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Post by epaul on May 23, 2015 19:02:30 GMT -5
I groked your point. It wasn't about all those Chinese.
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Post by epaul on May 23, 2015 19:10:43 GMT -5
I am pleased to report that the top two 11th grade math students at GF Central are both Norwegian: Green and Tandberg. (ok, so the next two are Chinese. Number five is Jewish. All are North Dakotan.)
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Post by Doug on May 23, 2015 19:16:12 GMT -5
"All are North Dakotan"
That is the key.
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Post by TKennedy on May 23, 2015 19:33:50 GMT -5
I suppose a bunch of Irish or Italian names on a commencement program would have elicited a similar response at some time in the past. True but they would be staying here, working here and contributing to the economy. Asia students that get education and go home are going to be competing with our economy. That's a good point but they do add an element of diversity to a university and that is always good. I tried to find some stats on how many stay in the USA but couldn't find much. It does appear that more Chinese may return home than other nationalities. I know in medicine most of the foreign grads I was aware of stayed here but that's totally anecdotal.
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Post by epaul on May 23, 2015 20:44:23 GMT -5
Maybe Columbia offered the Chinese government a "two for one" pricing deal in order to bulk up a department that was getting a little thin.
And, while I certainly don't know, I would think that getting a Masters Degree in Statistics would be, for most students, an uncommon choice, even an odd choice. If you are going into Statistics, I would think it would be PhD all the way. Why get a Masters? If you want to teach or do research, a PhD is what you would want. And if you want to work for State Farm as an office grunt, a BS would be all you would need.
In other words, as an example, this particular example may not be the best example of, um, something.
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Post by coachdoc on May 23, 2015 20:56:43 GMT -5
So how did L. Li do? And isn't a Masters just a stop on the way to your PhD?
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Post by epaul on May 23, 2015 21:01:39 GMT -5
A Masters degree isn't necessary to get a PhD.
If you are planning on getting a Ph.D, some will argue that getting a Masters first is a good thing to do. Far more will argue that doing so is a waste of time and money.
(and the time and money involved in getting a Ph.D can be considerable, so unless you have plenty of both, getting a Masters first is, as my grandmother used to say, about as useful as tits on a boar.)
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Post by coachdoc on May 23, 2015 21:09:30 GMT -5
depends. sometimes the masters is necessary to be a T.A.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2015 21:34:56 GMT -5
When compared to students of Statistics, Art, Philosophy and Women's Studies majors are not typically and notably societally and economically worthless and bound for nothing more than a job as a barista IMO.
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Post by epaul on May 23, 2015 22:59:22 GMT -5
What would we do if our universities didn't offer Women's Studies as a major?
I think anyone willing to put themselves through the grind of getting a Women's Studies major (or a major in Dietary Ethics or Basket Weaving to name a couple other essential fields) should get their five to eight years of schooling paid for by the government. And if they should have had the misfortune to have had to take out a loan to pursue theses essential studies, these loans should be forgiven forthwith.
Thank goodness someone leapt to their defense. What would our universities do without these revenue streams?
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Post by Russell Letson on May 23, 2015 23:13:08 GMT -5
Don't know how they do it in the sciences, but in the humanities the Master's is the gateway to the Ph.D. There have been exceptions--a friend of mine went straight from BA to doctorate at U of Chicago in three years, while I took nine to get MA+Ph.D. He started a year after I did and was a full prof by the time we landed in St. Cloud with C's assistant prof job. His program and career velocity (and his chops) were unusual, though.
A doctorate is a professional certification useful primarily in the academy or other research establishment. Most masters programs I'm familiar with are either intermediate stops for teachers or qualifying stages for doctoral programs. (The MFA is an exception--technically a terminal degree, as is a J.D., which allows one to get tenure. Don't get me started on creative writing programs.)
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Post by Deleted on May 24, 2015 9:33:02 GMT -5
What would we do if our universities didn't offer Women's Studies as a major? Fret not. There would still be lots of other courses to ridicule and sneer at.
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Post by Doug on May 24, 2015 10:22:51 GMT -5
Seems to me when your country is bankrupt, as we are, you shouldn't be giving stuff away. Raise out of country tuitions to 10 or twenty times out of state tuition. Any government that doesn't take the health of it's country first priority is a failed government.
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Post by epaul on May 24, 2015 11:26:35 GMT -5
-There is a difference between a course and a major. And there is a difference between a narrow worthless major and the unfortunate naive young person who just paid a greedy, pandering university anywhere from $80,000 to $200,000 for a fluff degree that has no practical application, requires no intellectual discipline and develops no broad general understanding of history, science, and culture. Women's Studies is a great class and a worthy focus for a History or Humanities major, but as a stand-alone degree, it is a travesty of a major and a joke of a department and an indictment of an educational system that has several of its marbles.
-And if we manage to snag just 3% of those bright, disciplined Chinese students that come here to study and keep them here, it will one of the best deals this country could make.
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Post by epaul on May 24, 2015 14:15:17 GMT -5
and to redirect...
Concerning the high percentage of Chinese students graduating with a Masters degree in Statistics from Columbia University (add what the implications may be), it is entirely possible that most American students pursuing an advanced degree in Statistics choose to directly enter Columbia's doctorate program (bypassing the unnecessary Masters program).
A Chinese student planning on getting an advanced degree in Statistics faces a different set of choices than an American student. A Chinese student could reasonably decide that going to Columbia for a year to get a Masters degree from a prestigious American school while finishing up his lengthy doctoral studies in a cheaper but well-trusted Chinese program to be the best career choice.
(China views it as an advantage to send students abroad for a year of study. It seems that there is a Chinese student every single year in Newfolden and Warren. And Grand Forks has kids coming from all over the place for "student abroad year". And lot's of American kids choose to study abroad for a year. Newfolden sent a kid to Texas this year. Does he have tales to tell.)
Anyway, the prudent career decision for an American statistics student is probably to enter a Ph.D program immediately. The best career move for a Chinese statistics student could be to study abroad for a year or two at a prestigious school and then get back to China to finish up their studies. With this in mind, it could be that Columbia's "Chinese Loaded" commencement program may not be as damning as it appears to be at first glance.
(not that the declining number of American kids choosing to enter academically challenging STEM programs isn't troubling)
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Post by Doug on May 24, 2015 14:29:29 GMT -5
GM paying to train Ford workers.
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Post by epaul on May 24, 2015 16:42:58 GMT -5
You seem to be assuming that the U.S. is paying the way for these students. That is not the case. Without a doubt, students from outside the U.S. are the single most profitable batch of students a university has. The UND Flight School loves getting foreign students, they are the profit. They also love out of state students, but they have various reciprocity deals cooking with neighboring states and other modifying factors, so by far the sweetest money deal going is foreign students. It is the same for any other university. The foreign kid is the one kid they know they will make money on.
And it is unlikely state secrets are being lost. Unless our university system is completely different than our high school system (and they have the same kids, so I don't think everything becomes upside down over night, the foreign kid is coming from a more rigorous academic program. The last two German exchange students I have spoken with treated their U.S. academic experience as a year off from school; they took the same grade over again when they went back to Germany. They said most kids that came back to school from the U.S. had fallen well behind their classmates in math and science. so it has become recommended to just take a year off from German school when you go to the U.S. and resume your German education at whatever point it was when you left.
Foreign students are a valuable touchstone for our kids. They get to compare what they are doing with what bright kids from other countries are up to. And both sets of kids learn from the experience. (most the foreign exchange students absolutely love their Newfolden and Warren experiences. They didn't believe such places existed in the U.S. (most Americans don't believe a place like Newfolden exists either).
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Post by Doug on May 24, 2015 16:59:22 GMT -5
I realize they are paying. If we are going to be training our competition we should get enough to off set the down stream cost. Maybe use the extra money to subsidize US STEM students.
In 50 yrs or so we have gone from the most economically powerful country in the world to having to fight to stay economically relevant. And that has happened because other economies have gained.
We've gone from "made in Japan" being a joke, to most of the cars Marshall was looking at were made in Japan or Korea or made here and the money shipped back.
Not a good situation for the countries economy. And encouraging the training of competition thinkers is not a good idea.
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on May 24, 2015 18:14:36 GMT -5
The subject area is Statistics, for God's sake! Apparently they don't offer an MA in watching paint dry.
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Post by brucemacneill on May 24, 2015 18:16:00 GMT -5
I realize they are paying. If we are going to be training our competition we should get enough to off set the down stream cost. Maybe use the extra money to subsidize US STEM students. In 50 yrs or so we have gone from the most economically powerful country in the world to having to fight to stay economically relevant. And that has happened because other economies have gained. We've gone from "made in Japan" being a joke, to most of the cars Marshall was looking at were made in Japan or Korea or made here and the money shipped back. Not a good situation for the countries economy. And encouraging the training of competition thinkers is not a good idea. The fall kind of started when testing became unpopular compared to "If it feels good do it" and "Don't Bogart that joint..." back in the '60s liberals are so fond of.
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