[extropy-chat] Researchers and students in America

[David Lubkin]

Amara wrote:

>Well, Mike, usually the foreign students in my undergraduate and graduate
>physics courses were raising the curves, often being much smarter than
>us U.S. students.

None of the foreign students in my engineering graduate and doctoral 
classes were discernibly smarter than the US students. They raised the 
curve because they worked harder than we did. Some because they came from a 
culture habituated to hard work, some through the filtering inherent in 
becoming a foreign student, some because they'd have to go back if they 
didn't get top grades.

In our local high school here, the best students are usually the children 
of Chinese or Indian immigrants, followed by the third-generation 
Jewish-Americans. The three groups appear comparable in intelligence; the 
difference in results stems from extraordinary effort. (Brilliance like 
Sasha's son has is rare enough to have little consequence on the social 
patterns.)

Mike wrote:

>They can finally look forward to classes taught by assistant profs and 
>grad students who can
>speak english understandably.

This is a legitimate concern, although I do not agree with Mike's remedy.

In my years in industry, I've worked with, or considered for employment, 
thousands of foreign-born engineers. My two concerns, impacting both their 
individual productivity and their contribution to our team, are language 
and culture. Are they sufficiently close to native fluency and social norms 
to fit in without substantial daily accommodation? (Most are fine; some are 
not.)

In academia, the situation is more painful, because the relationship is not 
1:1 and may be less voluntary.

I remember a math professor, in a class that would have been a struggle for 
me under any circumstances. He compounded the problem both by being a poor 
teacher -- racing through material, mumbling toward the blackboard, 
declaring "obvious" things that weren't -- and through his severe Slavic 
accent.

In that case, most of us transferred to another section; he ended up with 
1/5 as many students as the other profs had.


-- David Lubkin.