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From: matloff@bizet.Berkeley.EDU (Norman Matloff)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Are Americans Intellectually Inferior?
Message-ID: <19810@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: 2 Feb 89 02:04:47 GMT
References: <1461@trantor.harris-atd.com> <19554@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <27541@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <15993@joyce.istc.sri.com> <429@laic.UUCP>
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Reply-To: matloff@iris.ucdavis.edu (Norm Matloff)
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In article <429@laic.UUCP> darin@nova.UUCP (Darin Johnson) writes:
>In article <15993@joyce.istc.sri.com> gds@spam.istc.sri.com (Greg Skinner) writes:

>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.

I doubt if many would have to go back to Asia, but the main point is
that many choose what they consider to be the majors in which it is
easy to get a job.  As you said, this is often from parental pressure.

>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

This was basically the point I was trying to make.  If one is not
fundamentally interested in the subject matter, it's almost impossible
to really do well in it.  Even those who might manage to get good
grades will still miss things which, as you point out, are simply
"obvious" to someone who really has an interest in the subject.

>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.

Yes!  There are lots of ways to get an A other than having insight into
the material [no suggestive jokes, please :-) ].  In CS, so many courses
place a major part of the grade on a term project, which one can do well
on if one is willing to put in enough time.  For exams, there is what the
Taiwan students call the "archaeology method," which is basically the one
used by American fraternity houses  --  extensive archives of past exams
(it's really quite amazing how many professors will give essentially the
same exam year after year, at least in terms of general content).  For
homework, one can pretty much ensure near-perfection if one consults 
the professor, TA's and classmates often enough.  And of course, all-night 
cram sessions before an exam DO work for some professors.

   Norm