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And I will never forget what one assistant who had classes with us said at the university I was attending: In Poland public universities are "free" (paid from

by pfoof 4y ago

And I will never forget what one assistant who had classes with us said at the university I was attending: In Poland public universities are "free" (paid from the taxes), and those are known to be of a higher level than their paid counterparts. But it's also common for polish students to skip lectures, very common. So the dialogue went like that: - Do you know how to do this double integral? - silence - Have you been on the lecture? - laughter - saddened You know, I was also a student not so long ago, but you must know that in the US people take loans for life and pay a lot of money for such lectures. I do remember those stories from the US.

rawgabbit 4y ago
I believe your comment his the nail on the head. For non-US residents, they may not realize that a university education for an American is basically indentured servitude. The American student, as of today, must decide upfront what his career path will be. Because he will be taking on a gigantic loan to train for that career. If that career does not provide financially, the American student is burdened with debt that he cannot discharge even in bankruptcy. Yes, Americans want to prepare for their career. That is why they look at calculus and other required subjects as an unnecessary tax on their time in college and monies. For what it's worth, I have had extensive classes in calculus and statistics at the graduate level. For most people, those classes would be useless. They would be better off mastering Algebra and Finance 101 (how loans work and net present value of money). For non-engineering types, I would argue they are better off mastering Statistics as they will be reading and reviewing scientific experiments their entire career. I find the argument you need to master calculus to master statistics disingenuous. Statistics instructors are perfectly capable of teaching all the concepts needed to understand statistics within the class including any that may have derived from calculus. If extra instruction is needed, they can offer a pre-statistics class. This argument, as it seems to me, is that calculus instructors are threatened by statistics instructors.

by pfoof 4y ago

rawgabbit 4y ago

I believe your comment his the nail on the head. For non-US residents, they may not realize that a university education for an American is basically indentured servitude. The American student, as of today, must decide upfront what his career path will be. Because he will be taking on a gigantic loan to train for that career. If that career does not provide financially, the American student is burdened with debt that he cannot discharge even in bankruptcy. Yes, Americans want to prepare for their career. That is why they look at calculus and other required subjects as an unnecessary tax on their time in college and monies. For what it's worth, I have had extensive classes in calculus and statistics at the graduate level. For most people, those classes would be useless. They would be better off mastering Algebra and Finance 101 (how loans work and net present value of money). For non-engineering types, I would argue they are better off mastering Statistics as they will be reading and reviewing scientific experiments their entire career. I find the argument you need to master calculus to master statistics disingenuous. Statistics instructors are perfectly capable of teaching all the concepts needed to understand statistics within the class including any that may have derived from calculus. If extra instruction is needed, they can offer a pre-statistics class. This argument, as it seems to me, is that calculus instructors are threatened by statistics instructors.