. Many Indians in Canada for instance come here as doctors and get lost in the system and end up as taxi drivers. That doesn’t mean they lost their work ethic and the knowledge and drive it took them to get to where they were. They pass it on to their kids. Contrast that to many Tamil and Vietnamese immigrants, many of whom come from poor backgrounds and in turn come here disadvantaged and their children come out on the short end of the stick.</p>

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<p>What total BS. In grade 9, the hard workers can get the 100%'s in math, but at the really high levels, you have to be literally insane to figure out some of the problems. Practice won’t make perfect. And practice can make perfect in writing, even in things like poetry. How many sheets do you think people like Yeats and Frost went through before finally coming up with the 20 or so lines that made up their masterpieces.</p>

<p>There are many things wrong with the many assumptions you make, such as:</p>

<p>1) Math/science is a matter of “toughing it out”
2) Writing is all about natural inspiration
3) Asians can only mental workers bees who learn through trial and error, as opposed to natural intelligence</p>

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<p>Asian work ethic instilled by parents.</p>

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<p>In my opinion (and I’m asian), we go into math/science/engineering because we can get a good paying job straight out of school. Not many caucasian go into math/science/engineering so the asians/indians/russians/etc snap those opportunies. </p>

<p>I don’t think asians are smart because of their upbringing. I think asians are smart because of their intrinsic/extrinsic motivation. They WANT to succeed. They want to get into that Ivy League School. </p>

<p>I don’t think genetics play a big part in intelligence. I’m sure if you went out and took a farm child with no ability to read, no ability other than plowing, etc and sent them to school, they could well be on their way to a successful future. </p>

<p>Basically, I think it all depends on the person. Ethnicity has nothing to do with what subjects you will excel at.</p>

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<p>I don’t buy the arguments that work ethic, culture, etc. create a significantly smarter Asian population in the US. I mean, maybe they do, but it’s not the root cause.</p>

<p>Esp in East Asia, only the top 0.1% make it to the US (or whatever number it is) and u have to be the top in science/engin. These parents that make it over are already inherently smart people, and smart parents tend to produce smart children (similar genetic structure in regards to effect on neuron structure). So yes, u have that culture, but let’s not generalize that the whole culture of East Asians is like that. If China were the US and u had the top US science/engin people emigrating to China, the Chinese would say the same about the US. It has nothing to do with Confucianism, etc.</p>

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<p>Cherrybarry basically nailed it. Try going into the slumiest of slums in SE Asia and tell me you can turn those folks into a bunch of rocket scientists and doctors. I’m not saying that none of those people have the potential to do so, but realistically tell me you’re going to have a better or even just as good a success rate as if you went to the hoodest of hoods in America (let’s just say Compton and Camden, NJ for example). The population of Asians in America doesn’t reflect the entirety of the people in Asia (as compared to the general American population, which by definition is a cross section of the entire population). You’ve got all kinds of people in Asia living in terrible poverty, from people who live on landfills in the Philippines, young girls in the sex trade… where was the Asian work ethic and genetics to help these people out?</p>

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<p>That’s cold man, don’t be so condescending to the impoverished. A 12 year old girl in the sex trade probably doesn’t have as a great a chance of being educated as middle to upper class Asians which have immigrated to Western countries for years.</p>

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<p>It’s pretty obvious that the asians immigrating to Ammerica aren’t from the lower classes, and they can’t really compare with Americans.</p>

<p>But what happens when you look at an average middle/upper class Indian or Chinese, and compare them to an average middle/upper class American? I’m thinking the middle/upper class Indian or Chinese would do better, because their education system seems (at least to me) better. But I really have no idea about that.</p>

<p>I dunno about this, but I’m thinking that the reason a lot of asians do better in academics is because when they come to the U.S., they don’t really feel like they’re part of the American culture. So to gain acceptance, and to do well, they try to do as well as they can in school. Which might also be the reason a lot of Jews, and immigrants from Africa and the Carribean (not so sure about this one though) also do well in school and stuff.</p>