Reply to Comparing STEM Curriculum /Grading In Most Selective Universities To Other Well-Regarded Schools

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Comparing STEM Curriculum /Grading In Most Selective Universities To Other Well-Regarded Schools"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a STEM PhD. I would never go to H/Y/P, nor would I ever encourage one of my STEM-oriented kids to do so. They do not have a good reputation when it comes to STEM fields, and I'd honestly question the judgement of anyone who went to one of those schools for a tech-related or science-related field. Law is one thing, STEM is another thing entirely. I would never hire such a person, nor would DH who is also in the field.

We'd bet a lot of money that STEM courses would be a LOT easier at H/Y/P than other schools that are more highly regarded for those fields. I wouldn't consider it an issue of grade inflation etc, more just that they don't have the expertise or the good students in those areas to really have a challenging curriculum.

Stanford is the obvious exception. It's a good STEM school.[/quote]
What area of STEM are you in, because in math and the life sciences all three are excellent. Physics too. 
.[/quote]
Applied math / computer science / software engineering / data science

Maybe I was a bit harsh in my first post. I concede that H/Y/P would probably be okay for more of the traditional-STEM-without-the-T-and-E academic pursuits - e.g. pure math, physics. But if you're adding technology into the mix in a big way, engineering, stuff about how businesses work today, then I can't see why anyone would even look twice at those institutions. They're almost certainly doing it for reasons of tradition, perceived prestige, etc.

The T-E parts are where the vast majority of jobs are, and certainly where most of the money is, so it's usually what people are referring to when they talk about STEM these days. But I should have been more clear.[/quote]
DP...and your response is truly bizarre. You are in a pretty specific area of STEM (happens to be the one I'm in, though I have a background in physics)...and I don't know anyone who would go to Harvard to study CS unless they ended up there out of confusion. So it's weirdly harsh to bag on schools with excellent STEM departments just because they are not your departments. There are, however, many areas of T and E that are outside of the ones you are in...and Princeton, for example, has amazing departments in some of the more traditional engineering fields. I can assure you that people are not going their for reasons of prestige. And I'm not saying that out of any affection for Princeton (I turned down a fellowship from there because I didn't like the school) but simply because it's true.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics