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Originally Posted by crappyjones123 /img/forum/go_quote.gif
this might be taking a different road but i think it is related to the topic. why is it that in the indian subcontinent and a lot of the countries in mainland asia, the liberal arts are usually reserved for the "not so bright" students? students scoring above 80% on their board exams (standardised tests that the entire country takes) are supposed to pick the sciences and math in 11th and 12th grade. anything below and the student is forced into "commerce" even if the student wants to study the sciences. in a system where your board exam scores essentially determine the rest of your education, such a discrimination at the age of 15, i think, is devastating for the students.
most of the universities dont even offer disciplines like mathematics or philosophy as independent majors. mathematics is not considered important enough to be given its own major...it is just a tool at the engineer's disposal. starting with 10th grade, students start preparing for entrance examinations. at least in india, admissions to universities are not based upon how well you did in high school but on a nationwide examination that a lot of students sit for and then only the top scorers get admitted. there is no room for error, the system doesnt allow for the student to explore other options or even be sick on the day of the test since these tests are conducted only once a year. students dont care much for the actual school work as they attend after school classes to prepare for these tests that their lives depend on. such a system is obviously flawed but oddly enough it is working and has worked for the past few years.
in my 10th grade board examinations, i placed 6th in all of india with a score of 92.3% i still remember waking up my entire neighborhood while i ran up and down the streets in my pjs screaming "92.3!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAAAAAAAH!!! 92.3%" needless to say i was even happier when i cleared the screening test (the test that you take to see if you can even take the actual admission test to the university of your choice) a few months later and was awarded math, computer science, physics, chemistry and english as my 11th grade subjects (considered to be the most prestigious combination. biology was taken ONLY by people who wanted to go to medical school). it was a proud moment for my parents and all my relatives expected me to go to iit (the indian institute of technology, sort of mit's equivalent in india). 2 months into my 11th grade my dad got offered a job in florida and he took it in an instant thinking it would be a great opportunity for my sister and my education. i did well in high school here and got admitted to mit. everyone was happy. a few days later i changed my major to mathematics - a decision crazy enough for my dad to take leave from work for reasons not related to illness, something he had never done in his past 23 years of work. i was asked what made me make such a stupid decision. his first question was, "what are we going to tell your grandfather?" i felt the answer to that question was rather simple but when i talked with my uncle in india a few days later and told him i was majoring in math, he didnt have the foggiest idea in the world what i was talking about. oh and then the decision to double major in philosophy made them go nuts. to them i had gone from being one of the brightest students in india to being one that a family would be ashamed to introduce to their friends.
why does that stigma exist? nothing is being done to remove it simply because the way things are being done right now is working well for them. i hope someone else who has had part of their education outside america can chime in here because it is the only country that i know of, that offers this kind of freedom to explore ANYTHING.
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I was in the same boat as you. I was born here in the US and my family moved to India when I was in the 5th grade so that my sister and myself could be closer to our Grandparents. I told my parents in the 9th grade that I was going to go back to the US for college, and since my dad was still here in the US, my mother didn't want to split the family so the entire family moved back to the US where I completed 2 years of High School and then started a degree in Electrical Engineering.
I remember when I was in the 7th grade my parents wanted me to start thinking about the future and what I wanted to do. I clearly remember when they sat down and talked to me and told me to consider everything I wanted to do in like but, and I quote, "Please don't go for the liberal arts." I didn't think about that too much at the time because that was during the big dot.com era so I was sure I wanted to do computer programming. When I was in High School, it turned out that I was really good and economics and art history and had teachers in those subjects recommending that I pursue those degrees in college. I had time to think back on that conversation that I had before with my parents and asked them why they thought that way. In both cases my parents told me that when they were younger, their own parents worked hard to get into engineering or medicine because a job in those fields represented stability and stable income. I guess that stigma continued on because my dad was placed under some family pressure to pursue engineering (He's a petroleum engineer now). My mother went with Economics, and today, is the Vice Manager for a Wells Fargo branch here in Fairbanks.
In any case, the stigma still seems to be around because, not just in my case, but in the case of many of my Indian friends, there has been parental pressure to pursue certain fields. I remember when my friends and I were younger and all had grand ideas for the future: Artist, Chef, Author, Archaeologist, etc. In the end, of the 80 of us who were together in a class, maybe 10 or so went into fields other than Engineering, Medicine or MBA. Even here in the Indian community that I was a part of in the US, I look at all the guys in my generation and I see a dentist, 2 pre-med, one nursing, a mechanical engineer, 2 electrical engineers (other than myself) and an aeronautics/aerospace engineer. The stigma also doesn't seem to just be in regards to going for those particular fields, but also seems to be towards attaining a Master's at the very least, if not a Ph.D. I finished my BS and immediately took an engineering field position because it gave me a chance to get my hands dirty and get out from behind a desk: something my Dad has not done in the 25+ years he has been working. However, for some reason, this decision upsets my mother, who still to this day, tells me every time she sees me that I should go back to school immediately and get a Master's and get 'a good desk job'. It just seems to be one of those stigmas that isn't going to disappear for another few generations.
