Comment by jollybean | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jollybean | Hacker News Reader

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You can definitely teach 'conscientiousness' and the 'basic high school skills'.

You can't teach 'aptitude' but I think you can encourage those things i.e. reading, curiosity, exposure.

You're right though that rich kids probably have a huge advantage in prep for Eng in terms of the former, but whether or not you call it 'classist' is besides the point: teaching your kids to show up to class and pay attention, do homework etc. is not something that costs money (of course it can help).

"So if you think it's some kind just/effective/correct that these kids are kept out (just because they don't have good essay writing skills or something) well I have to wonder if you're just someone trying to keep the labor pool small to inflate your own salary (or for other reasons...)"

For a PhD you're having an odd bit difficulty with leaps of unsubstantiated assumptions, because there's definitely nothing in my statement that would remotely hint about 'What I'm trying to do' about anything. I mean seriously, "I'm trying to keep the labour pool small?" What?

>teaching your kids to show up to class and pay attention, do homework etc. is not something that costs money (of course it can help).

of course it does. it costs money in the form of time - you have to be not working at home to have the opportunity to teach these things. it costs money in the form of energy - if you've never argued with a young child about the relative merits of homework and television then you have no idea how much it costs.

>because there's definitely nothing in my statement that would remotely hint about 'What I'm trying to do' about anything. I mean seriously, "I'm trying to keep the labour pool small?" What?

really? then what is the purpose of this part of your response?

>then you're not only probably not suited to Engineering

what do the words "not suited" mean to you?

If you 'don't have basic high school skills', you're 'not suited' to Engineering.

There is not much to interpret from that statement.

'Basic High School Skills' would be general subject matter competence, basic diligence and conscientiousness with respect to attendance, participation, learning, homework, socialization, organization.

Engineering is fairly advanced, it requires an even higher degree of general competence than most Uni subjects, and even those need a level of competency only found in the upper tranches (say top 1/3) of students in high school.

If you're not 'Generally Not Good At High School' then you are not going to make it through Engineering.

I don't think there's anything controversial here.

>If you 'don't have basic high school skills', you're 'not suited' to Engineering.

begs the question.

>and even those need a level of competency only found in the upper tranches (say top 1/3) of students in high school.

yet not a single one of these things has the slightest to do with technical aptitude

>'Basic High School Skills' would be general subject matter competence, basic diligence and conscientiousness with respect to attendance, participation, learning, homework, socialization, organization.

i'll repeat myself: you can teach each of these things to a kid that is good at math and physics but you cannot teach a kid that has perfect attendance, diligence, etc etc etc how to be good at math and physics.

>If you're not 'Generally Not Good At High School' then you are not going to make it through Engineering.

<shrug> i made it through a physics+math BS, and I'm well on my way to finishing the PhD (as in aced my classes and my quals) and i graduated high school with a 2.2GPA and 40 absences senior year. so not just bottom 2/3 but probably close to last. so along which axis do you think you're wrong? either a technical degree doesn't require the kind of "diligence" you think it does (i'd argue it does not) or that diligence can be learned fairly easily (i'd argue that too).

"competency only found in the upper tranches (say top 1/3) of students in high school.

yet not a single one of these things has the slightest to do with technical aptitude"

?? Aptitude is definitely correlated with academic performance. There is no debate there.

I'm sure on your journey you've taken enough stats to grasp that your personal anecdotal experience doesn't count for that much? I mean, being last place in school, absent all the time ... would it be reasonable for you, the Uni, or anyone to believe that you were 'well suited' to Engineering, or at least more suited than those with good grades, GPA yada yada? It's great you did well, but you must agree that wasn't likely.

In the aggregate, both GPA and SAT are highly correlated with Academic performance in University, so you're arguing against the wind here. [1]

(Do I really even need to provide a data point on this?)

And you must know that being 'Last Place' in High School would preclude most kids from even being accepted to Eng. programs, let alone Uni.

Students who do poorly in High School generally won't succeed in Eng. programs - let alone be accepted in the first place.

Everyone knows this, and it's why they use Grades and SAT as a primary means of admission.

And FYI raw aptitude can't be taught but all sorts of other things can i.e. having basic mathematical literacy and just 'keeping up' from grades 1-9, means that kids have the confidence and opportunity to participate in 'STEM' things which they would be blocked from doing otherwise. Peers, Mentors, points of Inspiration also give kids the extra energy and ethos to work through the issues they might not otherwise care about, in effect, there's a lot of 'passion' hidden inside 'aptitude'.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/06/11/what-...

>In the aggregate, both GPA and SAT

You're literally commenting on a thread about how the SAT is being removed from criteria and your whole point is that the intangibles (you used a bunch of ambiguous words like diligence and etc and I explicitly pointed that out). So have you lost the thread of the conversation?

>Students who do poorly in High School generally won't succeed in Eng. programs - let alone be accepted in the first place.

You really need to look up and understand the begging the question fallacy that I alluded to

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

>And FYI raw aptitude can't be taught but all sorts of other things can i.e. having basic mathematical literacy and just 'keeping up' from grades 1-9, means that kids have the confidence and opportunity to participate in 'STEM' things which they would be blocked from doing otherwise.

I do not understand what you're saying. On the one hand not being diligent and having good attendance should preclude students but lack of "confidence" shouldn't?

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