patrick.net

theoakman says

. Even so, the videos out there are extremely overrated in terms of content.

Agreed, at least 50% of the time I find myself scouring the internet for other examples aside from the power point slides (which are themselves based on other textbooks) in the Coursera Class. 90% of the difficulty of learning something is finding the right text or website. One chart or visualization can make the difference between "Aha!" and "Uhhh...."

However, I like this course, Intro to Chem. The MITx assumed AP Chemistry students, the kind that get accepted into MIT, and blew through the basics in one lesson, basics I never learned.

theoakman says

And I'm not trying to discourage you, but the Khan academy is missing a lot of details in the Chemistry and Physics lectures.

I use Khan Academy for drills and repetition, not primarily for instruction. For example, Significant Digits. Also got a worksheet and an answer key from some HS website.

thunderlips11 says

I use Khan Academy for drills and repetition, not primarily for instruction. For example, Significant Digits. Also got a worksheet and an answer key from some HS website.

A big thing here is that it's there and readily usable, unlike let's say the Schaum's guides (or Dover publications), which tend to gloss over the basics but then have poorly listed questions which are then hard to discern, given the cryptic text and lack of explanations.

theoakman says

Rin says

The reason why a person can't follow an MIT, Univ of Illinois (top state engineering univ), or even a Podunk State (mediocre state) lecture is that in the past, the lecture is stated once and for the most part, ppl are simple taking notes and not listening. Today, that lecture could be repeated, once, twice, even four/five times. And then since many courses only meet twice a week, that's many iterations of review. During that time, since notes aren't needed, the only thing they need to jot down is what's confusing.

Don't agree. I find my students only write down what they understand and if they aren't taking notes at a particular time, they aren't sure what to write. They definitely are listening. The reason they cannot follow it is because their brains aren't ready. They need a full understanding of calculus and a solid background in scientific thought before ever trying to follow Walter Lewin. I think you keep putting the cart before the horse. You crawl before you walk. By Freshman year of college, I'd say nearly all of my AP Physics students would sop up Lewin's lectures like a sponge. Prior to that, maybe 4 or 5 students a year at most.

The point is that many kids get through Geometry knowing this simple fact *NO ASS*, to determine if triangles are proportional. And likewise, other topics are also gotten through, by memorization and flushing through the material. In reality, many students don't learn much. I'd even argue that from my own 9th grade Geometry class, including the few kids there who graduated with honors, that I'm the only person who still remembers those rules, like NO ASS.

Yeah, so you are taking an issue with math not being applied? Funny, my kids are so into Physics because its the first real class where we apply all the math they learn in their high school career.

thunderlips11 says

Agreed, at least 50% of the time I find myself scouring the internet for other examples aside from the power point slides (which are themselves based on other textbooks) in the Coursera Class. 90% of the difficulty of learning something is finding the right text or website. One chart or visualization can make the difference between "Aha!" and "Uhhh...."

However, I like this course, Intro to Chem. The MITx assumed AP Chemistry students, the kind that get accepted into MIT, and blew through the basics in one lesson, basics I never learned.

If you want a great set of resources for Chem, there is a great teacher at Stuyvesant high school in New York named Steven O'Malley. He's put together an amazing set of resources to learn General Chem and Organic Chem 1.
http://www.omalleychem.info/

theoakman says

If you want a great set of resources for Chem, there is a great teacher at Stuyvesant high school in New York named Steven O'Malley. He's put together an amazing set of resources to learn General Chem and Organic Chem 1.

http://www.omalleychem.info/

@theoakman, right on man, his slides are great. I just ordered a book "All Lab, No Lecture".

And that's the whole point, the world doesn't give a rat's about education. It's about being able to find employment and putting food on the table.

--------------

its not that the world doesn't give a rats ass about education. It's more that plenty of that "education ", is of no utility to the masses.

What can your typical 98 IQ shlep, do with a STEM education?

theoakman says

Stuyvesant high school in New York

Almost every other student at Stuy, given the fact that they accept less than a few percent of NYC applicants, could have homeschooled his/her self and gotten a college degree, by the age of 17/18, using a mix of homeschooling and distance learning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuyvesant_High_School

I believe that Stuy does not have a fast track to the Ivy League ordinary admissions, since so many graduates from that place, apply for all the same programs like Columbia, Harvard, MIT, Yale, P'ton, etc. See the excerpt below:

Stuy article says

3.67% of Stuyvesant students went on to attend Harvard, Princeton, and Yale Universities, ranking it as the 9th top public high school in the United States and 120th among all schools, public or private. In December 2007, The Wall Street Journal studied the freshman classes at eight selective colleges (Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Williams College, Pomona College, Swarthmore College, U. Chicago, and Johns Hopkins), and reported that Stuyvesant sent 67, or 9.9% of its 674 seniors, to them.

Here's my response to the above ... big fucking deal!

I've only seen one resume in my career, where the person had bragged about attending Stuy. It read like this ...

Education:

BS, SUNY (one of the big campuses), Electrical Engineering, Summa Cum Laude

HS Diploma, Stuyvesant High School of NYC

Guess what? No one was wowed by the above.

If you live in the Boston area, you can completely drop high school, take the train into Harvard Square, and get yourself a complete bachelors degree from Harvard's night program, the Extension School. You can also take courses at Harvard College, during the day, as a special student, if your grades are good.

A lot of bright ppl, have done the above and had gotten into graduate programs at Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Chicago, etc, w/o playing the game of undergraduate admissions. So what's the big deal about a place like Stuyvesant in that case?

Rin says

Stuyvesant High School of NYC

Also, don't think about the school, think about the individual.

How is the individual, the one who'd gotten the mark to attend Stuy, benefited by being there, since NO ONE in the real world, cares about which high school one had attended? Realize, this isn't England where attending Eton is critical for being *seen* as born rich. Plus, everyone knows that Stuy isn't a rich kid's school. In NYC, that's Dalton. And thus, a Dalton alumni has better business networking opportunities than his counterparts at a working class place like Stuy.

It's just a Cool and Hip Buzzword Acronym.
If you don't cite it, you're not Cool and Hip.
I know "STEM" PhD's who couldn't change a tire to save their lives.
I'm sure you do, too.

Rin says

If you want some real uni class, try MIT OCW, Univ of Illinois/UC, London Uni

If you use those courses, could you actually get a degree? Granted, I understand that a degree is BS and all, but some people like to look at that piece of paper.

Rin says

everyone knows that Stuy isn't a rich kid's school

It's an Asian Joe Bloggs school. It lacks the 'fast track' to the Ivy because All the candidates look the same (on paper) and come from the same background (not rich/prominent) and accepting too many of them is antithetical to the purpose of the Ivy, which is to "build better leaders" and enhance networking capabilities/capacities. Still lot of people from there get into Ivy schools.

Fast track, are basically schools that are members of the Eight schools Association and schools that are part of the Ivy Preparatory School League.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/12/13/making-harvard-feeder-schools/?page=1

http://www.businessinsider.com/st-pauls-is-part-of-the-prep-school-ivy-league-2015-8

p=1284334&c=1224573#comment-1224573">Rin says

Stuy does not have a fast track to the Ivy League ordinary admissions, since so many graduates from that place

.....Are Asian Joe bloggs cookie cutter candidates who are placed into a pile competing against each other.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-11-21/princeton-review-tells-asians-to-act-less-asian-and-black-students-to-attach-photos

MMR says

Rin says

If you want some real uni class, try MIT OCW, Univ of Illinois/UC, London Uni

If you use those courses, could you actually get a degree? Granted, I understand that a degree is BS and all, but some people like to look at that piece of paper.

I believe that if one takes courses at one's local community college or state uni, it's possible to transfer into London's online program because they can evaluate US university grades but not those of our high schools, since we don't have As and Os level exams.

MMR says

Rin says

everyone knows that Stuy isn't a rich kid's school

It's an Asian Joe Bloggs school. It lacks the 'fast track' to the Ivy because All the candidates look the same (on paper) and come from the same background (not rich/prominent) and accepting too many of them is antithetical to the purpose of the Ivy, which is to "build better leaders" and enhance networking capabilities/capacities. Still lot of people from there get into Ivy schools.

There's more to it than that. From any of these cookie-cutter magnet public HS (with high Asian-American Joe Bloggs), a huge number of them (sometimes a majority of the Asians in the class), not just the magna cum laude crowd, all apply for the same colleges at the same exact time. And thus, by virtue of the deluge, every applicant from there is at a disadvantage from the opening gate.

As a result, you have ppl, who spend every waking moment, trying to win violinist, essay, or drama contests, to beat the kids sitting next to them. Isn't that energy better spent, homeschooling, taking college courses part-time, and then, finishing a college degree by the time one is an adult?

On the other hand, from a brand name private school, the average person there, who isn't let's say magna cum laude material, for instance, John Kerry, Al Gore, etc, when they apply for colleges, they don't necessarily put the kid-on-scholarship (sorry, make that a loan) sitting next to them, at a significant disadvantage, because one, the Ivies tend to accept more from those places (due to legacy and rich donor types), and at the same time, they can give consideration to a middle classer for making the numbers (GPA/SATs/APs) from the rich kids' camps, look better.

When I see resumes from applicants who list their magnet high schools, not just Stuy, I almost feel like crying, because I know exactly that they're thinking. It's like somehow, the world handed 'em a lemon, and now, they're holding up a lemonade sign attempting to make that look important for a world which cares about the following ...

1) Job --- Risk Analyst
2) Firm --- XYZ Capital Group
3) College (and/or Business/Law) School --- Ivies/Duke/Stanford/MIT/Oxbridge/London/Chicago

And if the above has high school listed (or worse, a science award from HS), then that person looks like a chump, because at that point in his career, his work experience should cover the first page and a half.

Rin says

As a result, you have ppl, who spend every waking moment, trying to win violinist, essay, or drama contests, to beat the kids sitting next to them. Isn't that energy better spent, homeschooling, taking college courses part-time, and then, finishing a college degree by the time one is an adult?

They can't do that once they've overspent to live in a top school district. Rin says

MMR says

Rin says

If you want some real uni class, try MIT OCW, Univ of Illinois/UC, London Uni

If you use those courses, could you actually get a degree? Granted, I understand that a degree is BS and all, but some people like to look at that piece of paper.

I believe that if one takes courses at one's local community college or state uni, it's possible to transfer into London's online program because they can evaluate US university grades but not those of our high schools, since we don't have As and Os level exams

So you are saying that one need not actually complete high school but rather take the comparable courses at a community college and transfer into London's online program? If one were headed on the path to the London online program, how would the MIT courses or UIUC courses be used? I truly wish I had known someone like you and had this level of guidance when I was a teenager. I think I would have achieved a lot more.

Rin says

When I see resumes from applicants who list their magnet high schools, not just Stuy, I almost feel like crying, because I know exactly that they're thinking. It's like somehow, the world handed 'em a lemon, and now, they're holding up a lemonade sign attempting to make that look important for a world which cares about the following ...

That's sad since a very high percentage of the kids graduating from stuy end up doing a science based major at a place like Stony Brook.

Rin says

And thus, by virtue of the deluge, every applicant from there is at a disadvantage from the opening gate.

Especially the Asian applicantRin says

As a result, you have ppl, who spend every waking moment, trying to win violinist, essay, or drama contests

Add spelling bee for the IndiansRin says

who isn't let's say magna cum laude material, for instance, John Kerry, Al Gore, etc, when they apply for colleges, they don't necessarily put the kid-on-scholarship (sorry, make that a loan) sitting next to them, at a significant disadvantag

Are people who come from prominent families that have a long history of philanthropy. Knowing people like them and rubbing elbows with people like them is what gives the Ivy their mystique. A school full of Asians offers no such mystique.

MMR says

If one were headed on the path to the London online program, how would the MIT courses or UIUC courses be used?

The streaming free classes (MIT, UI, etc) are there to learn the material, since one can't get credit for them, w/o forking over the cash as a special student.

Then, taking similar classes at the community college or local state uni would be pure review and thus, a person would get a 3.9-4.0 with minimal added effort. Afterwards, sophomore level transfer admissions to London online shouldn't be a problem. Plus, the UK bachelors is
only 3 years so it's not like one needs to spend 4 years doing the program.

MMR says

That's sad since a very high percentage of the kids graduating from stuy end up doing a science based major at a place like Stony Brook.

Yes, a total and complete waste.

Rin, what's the deal with A and O levels, do you have a idea about that?

Love the UK Bachelors, less fluff more course stuff. It's not half or more of the time doing unrelated stuff ("Electives") like US Bachelor's Degrees.

MMR says

That's sad since a very high percentage of the kids graduating from stuy end up doing a science based major at a place like Stony Brook.

What's the deal with SUNY Stony Brook? I know there's a lot of Foreign Profs there that don't speak English.

MMR says

So you are saying that one need not actually complete high school but rather take the comparable courses at a community college and transfer into London's online program? If one were headed on the path to the London online program, how would the MIT courses or UIUC courses be used? I truly wish I had known someone like you and had this level of guidance when I was a teenager. I think I would have achieved a lot more.

Me too. I spent my Senior Year taking Shop classes just to fill the schedule. I didn't know, and the dumbass Guidance Counselor didn't mention, that I could have taken Comm College Courses for free. All I needed was a P/E and English Credit by the end of my Junior Year. Could have banged out English Comp 101 and taken a Swim Class, along with 4-5 other courses and gone in to school bypassing my Freshman Year.

Preach on, Rin.

By the way, U of L has individual courses they'll apply to a degree if you pass. Great for a 16-17 year old to take Accounting or Econ 101. Also useful if your education has been unorthodox as a means of gaining admittance.

If you can learn it remotely, using video lectures and textbooks, you can learn almost anything.

thunderlips11 says

By the way, U of L has individual courses they'll apply to a degree if you pass. Great for a 16-17 year old to take Accounting or Econ 101. Also useful if your education has been unorthodox as a means of gaining admittance.

If you can learn it remotely, using video lectures and textbooks, you can learn almost anything.

I think the only problem with London online is that it's not that accommodating for kids.

On the other foot, they have no problems, assessing American university coursework, much like their own, either in Britain or the Commonwealth.

So to do that special student -- > to full-time student path at UoL, you're already talking about a 17-18 year old.

On the other hand, an American can get Precalculus, Calculus I to III, Statistics, Micro and Macroeconomics, all done, by the age of 16, using free online courses plus community or local state colleges to verify the credentials. Basically, you first learn the material online but then, take the community college course to get the 'A' and the academic credit.

By UoL's standard, any 3.8 is an 'A' average, from any American university.

thunderlips11 says

Rin, what's the deal with A and O levels, do you have a idea about that?

It's the sort of former British Empire weighted average of the American AP/CLEP exams and the national Olympiads but for the UK and the members of their Commonwealth nations.

There's so much debate going on, on whether or not the system works or not, makes it a wasteful process for an American to sieve through.

As an applicant from another American college, whether it's a community college or a state univ, none of that stuff matters once the GED is in place. At that point in time, if you've got the GPA from an American college, you've got it.

thunderlips11 says

Great for a 16-17 year old to take Accounting or Econ 101

Also, I wouldn't worry so much about accounting vs let's say econometrics or applied math.

After the UoL experience, an American may still need to get a part-time MS in Accounting, stateside, to sit for the CPA exam in America. The purpose of London is to one, fulfill the need for a bachelor's degree, and two, a bachelor's degree which looks good when one later segues into careers in finance or management consulting, where they like ppl with brand name diplomas on their roster.

And in my poo-poo on the SUNYs, CUNYs, or UConns, it's ok to get a postgraduate MS in Accounting from those places, just for the CPA thing, but then, not emphasize that on the resume. So when one later applies for a job at a financial services company, the resume looks like this ...

1) Experience:

ABC Inc, doing research analysis on weakened currency pairings

2) Education:

B.S. Economics/Math, London University, London School of Economics program, First Class Honours

Postgraduate training in Accounting, Univ of Connecticut, received masters degree certification

So you see, in my above example, in place of looking like some state univ loser, the person looks like a global type, with some localized professional credentials.

The above looks so much better than the following Joe Loser who'd attended a Magnet high school ...

1) Experience:

ABC Inc, doing research analysis on weakened currency pairings

2) Education:

H.S. Diploma, Bronx High School of Science, won spelling bee in senior year

B.S. Electronics Engineering, Univ of Connecticut, Summa Cum Laude

M.S. Accounting, Univ of Connecticut

The Magnet guy would most likely get the 'loser' vs the 'worldly' label.

Is it me, or is this one of the few threads where for the most part, everyone agrees with me?

Ironman says

Rin says

Is it me, or is this one of the few threads where for the most part, everyone agrees with me?

Yep, all the two or three people participating have agreed with you. It must be a new record!!

Anyone trolling this topic would argue things like ... it's "what you learn which counts" and a bunch of other feel good malarkey of the 80s and 90s, where they would tout the socialization value of high school and the fact that Jack Welsh had attended a state college, instead of MIT or CalTech.

Now, it's more clear that places like management consulting and financial services are much more about how one *looks* vs what's under the hood.

I do agree. I live 2 blocks from a feeder school where 30% of the kids go to Princeton. These kids pick up a $150 restaurant tab with their allowance. After listening to their conversations for about 2 minutes, I know my asian students would bury them intellectually and academically. But these privileged kids will be the ones graduating from an Ivy in 4 to 5 years and commanding 6 figure salaries at age 22. It's inevitable.

The scary part is the ones that go Poli Sci/Int Relations will be running the country.

Rin says

And in my poo-poo on the SUNYs, CUNYs, or UConns, it's ok to get a postgraduate MS in Accounting from those places, just for the CPA thing, but then, not emphasize that on the resume. So when one later applies for a job at a financial services company, the resume looks like this ...

Jesus, I know SUNY is/was a great STEM School. Another sign of incredible inequity in our society.

theoakman says

feeder school where 30% of the kids go to Princeton. These kids pick up a $150 restaurant tab with their allowance. After listening to their conversations for about 2 minutes, I know my asian students would bury them intellectually and academically. But these privileged kids will be the ones graduating from an Ivy

The reason for that has a lot to do with their dads being Lloyd Blankfein or John Kerry types. The feeder school is merely the gathering grounds of those offsprings. And thus, they get their CVs polished, looking good, so that the admissions ppl at the Ivies admit them, w/o too much debate. And then, those same Ivies will admit the perfect Asian applicant with the best possible numbers, so that when averaged in with John Kerry Jr, Gore the III, Bush the IV, or Rockefeller the V, that the elite school average comes out looking good.

thunderlips11 says

Jesus, I know SUNY is/was a great STEM School. Another sign of incredible inequity in our society.

IMHO, in the northeast corridor, no eastern state school is considered prestigious by the management consulting and/or investment banking types.

At best, Univ of Virginia (mostly due to law/business) and Georgia Tech (though mainly due to Silicon Valley [and not Wall St]) are the only two prestigious east coast public schools. The others are considered consolation prizes for those who didn't either gain admissions or get the good scholarship packages to the private schools. BTW, no one cares about the Univ of North Carolina/Chapel Hill outside of pure academia and those who live in the south.

Man, I can't wait for the revolution and tax those fuckers 20% and 2% like the commission it is.

You're alright Rin, we'll come up with a loophole for ya.

thunderlips11 says

Man, I can't wait for the revolution and tax those fuckers 20% and 2% like the commission it is.

Thunderlips, I'm getting a sense that you've fully acknowledged all my arguments. Wow, the world has changed since my childhood. Much of the above would have been considered impolite, if I'd said it back in those years.

thunderlips11 says

You're alright Rin, we'll come up with a loophole for ya.

I'm going to retire to Australia, with legal brothels, using my eggsnest, so I'll be out of the system.

thunderlips11 says

What's the deal with SUNY Stony Brook? I know there's a lot of Foreign Profs there that don't speak English.

academically it has a good reputation and to improve the prestige factor, they have actually stopped calling themselves a SUNY school, although technically they are still part of the SUNY system. This is what I gathered from talking to several students who went to Stony Brook. The same people also told me how tough the school is academically in the sciences. It is a top-notch research university but still not really considered a 'public ivy' although that appears to be a goal of the university moving forward

Rin says

The reason for that has a lot to do with their dads being Lloyd Blankfein or John Kerry types. The feeder school is merely the gathering grounds of those offsprings. And thus, they get their CVs polished, looking good, so that the admissions ppl at the Ivies admit them, w/o too much debate. And then, those same Ivies will admit the perfect Asian applicant with the best possible numbers, so that when averaged in with John Kerry Jr, Gore the III, Bush the IV, or Rockefeller the V, that the elite school average comes out looking good.

I switched districts, but the past few years, my classes were 60% asian. I probably had the best non-magnet student body in the state. I would always send 2 to Princeton. Usually, they had to be the top student in the state on some level along with being a world class violinist or clarinetist. Ironically, I had another girl who was white and ranked #2 in the class behind an asian prodigy who had a legitimate claim to top student in the nation. He was in the top 20 in the country for high school students in bio, physics, and math by age 14. Both of her parents went to Princeton and she was rejected.

theoakman says

I do agree. I live 2 blocks from a feeder school where 30% of the kids go to Princeton

The private schools might be Princeton Day School, Lawrenceville school, Hun School .....Public schools might be West Windsor/Plainsboro or Montgomery Twp HS....Out of those schools, West Windsor/Plainsboro (North and South) are the Asian Joe bloggs school. I have relatives there (Plainsboro) and their kids went there with the daughter who graduated from Cooper Union with a STEM major (civil) and volunteered for a STEM non-profit to get underserved minorities into
STEM by feeding them BS.

http://iridescentlearning.org/

theoakman says

I know my asian students would bury them intellectually and academically.

Academically yes, Intellectually, that's debatable. Lot of those guys have no exposure to the world outside of their bubble. That's why their college applications consist of essays about similar cookie cutter topics:

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-11-21/princeton-review-tells-asians-to-act-less-asian-and-black-students-to-attach-photos

From article: outlining ways candidates such as these can play down their Asianness, including advising against application essays that discuss how their culture affects their lives. “These are Asian Joe Bloggs topics, and they are incredibly popular.”

MMR says

academically it has a good reputation and to improve the prestige factor, they have actually stopped calling themselves a SUNY school, although technically they are still part of the SUNY system. This is what I gathered from talking to several students who went to Stony Brook. The same people also told me how tough the school is academically in the sciences. It is a top-notch research university but still not really considered a 'public ivy' although that appears to be a goal of the university moving forward

There are a number of tough, state university science and engineering programs out there. But yet, most state unis are not in the prestige game. The reason for that is that the age of STEM prestige is over, the exceptions being Carnegie-Mellon, CalTech, MIT, and Stanford. The last state unis to win at that card match was Virginia, with law/business, and Georgia Tech, with high SV placements. Even the vaunted Univ of Illinois/UC, is slowly becoming a forgotten wheat field oasis, despite being the next best hard core engineering school to MIT, because it's never been able to sell its law/business offerings and build a non-middle-of-nowhere culture to the outside world.

What Stony Brook needs to do is to merge degrees with NYU and become their suburban campus but then, work out a deal with the state to maintain the in-state tuition for NY residents. With that, the rich idiots will stay in the Greenwich Village/NYC campus, while the smarter ones (see Stuy, Bronx Science, etc), will be on the Stony Brook campus, doing good work, while earning a degree which says, New York University: Long Island Institute of Tech. And then, you won't have this issue because the resume will read

B.S. Accounting and Applied Math
New York University, LIIT scholars

The above looks a lot better than posting the name of one's high school. Plus, over time, LIIT scholars will clearly start to make waves in the business world, including accounting, finance, consulting, etc. A lot of that will have to do with the other smart NYers, not just the Stuy/Joe Asian bloggs, attending that place and building credentials on academic merit, versus attending Fordham, Manhattan College, etc, on full scholarships.

Rin says

no eastern state school is considered prestigious by the management consulting and/or investment banking types.

I always thought it was Harvard, Yale, MIT, Columbia, UPenn, UChicago, Northwestern and Stanford. Are any public schools seen as prestigious to management consulting/ banking types?

MMR says

Rin says

no eastern state school is considered prestigious by the management consulting and/or investment banking types.

I always thought it was Harvard, Yale, MIT, Columbia, UPenn, UChicago, Northwestern and Stanford. Are any public schools seen as prestigious to management consulting/ banking types?

It's still 'ok' to attend Virginia, Michigan, UC/Berkeley, and I think some oddball places like William & Mary.