[eli_gottlieb]

>I suggest that a society only interested in the workings of machines rather than the workings of people will soon treat people as mere machines. Let the nightmare begin.

So far the society that treats people as mere machines is constantly mouthing platitudes about the humanities to itself, chanting, "Think about people! Think about philosophy!" as though this will actually alter the balance of class power.

USAians already take more humanities courses in a STEM degree than almost anyone else in the world. It doesn't seem to accomplish much to turn everyone into fluent humanists.

[davidgay]

AFAICT, in many cases (e.g., history) that's just to catch up with the rest of the world's pre-university humanities' level (and that the same applies in reverse for the humanities degrees).

[eli_gottlieb]

AFAICT, that's pretty similar in STEM, except that Americans who don't take STEM degrees don't ever take what other countries would consider pre-university STEM courses.

Mind, other countries specialize their students in early or late secondary school, so the differences may not be quite commensurable. A UK, French, or German student going into a STEM degree will probably have taken calculus and linear algebra by the end of secondary school, but they may not have taken an equivalent to America's AP World History. If you told them they ought to take a first-year university course in world history to get into a STEM degree, they'd look at you a bit weird, but this is admittedly how American admissions works.

I also know an American who basically took every available AP course, had a perfect grade average, volunteered in Girl Scouts, won valedictorian of her well-regarded high school. She ended up wait-listed to MIT, admitted with no financial aid to Cornell, admitted with a moderate scholarship to McGill, and admitted with a full-ride and honors to her state flagship school. She took the full ride.

(Also, we met and later married :-p.)

This contrasts with Technion (I did research there), where you could get into the top-flight STEM institution of the whole country just by earning sufficiently high marks in your matriculation exams.

It really does give me the impression that both other countries educate more rigorously at the secondary level, and Americans have a perverse fetish for inhumanly grueling competition. I think this may be precisely the opposite of a good system: a good system would assure that everyone has a very solid baseline, and then maximize the fraction of top talent that makes it through the training pipeline to do the most difficult work.