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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Katelew who wrote (51191)	3/1/2008 4:57:52 PM
From: Rambi	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 543020

Took the GRE and scored in 97th percentile on the verbal and 12th percentile on the math, lol. That is SO damn funny!!! I was accepted Early Decision at U of R based on my extremely high English scores but I had to take remedial math at VMI with a class of male cadets the summer after I graduated. That was a GREAT summer. Have you been back to Ft Worth recently? It's such a nice city. I am proud to have written a column for the Star Telegram for a while. And that brings me to your next statement. We hear a great deal about our failure as a nation to compete in Math and Science, but very little about the ever-decreasing ability of people to communicate. When Dan taught legal writing at SMU, I would read the papers and just SHUDDER. These were college grads who presumably passed the LSATs and should have been able to write a complete sentence. Aside: I just read a book on Shakespeare by Bill Bryson that I highly recommend as an entertaining and basic read on the Bard. We know very little about Shakespeare at all, so he focuses on the times. Spelling and grammar were extremely fluid. Very few rules. In some plays you will find several different spellings of one word and an abundance of newly created words. So perhaps we are too concerned with consistency. But I don't think so. So I totally agree with you about how ignoring language skills to emphasize science and math could be a perilous course. If you go on a crusade, I would be honored to carry your spear as your Sancho Panza. Ha. Just wanted Lane3 and the thread to know I am familiar with my Cervantes.

To: Katelew who wrote (51191)	3/1/2008 5:21:59 PM
From: Cogito	Respond to of 543020

>>From this experience, I've come to believe the world is in much less danger from liberal arts students who lack math skills than it is from our business school graduates who have completed an incredibly narrow curriculum and usually lack both reading and critical thinking skills.<< Kate - Amen to that. I've known MBAs who were very sharp, but a lot of them who graduated in the 90s seemed to be enormous wastes of space and resources when trying to deal with real-world problems. They knew business theory, but had no experience in business. Worse, they believed they knew more than anyone else did. That was my observation when I was working as a network systems consultant, mostly in New York, for companies like American Express, Time Warner, Deutsche Bank, Bear Stearns, Salomon Bros., etc. And again, not all the MBAs I encountered were like that. I'm glad to hear that MBA students actually can be taught how to write a sentence. - Allen PS: My SAT scores, in 1970, were 740 verbal and 560 math. My freshman algebra teacher had driven the desire to learn math right out of me. That, I do regret.

To: Katelew who wrote (51191)	3/1/2008 8:05:00 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 543020

From this experience, I've come to believe the world is in much less danger from liberal arts students who lack math skills than it is from our business school graduates who have completed an incredibly narrow curriculum and usually lack both reading and critical thinking skills. In fact, if I had another lifetime, I believe I might crusade a little on this observation. Thee and me. Goes for doctors, engineers, scientists, you name it. In fact, all those college degrees that over require more and more courses in narrowly prescribed majors and less and less humanities and social sciences.