Affirmative action in admissions and supporting students of diverse backgrounds

[stemstudent12345]

8 minutes ago, bayessays said:

Is the department admitting students who haven't taken calc 2 and linear algebra?  I just can't imagine people don't actually have the background to succeed.  You can get an entire undergraduate math education by watching YouTube videos for a couple days.

I'm absolutely willing to consider the possibility that I'm just not that mathematically talented and that's why I'm having a hard time getting up to speed. I guess in my defense, it takes most people at least a year or two of coursework to meet the credit requirements for an undergraduate education in math (I understand there's a lot of fluff time in there), so the "couple of days" is probably more dream than reality. 

I'll add that in my case, I did have linear algebra (though it was a very basic course therein), but I know a number of folks admitted without any linear algebra at all (I assume everyone at least had calc II). But anyway, the spirit of your comment is well-taken, and I assure you I'm working hard to get up to speed mathematically with YouTube.  

[bayessays]

That's pretty amazing that your program admits people without having taken linear algebra - I've never heard of such a thing and it does sound sort of ridiculous to expect people to just catch up in that case.

The first few years of graduate school can be overwhelming for a lot of people, as you feel there is just *so much* to learn.  When I was getting my MS, I felt like I had to learn everything from the most basic level to fully understand it, and make sure I knew all the math that led up to it.  But I think a perspective change might be helpful, in that you really only need to do well enough to pass the classes (and exams, which in some departments are awful - if you go to one of these departments, I'm sorry for your terrible luck.  Kicking people out of school because of a single 3-hour test is terrible.  Maybe you should transfer to a more welcoming program that doesn't weed out domestic students like this -- they exist!).

I just returned to schools after 5 years off.  I barely remember how to do integration by parts - but when a problem comes up with a weird integral I try it out.  I don't know what the the power series for e looks like off the top of my head, but I know enough that when I see a weird series I can look it up and maybe see that it's in a nice form.  I certainly don't know any properties of a trace of a matrix.  I barely know how to take partial derivatives to do the Jacobian transformations of random variables in Casella Berger.  And this time around, I'm not even going to try to trace back my math education to the beginning to re-learn every little skill that would lead me up to this point.  Just learn to do the problems in the books, on your homeworks, and I'd highly recommend searching for lecture notes/stack exchange conversations that give clearer explanations than your professors might give.

[Cophysneurec]

8 hours ago, stemstudent12345 said:

Hmmm, I agree that there definitely needs to be changes in how things are run well before the post-graduate level (see my earlier comment about conservative economist Glenn Loury and redirecting energy toward correcting key developmental inequalities early in life). However, at the risk of overanalyzing, I think it's interesting that you use the words "burden" and "disruptions" to describe basic inclusivity efforts. I 100% agree that faculty are doing invaluable work on research and that should be their priority. However, having diverse communities makes research better for everyone (even in fields where it's not traditionally valued, like STEM fields). (I haven't actually read it yet, but this article has been on my list for a while and may or may not support my point). Even if I didn't believe that everyone deserved the opportunity to at least work hard and pursue their interests as far as they were able, I would at least recognize the utilitarian value in not discounting huge amounts of natural talent and potential for hard work among people who happen to belong to certain racial/gender/etc categories. 

I wasn’t describing equity programs  as a burden, I was referring to the effects that these institutionalized changes have on those who must enact them on a daily basis. Just as there is no free lunch, every policy has its downsides, whether in opportunity cost or in direct consequences of the policy.

 

I don’t appreciate the implication in your last point that I somehow don’t feel everyone should have the opportunity to pursue their dreams. I think this is the single most important facet of society. My thought is that homogeneity of any kind is not inherently valuable. Seeking homogeneity in the distribution of people who do a given thing is idiotic without basis for value. You don’t need to lecture me on the value of X Y Z in stem; what I am asking is: in what way does the undergraduate educational system or surrounding structure inhibit those who would naturally want to enter STEM from doing so? I feel that from my own experiences, these effects are very limited when it comes to women. I am asking for other perspectives so I can broaden my understanding.

[stemstudent12345]

11 hours ago, Cophysneurec said:

I don’t appreciate the implication in your last point that I somehow don’t feel everyone should have the opportunity to pursue their dreams. I think this is the single most important facet of society. 

I'm sorry, I see how my comment came across that way, but I truly didn't mean to imply that you personally didn't value fairness of opportunity. 

11 hours ago, Cophysneurec said:

what I am asking is: in what way does the undergraduate educational system or surrounding structure inhibit those who would naturally want to enter STEM from doing so? I feel that from my own experiences, these effects are very limited when it comes to women. I am asking for other perspectives so I can broaden my understanding.

I can only speak from my own experiences, which mostly don't contain overt gender discrimination, but I suspect many experiences were subtly gendered nonetheless. For example, when I brought up with an undergraduate professor that I was considering an accelerated masters program in statistics, he encouraged me instead to pursue studying abroad and to consider grad school in a social science field. Now maybe this wasn't about gender at all (this particular professor was very encouraging usually); but I suspect my gender played a part in his response. In high school, when I wanted to take more advanced math classes than what my school offered, my teachers gave me a textbook and after-hours access to the computer lab so I could self-study. One of my male classmates who wanted more advanced classes got the same resources, but also got approved for an independent study where he received one-on-one instruction from a math teacher. Maybe my male classmate pushed harder for the independent study, maybe he was just better at math so the school saw more potential in him, or maybe it was some other factor, but maybe it was about gender. Even thinking back to elementary school, when I did well in math classes or proclaimed that I liked math, many well-meaning adults in my life suggested I could become a K-12 math teacher, rather than suggesting I could become a scientist or an engineer (math teaching is a super honorable and important profession! Don't get me wrong, I just wonder if a young boy who loves math would be told the same thing).

There is also the aspect of microaggressions. In numerous meetings, classes, and seminars, I've seen women's questions brushed off as an annoyance, female Ph.D.s called by their first name in circumstances where their male colleagues were called Doctor, and women interrupted more regularly than their male counterparts. I've seen countless online professor ratings that reduce women to their looks or to their personality, rather than evaluating them the merits of their teaching and fairness of their grading. Like I mentioned in an earlier comment, women are sometimes the ones people first ask to take on unpaid service work, such as helping organize holiday parties or coordinating visit weekend. While these are ostensibly minor issues, I think they contribute to pushing women out of the mathematical sciences and other STEM fields.

[phddream]

13 hours ago, Cophysneurec said:

I wasn’t describing equity programs  as a burden, I was referring to the effects that these institutionalized changes have on those who must enact them on a daily basis. Just as there is no free lunch, every policy has its downsides, whether in opportunity cost or in direct consequences of the policy.

 

I don’t appreciate the implication in your last point that I somehow don’t feel everyone should have the opportunity to pursue their dreams. I think this is the single most important facet of society. My thought is that homogeneity of any kind is not inherently valuable. Seeking homogeneity in the distribution of people who do a given thing is idiotic without basis for value. You don’t need to lecture me on the value of X Y Z in stem; what I am asking is: in what way does the undergraduate educational system or surrounding structure inhibit those who would naturally want to enter STEM from doing so? I feel that from my own experiences, these effects are very limited when it comes to women. I am asking for other perspectives so I can broaden my understanding.

From my experience, STEM subjects requires a lot of time and drilling to grasp foundations and build on previous concepts. As someone who had to work three jobs to pay for college, my socioeconomic situation did not lend itself well to succeeding in STEM. I relied on pulling multiple consecutive all nighters to cram rather than spreading learning over time, which research shows is better for digesting information. 

As a woman who went on to work in industry, I've also experienced blatant discrimination, from superiors preferring to work with a male intern rather than me, a full time employee who owns the subject space with the feedback "they would rather hear this from a man" to a male manager telling me I should "be less direct so people will think you're more approachable." @stemstudent12345 experience with high school class resonated with me. I had wanted to take AP Physics my senior year, having already taken AP chem and bio, and my counselor me girls usually have a hard time in AP Physics and to keep my grades stellar, he moved me out of that class for TA period. I don't share this to complain, only to provide examples of additional external factors that created obstacles for me to do my job or succeed in my career, since we're talking about perspectives and broadening of minds. Generously, maybe none of these examples have anything to do with my gender. Maybe I am way too direct in communication in a business setting. Maybe the audience would rather hear the forecasting model that I build explained by a man. Maybe I would have failed at AP Physics and my counselors saved my GPA. That is how I have to reframe my thinking in order to do the work I care about and spend time and energy dwelling on this instead. I don't doubt that men have problems of their own but sure would be nice to not have these doubts hanging over my head.