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In Canadian universities you typically have 3 to 5 levels of mathematics courses for students specializing in something other than math. The highest level of ri

In Canadian universities you typically have 3 to 5 levels of mathematics courses for students specializing in something other than math. The highest level of rigour would only be found in the courses for mathematicians, with physics, engineering and computer science students studying many of the same concepts but less rigorously and with comparatively little attention to deriving results from first principles. Was the approach the same in the USSR?

c-smile 6y ago
First 3 years all students of all Sciences (Math included) and all Engineering specialties were getting the same (mandatory) set of courses. Only rest 2 or 3 years were variable. As of Canadian Universities. UBC in particular. Anecdotical evidence, but still. Friend of mine, owner of small factory here in Vancouver, asked me once to assemble him software department specifically from Eastern Europe people. On question "why?" he answered - they are engineers first and programmers only second, and UBC makes CS people.
- winter_blue 6y ago
  > asked me once to assemble him software department specifically from Eastern Europe people I hope your friend realizes that this is clear-cut racial/ethnicity-based discrimination. It's a violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act, see: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/rights-workplace.html https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/rights-w...
  - c-smile 6y ago
    > I hope your friend realizes that this is clear-cut racial/ethnicity-based discrimination. That is absolutely orthogonal to business requirements to be honest. Especially when you need to establish production of anything as primitive as N95s. Of course you can send airplanes all around the world for them (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-at-least-two-canada-chartered-planes-return-from-china-without-medical/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-at-least-tw...) but when they will return empty, that thin reasoning layer will vaporize almost immediately.
  - prime_factor 6y ago
    No? If we interpret his intentions generously, he didn't say he only wanted to hire people of Eastern European descent, but people who went through their education system. This can include people from any ethnic group that happens to have people living there. That's like saying it's racial discrimination to only hire people who went to MIT.
  - Symbiote 6y ago
    A generous interpretation is they were outsourcing the work, and the business wanted it to be outsourced to a company in Eastern Europe.
    - OJFord 6y ago
      That's an even more interesting thought when you apply it to one-man bands. If the only employment is someone self-employing, then presumable the client can discriminate in such ways. I suppose if you try to do it at scale though there are other mechanisms for calling you out on deliberately circumventing the spirit of the law.
  - LudwigNagasena 6y ago
    I thought in the West the preferred term is “affirmative action.”

c-smile 6y ago

First 3 years all students of all Sciences (Math included) and all Engineering specialties were getting the same (mandatory) set of courses. Only rest 2 or 3 years were variable. As of Canadian Universities. UBC in particular. Anecdotical evidence, but still. Friend of mine, owner of small factory here in Vancouver, asked me once to assemble him software department specifically from Eastern Europe people. On question "why?" he answered - they are engineers first and programmers only second, and UBC makes CS people.

winter_blue 6y ago
> asked me once to assemble him software department specifically from Eastern Europe people I hope your friend realizes that this is clear-cut racial/ethnicity-based discrimination. It's a violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act, see: https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/rights-workplace.html https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/rights-w...
- c-smile 6y ago
  > I hope your friend realizes that this is clear-cut racial/ethnicity-based discrimination. That is absolutely orthogonal to business requirements to be honest. Especially when you need to establish production of anything as primitive as N95s. Of course you can send airplanes all around the world for them (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-at-least-two-canada-chartered-planes-return-from-china-without-medical/ https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-at-least-tw...) but when they will return empty, that thin reasoning layer will vaporize almost immediately.
- prime_factor 6y ago
  No? If we interpret his intentions generously, he didn't say he only wanted to hire people of Eastern European descent, but people who went through their education system. This can include people from any ethnic group that happens to have people living there. That's like saying it's racial discrimination to only hire people who went to MIT.
- Symbiote 6y ago
  A generous interpretation is they were outsourcing the work, and the business wanted it to be outsourced to a company in Eastern Europe.
  - OJFord 6y ago
    That's an even more interesting thought when you apply it to one-man bands. If the only employment is someone self-employing, then presumable the client can discriminate in such ways. I suppose if you try to do it at scale though there are other mechanisms for calling you out on deliberately circumventing the spirit of the law.
- LudwigNagasena 6y ago
  I thought in the West the preferred term is “affirmative action.”