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That's not much worse than the STEM failure rates of live attendance students. Source: I attend SJSU.

by nazgulnarsil 13y ago

codezero 13y ago
For introductory undergraduate courses?
- oblique63 13y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised. I attended the neighboring SF State and it's bad over there too. Many people fail out of the CS 101 course (including aspiring CS majors), and the Calculus 1 course offerings all the time. What I find more troubling however, is that we have a significant portion of the student body failing and retaking remedial Algebra I and II classes (to the point where sections for those two classes alone outnumber pretty much all other math classes -- despite Calc and Stats courses being required for everybody), and that many have a similarly hard time meeting even the basic English requirements to graduate. This is a serious problem that goes well beyond the supposed student 'laziness' theory that's so popular here on HN. Clearly our lower levels of education are screwing students up. Most of the students that get into college are seriously ill-prepared, and universities have taken it upon themselves to compensate for this by offering several remedial courses and lowering grading standards. It may be tempting to suggest that universities just stop doing this, but we've got to remember that our society values that degree way too much to ever let them get away with that (just imagine the revolt if all the colleges across the country started drastically lowering their acceptance rates). This sort of mindless degree-worship is silly on it's own, but it allows universities to grab money from otherwise under-qualified students, and who's gonna make a peep about that?
- nazgulnarsil 13y ago
  I think it's pretty common for schools to intentionally use some lower level courses as washout courses to avoid wasting resources on someone who won't be able to cut it at the upper division. Remember that STEM degrees cost the university significantly more as well. Calc II, E&M, and the first algorithms course all have very high failure rates.
- thebooktocome 13y ago
  Yes. Last semester, at my university, the drop-or-fail rate of the first semester of algebra was around 55%. Nobody said this was out of the ordinary.

That's not much worse than the STEM failure rates of live attendance students. Source: I attend SJSU.

codezero 13y ago

For introductory undergraduate courses?

oblique63 13y ago
I wouldn't be surprised. I attended the neighboring SF State and it's bad over there too. Many people fail out of the CS 101 course (including aspiring CS majors), and the Calculus 1 course offerings all the time. What I find more troubling however, is that we have a significant portion of the student body failing and retaking remedial Algebra I and II classes (to the point where sections for those two classes alone outnumber pretty much all other math classes -- despite Calc and Stats courses being required for everybody), and that many have a similarly hard time meeting even the basic English requirements to graduate. This is a serious problem that goes well beyond the supposed student 'laziness' theory that's so popular here on HN. Clearly our lower levels of education are screwing students up. Most of the students that get into college are seriously ill-prepared, and universities have taken it upon themselves to compensate for this by offering several remedial courses and lowering grading standards. It may be tempting to suggest that universities just stop doing this, but we've got to remember that our society values that degree way too much to ever let them get away with that (just imagine the revolt if all the colleges across the country started drastically lowering their acceptance rates). This sort of mindless degree-worship is silly on it's own, but it allows universities to grab money from otherwise under-qualified students, and who's gonna make a peep about that?
nazgulnarsil 13y ago
I think it's pretty common for schools to intentionally use some lower level courses as washout courses to avoid wasting resources on someone who won't be able to cut it at the upper division. Remember that STEM degrees cost the university significantly more as well. Calc II, E&M, and the first algorithms course all have very high failure rates.
thebooktocome 13y ago
Yes. Last semester, at my university, the drop-or-fail rate of the first semester of algebra was around 55%. Nobody said this was out of the ordinary.