indamail

what are you planning on doing with a physics major

 

[Hamouze]

Wow really? Those are some good connections.

Yeah I made the wrong decision in high school to turn him down; he's on the board of directors for a few universities and offered me a full ride on a comp sci program at a few schools and I'm really regretting turning them down now. And it's not even like a distant "uncle", he's my aunt's (dad's sister) husband that I see very often. Never met a richer man.

Anyone with an IQ in the top quartile can quite easily do it. Having tutored for many years I noticed time and again that average intelligence students struggle a lot with the advanced (2nd year+) programming and mathematics courses. Despite platitudes you probably grew up with, these are not stumbling blocks you can just overcome via practice. A lack of the necessary cognitive aptitude is as much a problem for the programmer or physicist as the lack of stature is for a basketball player.

I grew up just disliking math and not really having a drive to do well in physics. It just didn't interest me. I always did well in school regardless, I just didn't enjoy it. It basically comes down to money or enjoyment. Even though right now I'm planning on double majoring in biology and political science or international relations and I'm not really enjoying biology that much but it's sort of a help for med school. hmmmmm

 

what are you planning on doing with a physics major

Nothing specific, I just did it because I have an interest in Physics. Although I guess it will make licensing easier if I ever start a distillery.

 

[malakadang]

Anyone with an IQ in the top quartile can quite easily do it. Having tutored for many years I noticed time and again that average intelligence students struggle a lot with the advanced (2nd year+) programming and mathematics courses. Despite platitudes you probably grew up with, these are not stumbling blocks you can just overcome via practice. A lack of the necessary cognitive aptitude is as much a problem for the programmer or physicist as the lack of stature is for a basketball player.

Out of curiosity do you know of other people/tutors/teachers who share that similar opinion; is it a common but unspoken of opinion, or do you think you're in the vast minority?

 

Out of curiosity do you know of other people/tutors/teachers who share that similar opinion; is it a common but unspoken of opinion, or do you think you're in the vast minority?

It's unspoken majority opinion I think. It's also reflected in dropout rates for second year courses. For the second year C course I used to teach we had a dropout rate of around 50% and then a fail rate of around 40% of those who remained in the course. That indicates that only the top quartile were getting through with a pass.

Most universities worth their salt will have a couple of hard 'filter courses' for STEM degrees. These are mandatory basics courses that you need to pass through to get to higher electives but they are geared to dump out most of the students by the end of second year. Universities make all their money from first year courses by making those easy, but they need to protect their reputation by not graduating dunces so they typically filter in second year.

 

It's unspoken majority opinion I think. It's also reflected in dropout rates for second year courses. For the second year C course I used to teach we had a dropout rate of around 50% and then a fail rate of around 40% of those who remained in the course. That indicates that only the top quartile were getting through with a pass.

Most universities worth their salt will have a couple of hard 'filter courses' for STEM degrees. These are mandatory basics courses that you need to pass through to get to higher electives but they are geared to dump out most of the students by the end of second year. Universities make all their money from first year courses by making those easy, but they need to protect their reputation by not graduating dunces so they typically filter in second year.

Unrelated to education, I vote Sythe makes an introduction page letting people know how he's been and what has he been up to. I'm very keen to see what the person who created such a big website is up to while I'm sitting here reading the spam forum at 4AM.