Gotta keep that student loan cash flowing.
Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
31–40 of 278 posts
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Now, it is seen as an extension of high school; the onus is on the college to mold all comers into more educated and productive citizens, even if that means re-teaching the basics. This seems to be the case with grad programs now too: doing the teaching that undergrad should have already done. Turtles all the way down.
In which departments have you seen that? [Not denying, genuinely curious]
I'm in physics/chemistry/materials fields. I've been around several 'world-class' institutions in the UK and USA, and had mixed experiences -- far more mixed than you'd think looking at simple rankings. I wouldn't like to draw any hard conclusions though, because I only have anecdotes, but perhaps others can comment.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
i've seen some pretty shitty grad students but i don't really blame the grad school. a lot of non-cs undergrads go into cs grad programs with barely any programming experience. in my experience, the grad programs don't teach them the fundamentals (assuming they know them) but instead teach very specific niche areas. They end up never learning basic programming fundamentals.
If someone is studying computability or formal languages or algorithms or ML in a CS department, they don't really need to be programmers.
My sister is a graduate student in Neuropsychology. As part of her graduate program, she was required to take a programming class; because programming is an important tool that she needs to be able to use to do her research.
Simmilarly, most research in CS will involve using programming as a tool, even if it is not the final product. The problem is that in CS, no one thinks to require the graduate students to take basic programming classes.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#34This is part of a long and slow change in the role of higher education. Previously, college was seen as being for people who academically deserved it. College was not for teaching high-school level concepts, it was for teaching advanced concepts to students who had already demonstrated some bona fides. Now, it is seen as an extension of high school; the onus is on the college to mold all comers into more educated and…
Perhaps the US wouldn't have this issue if we had a strong vocational program culture.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#35There's just no reason to get a degree from any but a few schools anymore. Employers have already caught on, and this is a move in the wrong direction. If they'll give you a degree for free, fine, but no one should be taking out loans or paying a dime for a school without making sure diplomas from that schools are still worth anything to employers. There are schools where a CS degree from them makes you look worse than having no degree at all.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#36College is really the new high school...
And this hurts the people they're trying to help. If you devalue highschool to the point you need another 4 years to prove you have the basics, anyone who's doesn't the privileged to wait that extra 4 years is that much more screwed.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#37I recently interviewed a master's CS student at a decent state school looking for a part-time job. She had barely programmed before the master's CS (undergrad was in MIS). Did not know what a hash table / dictionary / etc. was. So troubling for someone soon to graduate with a master's in CS.
That school may have once been decent, but is no longer. Employers are gonna have to start looking at degree award dates very closely. They don't have time for that, though, so maybe that's a good idea for a website.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#38"At Cal State, about 40% of freshmen each year are considered not ready for college-level work and required to take remedial classes that do not count toward their degrees." This is crazy to me. I'm not familiar with Cal State but do they just let anyone in who applies?
My family members who teach at Berkeley indicate it is not much better there and they've been complaining about it more and more for a decade now.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#39I don't take too much of an issue with this. It's clear that the current system isn't working well enough, evidenced by the low graduation rates and high student loan burdens, so I don't see what's wrong in trying out a new approach and measuring the results. If this doesn't work, then I think we should try something else.
Ultimately we need to change the way we fund education, but that a whole lot more complicated.
For those who disagree, I'd definitely like to read why over just a vote in either direction.
Re: Cal State will no longer require math and English placement exams
#40California has a three-tier system
* University of California - real college
* California State University - college lite
* Community colleges - advanced high school