To many kids going to college?

[shortridge]

Moosetracker hits it on the head. I often wish I had gone into a technical program instead of attending a liberal arts college.

 

My career field is contracting rapidly - OK, it's imploding - yet there are tons of jobs out there for surveyors, phlebotomists, physical therapy assistants, office managers, corrections officers, dental hygienists, IT magicians, EMTs, medical office workers ... jobs easily attainable with a two-year associate's degree or certificate program.

[NJCubScouter]

Pack, you asked about the term "precalc" and whether algebra is included therein. I think the poster was using the term to refer to a particular course, the high school course immediately before "Calculus." My son's math sequence (from 8th grade) was Algebra 1, Geometry, Algebra 2, Precalc, Calculus (and now in college Calculus III, which I assume is so named because his High School calculus course was considered to be two one-semester courses in sequence. Don't ask me what Calculus III is, I have looked at his book and it's like trying to read Vulcan, and I left my Vulcan dictionary in the spaceport.) Our High School also has Calculus III (only as an AP course) for kids who qualify for Algebra 1 in Grade 7 and follow the sequence all the way up. Not sure what math those kids take as a college freshman, and not sure I want to know because it wouldn't mean anything to me anyway.

 

When I was in High School the sequence was the same, except that what is now called Precalc was, as I recall, named "Trigonometry and Mathematical Analysis", which we students called "Triganalysis." It had a lot of sines and cosines and a lot of other things that I really don't remember, and I assume that's what "Precalc" is now. I have also seen it called "Senior Math", based on the fact that that "normal" sequence was Algebra 1 in the 9th grade, Geometry in 10th, Algebra 2 in 11th grade and "Senior Math" (i.e. trigonometry etc.) in 12th. Probably about 75 percent of my high school class was on that level, but I don't think very many of them actually took "Senior Math."

[sailingpj]

You can either take trig or precalc (precalculus) as a senior normally. The senior math course is also available at some schools, it is usually for those who need math credits to get into college, but don't plan on taking calculus or other higher math. It is very much a fluff class from what I have seen. Below are the course descriptions for two math courses copied directly from my college's website. I am taking the first one right now.

 

 

"MAC1105 College Algebra (AA)

Credits/Clock Hours

3 credits (3 lecture hours)

 

Prerequisites/Corequisites

Prerequisites: A grade of C or better in MAT 1033~

 

Course Description

This course includes: functions and functional notation; domains and ranges of functions; graphs of functions and relations; operations on functions; inverse functions; linear, quadratic, and rational functions; absolute value and radical functions; exponential and logarithmic properties, functions, and equations; systems of equations and inequalities; applications (such as curve fitting, modeling, optimization, exponential and logarithmic growth and decay). A grade of C or higher is required for this course to be used as a General Education course. Course is designated as a Gordon Rule course. (*)"

 

 

"MAC1140 Precalculus (AA)

Credits/Clock Hours

3 credits (3 lecture hours)

 

Prerequisites/Corequisites

Prerequisites: A suitable score on the placement test together with two years of high school algebra or a C or higher in MAC 1105~

 

Course Description

Topics include relations and functions, systems of equations, matrices, determinants, quadratic equations and inequalities, exponential and logarithmic functions, linear programming, sequences, series, induction and the Binomial Theorem. A grade of C or higher is required for this course to be used as a General Education course. Course is designated as a Gordon Rule course. (*)"

[packsaddle]

Most of the content of both those courses is covered in 8th grade at our local middle school. Not every student takes the courses but they are available to every student.

 

Check out this Japanese college math entrance exam:

http://www.maa.org/juee/

 

It's pretty much in line with what this university used to require for incoming freshmen in 1910 (I have a copy of that math test). We rely on the placement exams today.

 

Edited to add: PreCalc in middle school also includes linear algebra. They push it right up to calculus and then high school takes it right through two levels of calculus. There is decent success in exempting the first college calculus course as a result of AP credit and the placement exams.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[sheldonsmom]

Fine with teaching the upper levels maths but would someone teach people to count back change or do basic math. Too many times, I have to correct a confused cashier or salesperson who cannot do either!

[Nike]

The beauty of the German ed system is that they haven't abandoned technical education. The beast is that children are funneled into the gymnasium, realschule, and alteschule at age 10-12, and studies show the entrance classes to these schools are highly reflective of parental social class. There isn't a lot of ability for a child to move up to the gymnasium.

 

Also, these programs take place at physically different locations. Just imagine what certain hot-heads in the States would say about that.

[packsaddle]

Nike, 'tracking' students was a norm in this country as well and still is common practice, even if it isn't officially described in those terms. In 1959, a certain satellite event changed science education in this country and I'm one of the results. That said, given what I know about the German system, I prefer ours. The highly-structured system in Germany and similar countries does not, as you note, offer much opportunity to 'switch' life paths. This country has much less such structure and many more opportunities but the downside is the effect that families without the means often enter a tradition of educational failure. The inability of checkout personnel to count change is not necessarily the result but it is symptomatic of a system that doesn't require constant exercise of thought or wit. The machine does all the calculations. Is it any wonder that the vast majority of us are unable to fathom the fiscal bind that our country is in and instead, as if it's a slot machine, keep hoping the cash register will give us different numbers if we just keep buying stuff? Like Sheldonsmom wrote, we can't even do the simple math.

To answer the topic question, I would respond that not nearly enough of our children go to college...or at least are prepared for it.

[acco40]

Unfortunately there are colleges out there that will accept anyone. Personally, I prefer they let anyone in, flunk out those that don't cut the mustard philosophy as opposed to being very restrictive to who got in and then tutoring, mentoring, etc. those who got in to stay. The freshman dropout rate when I was in school (University of Missouri-Columbia in 1974-75) was approximately 50%.

 

There's too many kids going to college. College for many today is remedial high school. So many high school graduates can't read, write or have a basic understanding of math that it is disgraceful. I think that there are too many under educated kids going to collage. Enough said.

 

Tracking students - Packsaddle, there is the European system as you mention but when I was in high school and junior high (middle school for all those under 40) we were tracked wrt math, English, and science. Tracked in the sense that about the lower 1/3 were grouped, middle 1/3 and upper 1/3. Right about the time I graduated, they said that system was not fair. There are advantages and disadvantages to tracking students. My issue is that we seem to spend too many resources propping up the bottom end and not optimizing performance on the top end. In the 90's and now, the appearance of "AP" courses started to appear. Simular to tracking but not quite.

Also, from my academic days - 95% and above were an A grade. For my own children, it is 90% and above so yes, grade inflatioin exists. Right now, I'd say that 70% of our students are above average!

 

I was lucky. I got Algebra (8th), Geometry (9th), Algebra II (10th) Trigonometry 1st Semester / Calc I 2nd semester (11th) and Calculus II and III for 12th. My high school math prepared me well for my engineering degree. My high school English and science, not so well.

)(This message has been edited by acco40)

[sailingpj]

The Honors and AP classes are bs. The teachers often don't teach them any differently than any of their other classes, or if they do they simply give "harder" books to read. Or you read a "more difficult" short story. The level of the stuff that is assigned is very low IMO. I think I have read 'The Outsiders' 3 times for school now, and like 'Animal Farm', while there are good points being made the reading level on them is not very high. Personally I think 'Fahrenheit 451' makes just as good of a political point as 'Animal Farm', but it is written a little more subtly.

 

A person should not be able to spend 30 minutes throwing words onto paper and still get an A. Especially in an Honors class, but that is what often happens.

 

Another thing that is wrong with school today, they don't teach logic. I can't tell you how many times I have seen people frantically trying to memorize 20 different formulas for math when with a little logic they could derive those 20 formulas from 2 equations. In my math class at least once an hour someone asks, "So is that the formula you use?" Sometimes the teacher will say "Don't be trying to memorize all this alphabet soup, here is how to get these 3 equations from this other one." Then the students just go and memorize all the equations anyway.

 

People are not being taught how to think and reason for themselves. Everyone just expects everything to be spoon fed to them, and they never learn how to exercise their brains. That is what our elementary, middle, and high school systems are doing right now.

 

There was this private school up in Connecticut that was teaching basic algebraic concepts to the lower grades (1st, 2nd, 3rd), but then the kids would go home and ask questions that their parents couldn't answer. The parents got together and demanded that the school go back to teaching "normally", so now that school teaches their students that 5*5=25, but not why 5*5=25. That is a fundamental problem with our school system.

[Eagle92]

Acco,

 

Actually the standards were so low at that university, that as long as you had money to go to school, they kept you. Trust me on that one. When a student turns the exact same paper 4 times for 4 different assignments, and gets the same grade 4 times, you know the prof isn't readig the material. EDITED: point Ididn't make is that the teachers wouldn't flunk you.

 

Sailing

 

I don't know about other schools' AP history courses, but the school I went to, the only difference was 2 papers, one per semester. Same material, same books, and same teachers.

 

What's funny was that I remembered the stuff very well, and when I went to college, the college allowed you to test out of up to 6 credits of world history if you had not taken AP classes by their taking their tests. When I asked if I could take both exams on the same day, I got this funny look from the prof and other students, and the prof said that if I could pass one, he would allow me to take the second test at a later time. So I had to take the second test a week later.

 

 

Edited: forgot to add this college prep school had the high standards and I learnd the content so well I was able to pass th e test a few years after the course. The teacher was phenomenal in that he only used his notes to mark where he ended each day. the guy could lecture you for 45-50 minutes and not bore you to death. One of the hardest to get teachers as everyone wanted to be in his class.

(This message has been edited by Eagle92)

[sailingpj]

Yeah, unfortunately those teachers are few and far between. I have had a couple math teachers like that, but most are not that good. Heck, my geometry teacher often played fantasy football during class instead of teaching us. He would just tell us to do the problems on page ___ of the book.

 

As for colleges that keep people who are failing in the school, don't forget that the college is a buisness trying to make money. That is one of the reasons the prices at the bookstore are so high. I can get a textbook from Borders cheaper than the school bookstore usually. Some of the textbooks cost more than a SCUBA tank, but that is what amazon is for.

 

The schools know that they can make more money by having failing students paying for the class than if they kicked them all out. It makes financial sense to lower the bar for passing. That is why there is so much competition to get into a 'great' school, the just good schools are only getting worse.

[Lisabob]

A couple of thoughts from the other side.

 

1. Schools neither control the cost, nor make any money from, textbooks (in most cases). The beef should be with the textbook publishers who print new 4-color glossy editions every semester. Few subjects really require that much constant updating. Then again, try assigning a textbook that is fairly dense and doesn't have a bunch of pretty colored pictures to a first-year class, and see what happens. (HINT: they won't read it, and they will complain bitterly about it) Come to think of it, maybe some students secretly want those expensive glossy color-picture books?

 

2. Schools that take lots of students' tuitions but don't graduate their students end up with major issues elsewhere. Recruitment and retention suffer. Difficult questions about the school's accreditation (and thus, students' eligibility for federal and state financial aid) arise. Attracting and keeping quality faculty becomes more challenging. While many schools might string failing students along for a little while, schools that make a habit of this typically end up having to face the music.

 

3. In a lot of cases, students get out of a class what they put into it. It would be nice if people were a bit more pro-active about their own educations. I get a bit tired of students complaining about how this or that teacher/prof didn't "make" them learn. Now perhaps the teacher/prof in question is truly a dud (yes I know they exist). But I defy anybody to "make" someone learn abstract material that they do not want to learn. Some students demand too much spoon feeding. That type of student isn't really interested in an education. They just want a degree, and preferably for the least possible amount of effort expended.

 

 

Bah! Clearly time for me to give it up for the night.

 

[sailingpj]

If the school doesn't make any money off the textbook sales then why are they charging $40 more for the same book than the Barnes & Noble a couple miles down the road? Why are they charging twice what Staples charges for a dozen pencils? I can make those comparisons all day.

 

I didn't think about the accreditation stuff. I should have though, a school I went to last year was having problems keeping their accreditation (I don't know the specifics).

[packsaddle]

I suspect Lisa's school might not have the same bookstore arrangement as yours, Sailingpj. At this university, the bookstore IS Barnes&Noble. The university does get paid rent for the space on campus, and probably a percentage of the profit. Anyway, the prices from B&N are obscene as far as I am concerned so I give the students the links to online sources or to cheap book outlets like:

bookfinder.com (the eBay of books).

 

I'll give you a little advice (since I'm in advising mode this part of the semester). Don't waste your time right now worrying about whether your school is offering AP courses that are worthless...or other such nonsense. Your time will be better spent devoted to YOUR advancement. All that other stuff is either a wasteful diversion from your mission or else it is a rationalization for personal problems. Either way it just detracts from your future. Focus on what is actually important for you. If your course is easy, challenge yourself. If the other students are getting top grades without doing as much work as you are, don't sweat it. They're getting less out of the course if you're putting in the 'heavy lifting' and they're not.

Remember, the grades are not the ONLY goal. In fact, outside of gaining entry to other opportunities, they are a minor goal compared to the actual content you can be gathering.

So don't sweat the small stuff and don't let the turkeys get you down (I guess it's close enough to Thanksgiving). Keep your eye on YOUR goals and don't be distracted by things over which you have no control. My 0.02

[Eagle92]

Sailing,

Most bookstores are not owned by the universities, but are contracted out.

 

That said, I'll give you my secret to saving money on books (sshhh don't tell anyone ). This secret saved me approx $800 for one class, the one where I had 13 textbooks (gotta love grad school)

 

1) Use college and public libraries. I was able to get approx. 5 of the books through the college library, 2 public library systems, and through ILL.

 

2) use www.half.ebay.com to get used books online. CAVEAT use repsectable sellers and get a copy of your syllabi in advance to order the books in advance. It can be cheaper than Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc. Got 7 books that route.

 

3)Use Amazon to buy those books you must get new. Only bought 1 book that route.