Especially with the T of STEM (that's Tech to those of you in Rio Linda). I'm hardly the only programmer who was reading books and learning how to program my home computer before I was old enough to drive. And little things like the trig pre-requisite wasn't going to keep me from taking my first CS courses. By the way, I was able to skip the early math pre-requisite courses by scoring high on the math placement test and take CS courses in my first quarter. That was before I was enlightened to know how raaaayyyyyyssssssiiiiisssssst math is. Most of my peers tell the same story. Of course, with my younger peers it wasn't reading IT books at an early age; they read web sites.
I always thought ORGANIC CHEMISTRY was the DESTROYER of DREAMS.
Is thing the most idiotic thing I’ll read today? This early?
What’s more, if these students earn lower than a C in even one introductory STEM course, the disparities persist......
There is a world of difference in getting a D and an F. Many people just barely miss a C, but feel like they fundamentally know the material and would do much better a 2nd time.
On the other hand, There are people who get grades that are way below even the typical 65% threshold for F. Often these students have effectively given up by the time the semester is over—many times to the point where they stop attending class altogether. The typical reason they don’t drop the course is that they would be below the number of credits needed for full time status and the associated financial aid. I suspect many of the White (and no doubt Asian) males who try again fall into the D category. Those who are solidly below the F threshold typically take the hint
Despite the implication in the article, in many cases, the introductory courses are much easier than the upper level courses they will eventually encounter. So if you can’t hack those, your chances at the latter are slim and none. You are actually doing them a favor by weeding them out.
Boo freaking hoo.
My father grew up poor. He had Asbergers (undiagnosed but obvious to us, his children, later in his life). After the Korean War, which he volunteered for to get away from an abusive father and where he suffered a permanent injury, he worked full time during the day and put himself through college at night. He still managed to graduate summa cum laude with a degree in civil engineering.
So, despite a learning disability, a permanent physical injury, a challenging financial situation and living on his own, he prevailed.
White privilege? No. A Mensa level IQ (an organization he would later join), an unflappable work ethic, and a desire to succeed propelled him.
If students are scared off by a basics course, STEM isn’t the field for them.
There are plenty of diversity and inclusion corporate jobs.
Those require a college degree most 8th graders could get.
Keep Politics out of Science and Math, please.
Let me put it this way, if somebody can only get 75% in chemistry but they still want a chemistry, they need to figure what chemistry type jobs they could do with a 75% average
It doesn’t mean they can’t have a chemistry career of some kind. Just not the one they might want but needs a higher grade.
“... In 2018, women earned 58% of bachelor’s degrees...”
They want to hustle minorities into STEM even if they are not smart enough. HOW COME white people are not allowed to be professors in Black Studies departments. I promise you there are plenty of liberal white women who would like these jobs.
Also how come there is no affirmative action for whites in the NBA and NFL?
I guess it never occurred to the author that you are not ASSIGNED a grade, you EARN a low grade. The grade simply places a number on the amount of information learned in the course. It may have escaped the mind of the author, but the low grade simply shows that the student didn't learn what is necessary to get the degree.
This lack of knowledge may be caused by a number of reasons, including motivation, time spent, amount of encouragement, home background, basic intelligence, and more. It nevertheless is a good clue about the likelihood of learning enough to EARN the degree.
It has been my experience that minorities are STEM challenged, they want the pay but not the work. Government handouts are easier and need to come to an end!
They discourage everyone. Students who got straight A’s in high school get C’s in their college science classes and immediately head towards the humanities and and social science classes. It does a lot to keep those departments in business, whether or not that is a good thing.
Yes, interesting that they cannot do well in the introductory courses but can crush the much more advanced courses. Who would have thought.
However, it is historically typical in college for the introductory courses to weed out the ones who cannot handle the advanced courses.
Anyone getting into a big time university is pretty much required to have a ton of AP classes to get in now. Maybe there are some affirmative action set asides spots for kids that don’t have a great resume.
So most of the truly qualified kids getting in for STEM already have credit for calculus, chemistry and far more. I suspect anyone taking calculus as a freshman is either a) trying to prop up their GPA with a guaranteed A or b) didn’t take the hardest curriculum in high school.
For those in the (b) group, it shouldn’t be a surprise if they struggle.
Also - these are not “weed out” courses. Calculus is the basis for the math required of any engineering student.
“How introductory courses deter minority students from STEM degrees”
You mean like...Intro Math and Intro English?
I know this sounds like typical leftwing whining, but it’s not.
It’s a common practice to require “gatekeeping” courses, designed to keep students who lack the rigor to succeed in STEM out of STEM programs. (Often, Calculus or Organic Chemistry) OK, fine, you don’t want resources from either the student or the university being wasted on failure. But here’s the thing...
It’s not at all uncommon for students to retake the gatekeeper courses until they pass, or even to go back and retake a gatekeeper course. And frankly, some professors simply try to scare students off with terrible grades.
I’m a white male, but mine is a case study which applies to a LOT of women and minorities:
I took a Calculus class where on my first test, I got the correct answer on all ten questions, and still got a 20%. Three weeks into the course, I could still withdraw and avoid an “F”... or an identically harmful “WF.” I didn’t need the full Calculus sequence for my major (biology), so I took “Survey of Calculus” instead. Turns out all those bad test scores were a bluff by the professor: as long as you got an 80 on the final, you got a B- for the course.
The syllabus did not say this. The kids who were friends or study-buddies with Physics, Chemistry or Comp-Sci majors knew this about the course. I didn’t. I took AP to avoid Chemistry and Physics, so I wasn’t in those study groups.
By implication, I was lied to. According to what was put in the syllabus, I needed a 92 average average to pull my average to what was acceptable for the major (80). And I had just gotten a 20 on the first test, so that seemed unlikely.
The math department’s gatekeeping doesn’t scare off those lacking intelligent, but those lacking confidence, those who weren’t part of the right clique, those with academic-performance-based scholarships, those whose circle of friends tend to not be STEM-type students.
I blame race-baiters like Jesse and Al.
They fill these kids heads with ideas that every setback is because "the Man" is trying to keep the down, so they view everything as racist. Low scores are viewed the same way, so instead of trying harder, they just attribute it to racism and stop trying, or at least stop trying to work harder.
If someone can not pass an introductory course why would you think they will pass courses much harder?