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"When
College freshman Sherry Tseng decided to take Computer and Information
Science 110 this spring, she did not expect the popular
introductory-level computer science course to curtail her interest in
computer science altogether." summarizes Haley Suh, Staff Reporter.
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| 78 percent of the entry classes listed as having above a 3.0 difficulty on Penn Course Review are STEM courses. Photo: Zach Sheldon / The Daily Pennsylvanian |
After a semester, she found the course so challenging that she decided not to take any CIS courses in the future.
Tseng’s
experience is not a unique. CIS is not the only major that offers
challenging introductory level courses for prospective majors, often referred to as “weed-out” courses designed to eliminate students who are not fit to pursue the major.
These "weed-out" courses are particularly prevalent in subjects to do with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.
There
are 300 courses listed as department-recommended classes for College
students who want to explore a particular major. 53 of them fall under
the category of STEM, and over 47 percent of those STEM entry courses
are listed at a 3.0 (out of 4.0) or higher for difficulty level on Penn
Course Review, while only 2.67 percent of non-STEM entry courses are
rated in the same range of difficulty.
Furthermore, 78 percent of the entry courses above 3.0 difficulty belong to STEM fields.
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| Photo: Penn Course Review |
Entry
courses in the humanities that are also at or above the 3.0 difficulty
level include Philosophy 005, Communication 226 and Visual Studies 102.
A recent article by U.S. News quoted STEM higher education experts who expressed concern over the notion of “weed-out” classes.
“We
need to wash out the ‘weed-them-out orientation’ in the classroom,”
Mary Fox, co-director at the Center for the Study of Women, Science, and
Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology, said
to U.S. News. “That is not a hospitable climate for students. We have
to teach students to move along rather than have them sink or swim.”
At Penn, many students verify the existence of weed-out courses, though professors disagree.
First-generation College junior
David Thai said there were no Advanced Placement or honors courses
offered in his high school, and that he felt unprepared for the level of
difficulty of introductory classes at Penn — particularly those in the pre-medicine track.
“I
did really well in the science classes in my high school, so I thought I
could definitely take these general intro classes at Penn and do well,”
Thai said. “But I realized that I was extremely unprepared for the
rigor and difficulty of these classes.”
Thai later dropped the pre-med track and opted to pursue a major in health and societies.
He said he believes that professors should do a better job of retaining
students in their classes, knowing that their curriculum might be very
challenging for some.
“I
don’t appreciate the University’s one-size-fits-all approach, where it
assumes everyone comes from the same background,” Thai said. “Professors
recognize the difficulty of their course, but don’t do a good job of
making sure their students stay.”
CIS Department Chair Sampath Kannan said it is not the intention of the department to make CIS 110 a weed-out class.
Source: The Daily Pennsylvanian
