If I had a buck for every time a student has told me that he or she selected X as a major because it involved no math or science beyond general education courses, I'd be wealthy.
In our house you must go as far in the hard sciences as possible - even if you might not major in them.
Luckily my son is headed into these fields. He loves AP Calculus and AP Physics. My daughter struggles with math, but she's in algebra 2 (she's a freshmen) and will continue on.
I am NOT a math person, but based on my experience in school I realize that I never stood a chance. By sophomore year (even after staying after school for tutoring) I was completely lost and once I completed my math requirements I never took another course with numbers again.
The problem (not the right word, but go with it) with the hard science courses is that they build on each other. You cannot progress unless you understand the previous course. Once a child falls behind it's very difficult to catch up... so they end up on my path.
We have made sure to keep our children up to speed. We've hired personal tutors - which is a luxury many can't afford - and taken advantage of after school tutoring - which, depending on the teacher is either awesome or a waste of time.
If we want our kids to advance in math and science then we need to help them early in the process - to keep them on track. This needs to be done long before they pick a major.
I wouldn't argue with anything you say, but I would supplement it. I advise lots of college freshmen and sophmores, and you are right--by the time they get there many of them have no chance at high-level math or science.
But....
They also have this near-universal avoidance behavior toward anything perceived as a "hard" course, or a "hard" major. You can talk to them all day about the potential for getting hired in different majors, or the salary differential, but they will too often say, "I just want to get my degree and that's too hard."
A colleague of mine captured this about a decade ago: "They want to BE college student, not DO ALL THE WORK associated with college."
Yes, there are many many hardworking kids this does not describe, but the numbers of "hard-avoiding" students has been increasing every year in my experience.
2 comments:
In our house you must go as far in the hard sciences as possible - even if you might not major in them.
Luckily my son is headed into these fields. He loves AP Calculus and AP Physics. My daughter struggles with math, but she's in algebra 2 (she's a freshmen) and will continue on.
I am NOT a math person, but based on my experience in school I realize that I never stood a chance. By sophomore year (even after staying after school for tutoring) I was completely lost and once I completed my math requirements I never took another course with numbers again.
The problem (not the right word, but go with it) with the hard science courses is that they build on each other. You cannot progress unless you understand the previous course. Once a child falls behind it's very difficult to catch up... so they end up on my path.
We have made sure to keep our children up to speed. We've hired personal tutors - which is a luxury many can't afford - and taken advantage of after school tutoring - which, depending on the teacher is either awesome or a waste of time.
If we want our kids to advance in math and science then we need to help them early in the process - to keep them on track. This needs to be done long before they pick a major.
I wouldn't argue with anything you say, but I would supplement it. I advise lots of college freshmen and sophmores, and you are right--by the time they get there many of them have no chance at high-level math or science.
But....
They also have this near-universal avoidance behavior toward anything perceived as a "hard" course, or a "hard" major. You can talk to them all day about the potential for getting hired in different majors, or the salary differential, but they will too often say, "I just want to get my degree and that's too hard."
A colleague of mine captured this about a decade ago: "They want to BE college student, not DO ALL THE WORK associated with college."
Yes, there are many many hardworking kids this does not describe, but the numbers of "hard-avoiding" students has been increasing every year in my experience.
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