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New 'Academic Redshirt' For Engineering Undergrads at UW
vinces99 writes "Redshirting isn't just for athletes anymore. The University of Washington and Washington State University are collaborating on an 'academic redshirt' program that will bring dozens of low-income Washington state high school graduates to the two universities to study engineering in a five-year bachelor's program. The first year will help those incoming freshmen acclimate to university-level courses and workload and prepare to major in an engineering discipline."
I just picture some low income student showing up in a red shirt to a room full of grinning SOBs in yellow and blue.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Weren't Red Shirts the Enterprise crew members that were always killed within 60 seconds of their appearance?
An athletic "redshirt" means you get to practice with the team but you're not allowed to compete, and it doesn't count as a year of eligibility.
Are they saying that you get to audit all of your classes as a freshman and then take them for real the next year? If not, then they're probably misusing the term redshirt. If so, then it's "welcome to whose degree is it anyway? the major where everything is made up and the grades don't matter"
Sounds like a good idea to me. I work at a large flagship state school, and we see a number of underprepared students admitted. The problem is not so much that we can't teach them what they need to catch up, it's that they are given unrealistic expectations. The College of Arts and Sciences is making a big push to have everyone finish in 4 years, but this is very unrealistic for these underprepared students. A program where everyone expects them to take an extra year would reset the expectations to a realistic level and, in my opinion, probably improve performance.
By the way, "underprepared" often includes students who have, for example, passed pre-calculus, but did not learn the material and thus struggle when I see them in calculus. It's well established that the best predictor of success in calculus is algebra/pre-calculus skills, so giving them a chance to sharpen these skills with less time pressure would be beneficial to the student.
The away team will consist of myself, Commander Spock, Doctor McCoy, and Ensign Ricky.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Well, back at my old school, we had three tracks for Calc: "HMSS", aimed at the Arts-n-crafts and Business majors (literally, Humanities, Management, and Social Science): 4 semesters, nothing more that double integrals. The "Standard" track, for Engineering and Science students: 3 semesters, through triple integrals and polar coordinates, and the Braniac Track, the Standard Track in a 2-semester course. The problem, as **I** see it, is the societal urge to send everyone to college. That, at least in my opinion, is a mistake. We have a serious lack of people in the skilled trades and technician roles, and this need will grow as more mundane manufacturing and even office tasks are automated out of existence. For example: Sysadmins and Network Engineers would likely be better served by a mostly-hands on curriculum, but with other crucial skills like programming and breaking tasks down into individual actions. I speak as a guy with a Bachelor's, Masters, and about half of my Ph.D done: degrees for all too many skills are really just HR differentiators and proof you can accomplish long and complex tasks, with some direction. . .