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Matthew Yglesias
@mattyglesias
It’s because the classes are harder! You *could* make really hard humanities classes to weed out the weakest students, but schools in practice don’t do that so it actually is the case that science majors are smarter and harder working.
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@ppyowna
i hate the fact that math and science smart students are considered smarter than english and history smart students
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David Watson 🥑
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Corey Walker
@CoreyWriting
It's also a false binary. Contrary to popular belief, the exceptional math/science students are also usually excellent at humanities subjects as well.
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benmaritz
@benmaritz
When I was at a big consulting firm that hired 100s of college grads a year, we found a full 2x difference in performance a year in between hard sciences majors and humanities majors.
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🐐QuirkyLlama
@quirkyllama
STEM is aimed at goals, so students must be competent to achieve those goals. Humanities courses have no goals. They could- they could require all students to write as well as
@slatestarcodex
, but then they'd have to fail 98%.
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little vincible
@alittlevincible
AP U.S. history remains harder than most college humanities courses, even at our “elite” institutions. (Though that may change as AP changes standards.) The challenge in the humanities as you advance to go deeper and wider, à la Montaigne, Dante, Hugo, Goethe, etc. Few people
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Ben Golub
@ben_golub
But now we have such grade inflation in hard quantitative classes that the argument is becoming weaker by the day.
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Joe Zappa
@joe_zappa
The smartest 1-2 kids in a HUM class may be as smart as the smartest 1-2 in STEM. What's different is tons of kids are coasting with As/Bs in HUM classes who would not get the same marks in STEM. The humanities choose to be a safe haven for mediocrity.
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Up&Over
@Stwrsbrg
Precisely, but that’s driven by the market and a vicious cycle. English, history, etc are struggling to attract students because employers understand the disciplines aren’t as rigorous as for example, math or physics, so they dumb down the standards even further. Even though
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A Climacus
@a_climacus
“We are overproducing humanities majors. Also, humanities have gotten too easy!” Jeez what could possibly be done?
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Oliver Jones 🇬🇧
@OliverJones_19
Science majors aren't inherently smarter... They just chose a path with built in difficulty filters It's about institutional design, not raw intelligence
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Richard Yeselson
@yeselson
Harder how? More reading, more paper/testing requirements? It’s hard to do equivalencies here. Kind of an apple/oranges thing—these disciplines are very very different, how you measure “smart” is thus different.
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George Selly
@georgekselly
A lot of degrees are 60 units of courses in an area, but an ABET-accredited EE degree is a defined certification. It has a set list of courses/standards that is internationally recognized, acting as a bulwark against schools' incentives to boost graduation rates/lower the bar.
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Alex Hartman
@alexjh120
100%. I know a lot of people who just simply couldn’t get past organic chem 2 and had to change majors. There is no equivalent class where scores of English majors have to change tracks and join a hard science because they could not grasp some Victorian literature class.
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Brrrrrrrrrando ☃️
@BrALatham
If the goal is to perform well, every class is, definitionally, equally hard. Ten percent of students will earn grades in the top ten percent of the class, no matter what the class is. If it’s a matter of workload, then the hardest class in the one with a mountain of reading.
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Tim Hansel
@HanselTim
I taught a symbolic logic course at a school where the class fulfilled a math requirement. Lots of students took it because they thought a philosophy class would be loads easier than algebra. Lots of failing.
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Patrick Anderson
@pimlius
“You *could* make really hard humanities classes to weed out the weakest students, but schools in practice don’t do that” <— in effect I think this is basically what law school is.
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Johannes Wellman 🇫🇮
@JohannesWellman
Generally speaking, this really is true. The sort of drilling without which you cannot even pass a science, maths or logic exam simply doesn’t take place in most humanities or social sciences classes. Also, in the former, opinions and victimhood count for nothing.
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Andy Tharp
@papanoel_cool
Well this goes back to your thing about how it doesn't make sense to make the bottom 25% or whatever of students miserable. You really do need to have some easier majors!
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Jane the Actuary
@JanetheActuary
It is actually a failure of the system that these are all just variations of a “bachelors degree” with 4 years of study - though it’s unwinding a bit as it’s increasingly easier for humanities/communications majors to be able to meet a year of “credits” through AP class expansion
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John Kubie
@JohnKubie
not because ‘harder’. 1 math is cumulative. need previous courses. 2. math is, to some degree, a technical skill, used in certain occupation, engineering. (I’ve gotten several great concepts out of calculus, but never use it)
SQUIRREL OF G_D (stirring)
@MadeInMycelium
A classical education 1000 years ago assumed students would speak multiple dead languages and be familiar with a large body of literature and poetry. Being able to recite poems by heart was expected.
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Jonser
@cmonjonser
My NYC private school had this. Everyone knew Advanced US history was the hardest class to get an A in, so all of the smartest kids took the class to see if they could do it.
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Kevin Harris
@kjh1138
It’s a fact that you are far more likely to find a well-read, competent writer in a physics class than you are to find someone who knows what a derivative is in an English class - let alone a ‘studies’ class.
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nonarbitrarity
@nonarbitrarity
Grading in humanities becomes increasingly subjective the harsher you get. Math problems tell you when you're right. In humanities, it depends on your teacher. Math problems also tell you when you're wrong, which leads to lots of kids prematurely to thinking they suck at math.
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Lee Turner Kodak
@KodakTurner
This. So many master's and bachelor's students have no business being in university, yet there is no structure in place to identify them, let alone to tell them
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R W
@m4m3sh1b4
As humanities head I have no problem admitting that my STEM friend are usually more intelligent
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chase 🇺🇸
@wildstar33
All undergrad courses are easy. All of them. If you’re comparing graduate courses here then you’re truly a moron. They learn coding in Sociology too bud.
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peter 🧙‍♂️
@pappypepper
I can imagine a ton of STEM majors shitting their pants if they had to write a thesis on The Rise of Silas Lapham
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Jason
@DarkMatters95
Humanities classes were always my electives. You barely had to study, and finals were essay questions where to could improvise for a high grade. Math, Science and Business majors are the real students. Everyone one else are hobbyists
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Voice of Yogi Berra AM/FM/HD/AGI
@RLangford18
Dear Erudites: Y'all have weird false notions about education in any subject. The purpose of education is not to weed out weakest or choose smarties. It is to satisfy curiosity, excite imagination, sharpen intellect, find applications and advance humanity. Educate thyselves!
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