[Chickensoup]

The intro course is a tough comprehensive overview.

weeds out the chaff who cannot hack the upper level courses

[rarestia]

I’m not ashamed to admit I dropped several majors in college due to these “weed out” courses. The professors are very blunt about expectations. Unless you’re dedicated to the study, you’re likely to fail.

The problem I saw 20+ years ago is now exacerbated by sloth and apathy. They want to just skate through college and take that piece of paper to get into some big corporation where they’ll be set for life. Problem is that reality is a cruel mistress. While some majors are “skate-able,” others should be intentionally difficult. Only the most studious will pass.

But sadly, we’re just handing out degrees, and we’re hiring sub-par workers. I’ve seen it myself, and it’s getting worse.

[the OlLine Rebel]

Actually once I got my act together, thanks to the local community college, I found the upper classes generally easier than the lower.

[Jewbacca]

I earned my engineering degrees at MIT many decades ago.

I was usually one of the few white persons, and I am more taupe. Mainly East Asian. Smart whites went to law school across the street at that liberal arts college.

Plenty of smart blacks in the classes. Not a one was from the USA, though.

[PapaBear3625]

Yes. Which is better: finding out in the first semester that you don’t have what it takes to make it in the field, or finding out in your second or third year?

[fremont_steve]

I have an EE degree. The department head (in 1979) told me that the intro courses always had the worst professors for the very reason of creating a filter. Only the really devoted students would overcome the terrible professor and learn the material despite the poor teaching.

[Elsie]

Back in the 60’s; it was pretty good at weeding out the white folks that were not up to speed as well.

[Svartalfiar]

The intro course is a tough comprehensive overview.

No, it's not.

Students interested in such subjects typically take introductory courses like calculus or general chemistry
...
The investigators studied the records of student performance in introductory courses in physical sciences, life sciences, mathematical and computational sciences, and engineering to discern the likelihood of students earning degrees in these subjects.

What they mean by "introductory courses" are just the basic courses that almost every student takes unless their major is art history or dance or such. Chemistry, life sciences?, physical sciences (you take basic Newtonian Mechanics and E&M in HIGH SCHOOL)...? Sure, calculus might be more limited in which degrees require it, but if students can't easily pass this pile of basic courses, what makes anyone think they would have any chance of being successful in college whatsoever? Sure, I agree with you that they'll have trouble in more difficult classes that use and build on the subjects from these "intro" courses, but the problem goes much further than aptitude to be in 'STEM'.

I had to take an intro 1-hr "Problems in Mech and Aero Engineering" that UTA recently added for some reason. I transferred in with 65+ hours, but nothing checked the specific box for this class, so I had to take it, despite having credit for 5-6 courses it's a pre-req for... Sigh. The entire class was a waste of time half-teaching almost nothing but 3D vectors. I got an "amazing approach" comment for using the law of cosines (sines?) on a HW problem, since they never taught to use it, made the problem done in a couple steps instead of a pageful of vector crap. There were kids in that class that didn't know what the associative property for addition was. Not "didn't remember the difference between associative or commutative or etc..", but kids that had somehow never even been taught them in the first place. Granted, a bunch were international students from India, but this is 2nd grade material that COLLEGE kids were needing to be taught. You bet they needed to be switched to a history/liberal arts degree plan!