Xref: utzoo comp.edu:1893 sci.math:5392 sci.physics:5576 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pdn!reggie From: reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) Newsgroups: comp.edu,sci.math,sci.physics Subject: Re: Student preparedness Message-ID: <5392@pdn.UUCP> Date: 17 Jan 89 17:11:54 GMT References: <4893@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <6435@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <558@mccc.UUCP> <3350@arcturus> <18958@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5314@pdn.UUCP> <19035@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <5354@pdn.UUCP> <19145@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) Organization: Paradyne Corporation, Largo FL Lines: 66 In article <19145@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff) writes: >In article <5354@pdn.UUCP> reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach) writes: [Norm discusses the tendancy for foreign students to concentrate too much on math and science and not enough on language and communications skills, even in their native languages] >> That is unfortunate. Years ago the same was true in this country. >>The science and math courses were everything and who cares if you can >>speak, read or write. However, communication skill play a very important >>part in a technical person's life and should not be ignored. >Agreed. But do you really feel that things have improved in this respect >in U.S. education? Oh, no! I didn't mean to imply that this is not a problem here. I feel that we are at least more aware of the problem these days, but not enough is being done about it. >> I agree! I would never even think about trying to either attent a >>university or land a job in France. My two years of high school French >>are not enough. Yet, I get the feeling that many enter this country will >>less preparation than that! Obviously, somehow they are hearing that it ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >>is not all that important to get into an American university or to get a job. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ >It's not so much that they hear this explicitly, but they do hear all >the success stories of others, and emulate them. Unfortunately, they >do NOT hear that these people found it much harder to get their first >job than it should have been, and that these people got jobs which were >not quite up to their qualifications, and that these people had trouble >getting promotions later on, all due at least in part to poor verbal >skills. It sounds like what many of the immigrants of the earlier part of this century heard: "the streets are paved with gold". >Moreover, I'm not sure that your example is directly comparable. There >are so many Chinese immigrants working in the Silicon Valley that many >of them don't have to speak English very much at work. My wife speaks >Mandarin most of the time at work there. True! In the New York/New Jersey area there are enough Chinese who work in certain places that they can band together and speak their native tongue as well. In fact, I have known people who came to this country and settled in Chinatown, in lower Manhattan, where the society very much mirrors their homeland. New York is rather unique in this respect. There are many ethnic neighborhoods there. -- George W. Leach Paradyne Corporation ..!uunet!pdn!reggie Mail stop LG-129 Phone: (813) 530-2376 P.O. Box 2826 Largo, FL USA 34649-2826