>Immigrant outperformance of native-English-speaking students is a complicated topic I wouldn't even say 'outperformance' is an accurate description. I have le

>Immigrant outperformance of native-English-speaking students is a complicated topic I wouldn't even say 'outperformance' is an accurate description. I have learned from, taught, and been colleagues with many scientists from across the globe and each education system has its merits and drawbacks. East and south asian education systems highly emphasize quantitative skills. Western education emphasizes critical thinking. The hurdle for many western students is late introduction to higher mathematics, but you are ignoring the hurdle for many eastern students, flexibility and creativity of thinking. Eastern education systems focus heavily on rote memorization, stringent quantitative evaluation, and strict mentor student hierarchies that discourage questioning. I have encountered many colleagues from more structured education systems really struggle with developing their ability to formulate novel lines of inquiry. As this article describes, the difficulty in science isn't just the math, it's about knowing if question you are trying to solve is valid, novel, and adds to the field. You need both to be successful. Unfortunately the author of the article seemed to fail at both, resulting in his exit from science altogether.