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From: darin@nova.laic.uucp (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Are Americans Intellectually Inferior?
Message-ID: <429@laic.UUCP>
Date: 31 Jan 89 22:08:39 GMT
References: <1461@trantor.harris-atd.com> <19554@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <27541@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <15993@joyce.istc.sri.com>
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Reply-To: darin@nova.UUCP (Darin Johnson)
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Organization: Lockheed AI Center, Menlo Park
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In article <15993@joyce.istc.sri.com> gds@spam.istc.sri.com (Greg Skinner) writes:
>In article <27541@bu-cs.BU.EDU> cd@bu-cs.bu.edu (Clarence K. Din) writes:
>>True, as Norm said, it has to do with culture.  But Asian-American culture
>>enforces this thing that many other cultures do not enforce: DISCIPLINE.
>>Many Asian kids are taught, since childhood, that getting low grades is
>>shameful.  Therefore, to combat the idea of "losing face," the Asian
>>child must continually strive to succeed throughout his/her school
>>years. [...]

Another thing that I noticed while in school is that many Asian-American
(and Asian-non-American) students are compelled to take certain majors.
I often met students like this as a teaching assistant in lower and
upper division computer science.  In an introductory C.S. class, I
advised some Asian-American students to reconsider their major.  They
invariably replied that they would have to leave school if they could
not succeed in their chosen major (leaving school to some meant going
back to Asia).  To switch majors implied defeat.  To others, they were
taking a C.S. major because that is what their parents had told them
to take; because it would get them a good job.

In upper division, I would have some Asian-American students come
by my office very often, sometimes 10 times a day, about stuff that
I had assumed should be very familiar to them.  I would often get
a suspicion that some of these students were just not cut out of
C.S., but since they only had a couple classes to go and would
most likely get decent jobs, it was nearly unthinkable to suggest
a different career plan (In fact, unless they are doing data
entry, they probably have a better job than I do...).

However, I admire the time and dedication they put into their degree.
For me, an A was simple, and I would probably have given up if I was
forced to study as hard as they did.

Darin Johnson (leadsv!laic!darin@pyramid.pyramid.com)
	"You can't fight in here! This is the war room.."