Grade inflation--A is the most popular grade in the US

[Sun_Worshiper]

At one point, the grade inflation in my department was so bad that the chair set a rule that no more than 50% in any class could receive an A. This wasn't a great approach and I doubt the chair could really enforce it, but I get why he felt like he had to do it.

[marshwiggle]

Regarding the second point, having a portion of the grade appearing to be based on taste, as in the music example, seems quite arbitrary. Is an improvised jazz performance, (where arguably, no note is "wrong"), "better" than a technically perfect performance of a classical piece because it shows more "originality"? Is that more "extraordinary"? Again, my problem with this is it sounds like just an inability to clarify what "extraordinary" means and so it only selects for students who can guess what the prof means by it.

I have a cousin who is an environmental engineer, and he once told me in the vaguest terms that he "understood" that there was "art," but that he could not look past the fact that he was taught "rules" for writing and then he read William Faulkner in an intro to lit class and he was bothered that Faulkner won the Nobel Prize yet he broke all the "rules" of writing.

He was displaying the in-the-box thinking of a STEM trained thinker.

Art is far less "arbitrary" than you seem to think.  But, having read your posts, it seems that you don't actually know very much about artistic expression.  And you think inside the box. 

When one says a style of music is "better" than another, they are simply talking about taste.  I'm not very fond of improvisational jazz, although I do like Swing quite a bit.  I just recognize this realm is tremendously complex and expansively intellectual and not meant for everyone. 

Over the years, I have repeatedly observed a couple of things. (I'd love to hear if anyone has had similar experiences.)

1. Whenever "physics" is mentioned, it almost universally gets either of two responses:
 "I HATED physics!"
 "I liked physics; I thought of going into physics."
(The second one is decidedly less common.) At any rate, the response is almost never neutral.

2. When asking STEM people why they don't take more humanities courses, the regular response is "I hate writing essays."

Taking these two together, my impression is that there is a more or less bimodal distribution , with little overlap. People on one side like the rigour of math; people on the other like the freedom to express themselves in their own terms. Neither one is good or bad, and the world needs both, but what appeals to each is exactly what doesn't appeal to the other.

Is my experience unusual?

[mythbuster]

There is a definite art to actually performing scientific experiments as well. Often this is what trips up students who are only book-smart. I know many bench scientists who are downright superstitious about what they need to "get the experiment to work". We also discuss experiments as being elegant versus the brute force method.

Regarding the article- all I can say is that grade inflation is NOT the case in any of the courses that I teach. This comes with it's own set of problems, as the rude awakening of these students is a big part of the reason why we have all this hand wringing over "losing" students in STEM.

[Wahoo Redux]

Over the years, I have repeatedly observed a couple of things. (I'd love to hear if anyone has had similar experiences.)

1. Whenever "physics" is mentioned, it almost universally gets either of two responses:
 "I HATED physics!"
 "I liked physics; I thought of going into physics."
(The second one is decidedly less common.) At any rate, the response is almost never neutral.

2. When asking STEM people why they don't take more humanities courses, the regular response is "I hate writing essays."

Taking these two together, my impression is that there is a more or less bimodal distribution , with little overlap. People on one side like the rigour of math; people on the other like the freedom to express themselves in their own terms. Neither one is good or bad, and the world needs both, but what appeals to each is exactly what doesn't appeal to the other.

Is my experience unusual?

You live in a world of binaries, my friend.

I have never heard anyone say they "hated" physics.  Everyone I have ever known is in awe of physics.  I am in awe of physics.  Brain surgeons, rocket scientists, and physicists are considered the smartest of the smart for good reason.

I played in a pit orchestra with a couple of STEM profs once.  Many doctors and physicists are musicians, artists, actors, etc.  Most have great appreciation for the arts.

I have met a lot of people who hate writing, however----probably the majority of people.   For 20 years I was at the heads of rooms full of nice people who had to write to get their degree, knew they needed to know how to write, and hated writing.  I imagine that when ChatGPC really comes of age there will be much rejoicing.

[jimbogumbo]

Wahoo, you don't live in the Math and Physics world. Students and the general population of citizens who attended college overwhelmingly say the hated Math (substitute Physics for those who took it as a get ed class).

[Wahoo Redux]

Wahoo, you don't live in the Math and Physics world. Students and the general population of citizens who attended college overwhelmingly say the hated Math (substitute Physics for those who took it as a get ed class).

Oh hell, I hated, hated, HATED math!!!!  It still pisses me off.  My wife is sick of me complaining about the "you'll-use-this-every-day-for-the-rest-of-your-life" schtick they used to try and feed us. Even as a kid I knew I was never going to be calculating anything.  I've posted about this several times. I still hate math if I have to do it.  Anything more than moving the decimal point to figure out a tip infuriates me.

But that is much different from respecting the people who perform the amazing alchemy of physics and engineering.  I mean, that stuff is simply amazing. I don't think the humanities receive much reciprocating respect, however.

[Hegemony]

I chose my undergraduate college over the other options simply because it was the one that had no math requirement.

Still have not suffered from the lack of math.

[Parasaurolophus]

I like math just fine. I don't like not understanding what I'm doing, and there's more of that to be had in math, but as I age I'm increasingly less shy about admitting that I don't get it, and trying again.

I use basic math all the time. I always add up my purchases at the store before getting to the cash, so that I know what to expect. Various long division tasks keep cropping up. I bake a lot and like to make bigger or smaller batches, so there's a fair bit of fraction work in my life (although the other day, some recipe called for 7/8 of a cup of something and that annoyed me to no end because WTF?). I teach some basic stats, so I regularly use that (nothing fancy, just the stuff you saw in high school plus a tiny bit extra). Simple trig, too, for various home improvement-y tasks (which I do poorly). Honestly, I wish I knew more math. Starting with the math I learned in school then immediately forgot. I look forward to the hatchling's time in school, because it'll be a chance for me to re-learn a good chunk of it. I also, of course, do a fair bit of logic (since I teach it), but logic and math are different, even if they look similar.

Every once in a while, I impress myself by sitting down and figuring out how to math a problem when I've forgotten how to do it. It's a nice feeling, even if my solutions are inelegant. If I knew more, I could do it more often.

[marshwiggle]

Wahoo, you don't live in the Math and Physics world. Students and the general population of citizens who attended college overwhelmingly say the hated Math (substitute Physics for those who took it as a get ed class).

Oh hell, I hated, hated, HATED math!!!!  It still pisses me off.  My wife is sick of me complaining about the "you'll-use-this-every-day-for-the-rest-of-your-life" schtick they used to try and feed us. Even as a kid I knew I was never going to be calculating anything.  I've posted about this several times. I still hate math if I have to do it.  Anything more than moving the decimal point to figure out a tip infuriates me.

But that is much different from respecting the people who perform the amazing alchemy of physics and engineering.  I mean, that stuff is simply amazing. I don't think the humanities receive much reciprocating respect, however.

That sounds like you would have (or did) hate math being required at university. That's probably comparable to how some students view having required humanities courses. On the other hand, many if not most STEM types probably enjoy lots of literature, art, etc. In other words, the people who actually perform it, rather than just forcing other people to learn it.

Not so different after all.

[Wahoo Redux]

Sure, there's some truth to that.  The thing of it is, now I'm really glad I had to take math.  It is quite true that I hated it, and still hate it, but I have a purchase on mathematics.  And I would never say that math is unimportant or not worthwhile.

A long time ago I started a thread on this very conundrum.

[MarathonRunner]

Regarding the second point, having a portion of the grade appearing to be based on taste, as in the music example, seems quite arbitrary. Is an improvised jazz performance, (where arguably, no note is "wrong"), "better" than a technically perfect performance of a classical piece because it shows more "originality"? Is that more "extraordinary"? Again, my problem with this is it sounds like just an inability to clarify what "extraordinary" means and so it only selects for students who can guess what the prof means by it.

I have a cousin who is an environmental engineer, and he once told me in the vaguest terms that he "understood" that there was "art," but that he could not look past the fact that he was taught "rules" for writing and then he read William Faulkner in an intro to lit class and he was bothered that Faulkner won the Nobel Prize yet he broke all the "rules" of writing.

He was displaying the in-the-box thinking of a STEM trained thinker.

Art is far less "arbitrary" than you seem to think.  But, having read your posts, it seems that you don't actually know very much about artistic expression.  And you think inside the box. 

When one says a style of music is "better" than another, they are simply talking about taste.  I'm not very fond of improvisational jazz, although I do like Swing quite a bit.  I just recognize this realm is tremendously complex and expansively intellectual and not meant for everyone. 

Over the years, I have repeatedly observed a couple of things. (I'd love to hear if anyone has had similar experiences.)

1. Whenever "physics" is mentioned, it almost universally gets either of two responses:
 "I HATED physics!"
 "I liked physics; I thought of going into physics."
(The second one is decidedly less common.) At any rate, the response is almost never neutral.

2. When asking STEM people why they don't take more humanities courses, the regular response is "I hate writing essays."

Taking these two together, my impression is that there is a more or less bimodal distribution , with little overlap. People on one side like the rigour of math; people on the other like the freedom to express themselves in their own terms. Neither one is good or bad, and the world needs both, but what appeals to each is exactly what doesn't appeal to the other.

Is my experience unusual?

I enjoyed math, and earned an A+ in diffy Qs and advanced algebra, and all the other math courses engineering undergrads had to take. Same with physics, enjoyed all my physics courses and did exceptionally well in biomechanics and "dead bodies" (mechanics of deformable bodies, my first 100% at the university level). I've also always enjoyed writing, including essays, and as an undergrad had many profs praise my writing. Now as a postdoc, I enjoy math, stats, and writing, but don't have much cause to use physics in my daily work. Certainly don't have the talent/interest to have become a mathematician or a physicist (3rd year undergrad courses about the limit of my abilities) or an English major or professional writer (I'm good at academic writing, devour books, but don't enjoy examining them in detail, and I don't have the talent to be a professional writer).

So there are people who enjoy math, physics, and writing, at least at a certain level.

[Ruralguy]

I know enough about my institution's grade distributions and evals that I can say that there isn't a tight correlation, but every so often we see an obvious correlation (when someone is gifting A's) for an instructor, so, in a semester when enough individuals are doing that, then probably a loose correlation pops up, but it doesn't seem to be true in a given semester for everybody taken together. It could very well be true over time ( an instructor "improves" in evals and then if you do a deep study, you can see that its probably because their ratio of A's and B's increased, OR just that over many years, there's a general drift to higher grades).

[kaysixteen]

I get the part about many people, including highly intelligent and educated STEM folks, hating writing.   What do you think is the cause of this hatred, and what can be done about  it?

[dismalist]

STEM folks hating writing? What people in jobs have to do, in many jobs, is write up their results for others to read and comprehend. They may be more skilled or less skilled at doing so, but they wouldn't do it if they hated it.

The best STEM researchers write very well.

There is no contradiction between doing math well and writing well.

[Wahoo Redux]

I get the part about many people, including highly intelligent and educated STEM folks, hating writing.   What do you think is the cause of this hatred, and what can be done about  it?

As a writing center director, I actually worked with our STEM department on their students' reports.  Not many engineers-in-training were good writers, at least not at this school.  But the profs thought it was important enough to seek out the writing center.

Writing is a lonely endeavor for the most part.  One must sit still and type.  Not a lot of people like being restrained like that for a long period of time.  It also takes a lot of practice, a lot of reading, and some natural talent to learn to write well.  It takes a long time to write even a short 101 paper.  All things built to bother people.

More than this, people do not particularly worry about syntax and sentence structure when they speak----even if most people talk more or less grammatically.  But when it comes time to express themselves in writing, most people really resent having to adhere to the finnicky and often random rules of English.  It irritates them and they find it difficult, even if they are good at it.  Somehow, our secondary education does not teach grammar to students nor to express themselves very well----and this is not something new.  I didn't really get a grasp on basic grammar until I was forced to teach it.  My grammar and writing were good but I read so much that it became instinctive.

One of the most irritating and demoralizing things about being a writing instructor were not the students who struggled----them I could help and it felt good----but the good student writers, often in STEM, who did not want to write. 

People enjoy different things.  Not everybody enjoys playing music----my wife was a good musician and has talent, she just doesn't really enjoy it.  The same with writing for a great many people.  I'm not sure there is anything to be done.