From: bevans@carina.unm.edu (Mathemagician)
Newsgroups: alt.feminism,soc.women
Subject: Re: women in engineering ( help..)
Date: 9 Sep 92 11:53:38 GMT
Organization: Society for the Preservation of E. coli

In article <JULIE.92Sep8225410@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu> julie@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu (Julie Wright) writes:
>3) The requirement is necessary to meet in the end, but it is harder for
>some people to meet it than others, and there is no purpose to screening
>people out early if they can eventually meet it.  For example, if it were a
>general problem that girls were steered away from high school higher math
>classes, it would probably be possible for them and their colleges to make
>up for this later, and directing efforts in this direction would help 
>increase the number of qualified science/math majors, say.  On the other
>hand, if a college required entering, uh, y'know, those new students,
>to have already had calculus if they were to be considered for a science
>major, a lot of women would be knocked out right there.  Note that this
>is all a hypothetical, although I believe it is a reasonable example.

This sort of gets into the constant student complaint of, "Why am I
taking this class?  I'm never going to need it!"

For instance, your last example comes to mind.  I *do* believe that
Calculus should be a required course before being accepted into a
"hard science" major program.  Why?  It's real hard not to use
Calculus at some point in chemistry, physics, biology, or engineering
(obviously, you have to know calculus for a mathematics degree.)

Harvey Mudd College has changed their curriculum to one that assumes
the freshmen have already had first-year Calculus (or, under the old
system, first semester).  The first year of math (Math 3 and 5) is
designed to "finish up" Calculus and start on "Fundamental Concepts"
such as inductive proof.  As a general rule, this seems awkward in
that I don't see what an astrophysicist would need with "Intro to Fun
Math."  However, it's more of a "philosophical" requirement...they
want to expose their students to a little bit of everything in the
sciences and they felt that Calculus, Linear Algebra, and Differential
Equations just wasn't enough, I guess.  Everyone was going to need
Calculus, and at least one of Linear and Diff Eq.  If a mathematician
is going to have to learn how to derive Maxwell's Equations, the
physicist is going to have to learn how to prove that all sets have
2^n subsets...nyahh!

This "able to make it up later" seems more appropriate for later
courses in the major.  As one progresses toward a degree, the number
of "tracked" courses becomes fewer and fewer.  That is, before you can
take Calculus, you really have to have had Trigonometry.  Before that,
you really have to have had Algebra.  However, you don't need to have
taken Differential Geometry before you take Abstract Algebra...so if
you can't take it now...you can put it off until later...maybe even
convince the Dean that you don't really need it for a degree and can
substitute another class.

And, of course, there's nothing preventing people from going back to
school (at least, theoretically.  There are obvious economic factors
that might prevent a person from going back to school to get a second
degree.)  So you couldn't handle Calculus when you were 19?  Try it
now that you've had a few years to distance yourself from the
pressures of college life.

-- 
Brian Evans                |     "Bad mood, bad mood...Sure I'm in a bad mood!
bevans@carina.unm.edu      |      I haven't had sex...*EVER!*" -- Virgin Mary