[Edu-sig] Low Enrollments

[Arthur]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: edu-sig-bounces at python.org [mailto:edu-sig-bounces at python.org] On
> Behalf Of David Handy
> Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 11:48 AM
> To: Toby Donaldson
> Cc: edu-sig at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] Low Enrollments
> 
> It seemed like we had a group of kids who were college-bound because their
> parents had money, but they were unmotivated. Hopefully they became
> "late-bloomers" and "found themselves" later on.

Which is consistent with the point of my previous post - once they might
bloom a bit, technical subjects no longer seem like an option.  They just
reconcile to the "fact" that they have missed the boat, unless they are
unusual enough to be willing to in some sense "start over".

Can't help thinking that a program geared to older students, on a graduate
school level, that assumed little in the way of accomplished pre-requisites,
would help the cause.  I don't think this is totally unrealistic since, on
the graduate school level, a degree of commitment and maturity of the
students can be assumed that is not so at the undergraduate level. So the
intensiveness of what might need to be accomplished to get somewhere
substantial in, say, a 3 year program is not necessarily be pie-in-the-sky.

Law School tends to be intense in that way.  But my sense that those schools
are filled with late-bloomers looking/wanting to get intensive - but with no
particular commitment to the study of Law.  Its just that, as things are,
that seems to be a path  accepting of their previous educational background,
whatever that might happen to be.

Though it is certainly true that folks at this stage are quite career
oriented, and that if the root problem is connected to off-shoring, maybe
nothing will help.

One of the founders of Intel gave an long interview on public television
last night, and spoke extensively on this subject. He considers himself a
pessimist on this subject, at least as to where the US is going.  Though I
felt his ire was quite misdirected, seeming to be pointing the finger at the
religionists influence on the respect for science.

I guess only those of us truly unaffiliated can wonder out loud how much of
the disrespect for science is a (certainly unintended) side effect of the
efforts to engineer gender fairness.
 
Art