I was a Destination Imagination event last weekend, where I met two engineers from India, one working in the US at IBM, the other at Oracle. In our downtime we discussed differences in math and science education in the US and India. There were three things of note:
(1) According to these two men -- which, let's keep in mind is a completely invalid and non-random statistical sample! -- in India the best students go to a university to study math; the second-best (but still fine) go to study science/engineering. Anyone can go study liberal arts, so it's not very prestigious. Or, as one guy said, "In india, if my child was getting worse than 90% on his math homework, I'd be very concerned; if they were getting 60% in a humanities course I wouldn't really care."
(2) The same person's opinion is that math in India goes farther, but that it's just rote book learning and that students are apt to forget what they've learned; his observation is that in the US the children learn much more conceptually what's going on.
(3) In India, you take A Levels after the equivalent of 10th grade. These scores completely determine what happens to you, educationally.
Let's assume this is "true enough," and compare this to my opinon of what is typical in the U.S.:
First, there's no such thing as A Levels; even the SAT's can be taken repeatedly (not without penalty, but still...). So generally people think of High School in one block: from 9th-12th grade. And then typically for serious students, they go directly to college; though certainly it's not uncommon to take a year off, particularly if there's a good reason to (i.e. work or travel opportunities; family situations that require attention).
(There are other perfectly acceptable routes to college, including taking an exam that gives tests to ensure the "equivalence" of a High School Education (GED), or working and then returning to college, or taking college courses part-time; these can be extremely productive, and people who take these routes can be extremely successful. However, they do take time, not all schools accomodate these alternatives, and often they require more focus and determination on the part of the student.)
As for Math study itself, in the U.S., studying "Pure" Mathematics at the University level is essentially philosophy. Some departments have "Applied" Mathematics, which can vary, but still is often still a somewhat esoteric field. There's usually a different degree, Statistics, which is more oriented towards the practical -- in that it's statistics. Further, in the U.S. there has been a bit of a negative stereotype about mathematicians as being ... well... esoteric: brilliant, but socially awkward, sometimes extremely so. (Yes, this is biased by my experience in the math department at Cal before I switched to physics, long ago.)
Science is effectively "Applied Math" -- whether slightly "Applied" or hugely so -- in the U.S., so there are plenty of potential mathematicians who instead study physics, biophysics, molecular chemistry, etc. And as Engineering is then "Applied Science", the range spreads even further: some departments are known for generating engineers who live "in their heads," just like some scientists (and most mathematicians) are accused of doing, and some engineering departments are known for attracting and developing practical, hands-on types of people.
It's precisely that variability in attitude and focus that makes it so important to match up the program with the student's interest.
But most importantly to keep in mind: liberal arts are often very highly valued; in fact, liberal arts tend to develop people who are talented at making persuasive arguments -- whether to illustrate the relevance of a literary theme, or in a legal context; about a political decision or an economic one; or even in order to convince people to fund a community center because of sociological forces, or to purchase a body of artwork for a museum because of trends in art history.
Maybe it's because the US is so fluid, but the importance of a liberal arts education is to give people the context to be able to think on their feet as well as the means to articulate their point of view.
In fact, if I had to point to the major defining features of the US that is probably most difficult for someone from a Traditional culture to understand, it would be that the one thing a parent who grew up here knows for sure is that our world is dramatically different than our parents' world was, and so it's only reasonable to assume our children's world will be dramatically different than ours. Given that "generation gap," parents often focus on teaching their children to be flexible and resilient, to be able to make good choices, and to be persistent.
Specific information, specific knowledge, and even a specific area of expertise is not something anyone can build a lifetime upon anyway, so trying to influence choice to that level of detail seems counterproductive.
I welcome your comments.
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