Student sues Rocky after flunking math

[WeedKillinCat]

Hey I just thought of a solution here. She should transfer to EWU.

NICE!

It really makes me wonder about the academic standards at EWU. it makes me wonder about their athletics program and how much slides by. Someone made the comment about a parent saying the standards are as tough as the other Big Sky schools

[MSU01]

It really makes me wonder about the academic standards at EWU. it makes me wonder about their athletics program and how much slides by. Someone made the comment about a parent saying the standards are as tough as the other Big Sky schools

Not even close overall, although they likely have individual majors or departments with higher standards than others. Rodney Stuckey played for EWU because he couldn't have gotten anywhere near admission to a UM/MSU or Pac 12 level of school.

Comparing the SAT scores of entering students at the BSC schools: http://collegeapps.about.com/od/sat/a/b ... scores.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SonomaCat]

Thanks for posting that, MSU01. Very interesting stats for both the ACT and SAT. Well, I guess that's one more thing for MSU supporters to feel good about.

[BLACKnBLUEnGOLD]

I think "our players can outsmart your players" is the new "my dad can beat up your dad."

Sadly, our coaches haven't been outsmarting their coaches. Maybe we should let the players coach D?

[Sportin' Life]

My thoughts...

The girl is completely wrong. She absolutely should go to a school where the math requirement is not such a high hurdle, but Rocky is well within their rights to deny here a degree for not passing a math class.

That said the math requirement for liberal arts majors is a bit of a farce. I fully believe that any 'well-educated' person should understand Newtonian physics and calculus just as much as they should understand Plato and Shakespeare. But not everyone in the world wants to be well-educated and not everyone should be. But still that notion permeates academia forcing students to take the dreaded 'math requirement'.

One hears two reasons for the math requirement. The first one is that understanding basic algebra is necessary for one's endeavors in life. This is patently false as most of you know. Those who do use more math might be blue collar workers: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... rk/275260/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Then when proven wrong that people use math, academia answers that one needs to be able to use 'math-like reasoning' in their day-to-day life. That might be true in a way, but the problem with this argument is that it just isn't provable on any level. Usually people making this argument are used to making airtight arguments citing axioms and theorems using logical techniques like induction or reductio ad absurdum, but this argument has none of those hallmarks. One can't even really qualify 'math-like reasoning', not to mention how an average person uses it in their day-to-day life. There is absolutely no data on what sort of logical conundrums an average person encounters that having passed a basic college algebra class will help them out with. In fact there is almost no idea about what that sort of data would even look like. Definitely an example of using reasoning that is not 'math-like'.

I fully agree that there are people who do actually use math and need it, but most people use neither math nor math-like reasoning, and this girl seems like a perfect example. Except that a bit of relatively easy math will get her a bachelor's degree that certainly will help her out.

[Cledus]

Well, it seems this girl has eliminated herself from consideration by any employer who can use Google and who would require adding 1 + 1 and who is prohibited from asking those pesky interview no-no questions about disabilities.

The worst part about this thing for her is that it's all self inflicted. Talk about the law of unintended consequences.

[bobcat92]

Jack Horner didn't graduate from UofM because he couldn't pass the foreign language requirement. Didn't hurt him. She knew what the requirements were to get a degree from Rocky. If you can't complete the requirements then move on with your life. She isn't owed a degree because she didn't complete the requirements. Hard life lesson but welcome the to the real world. If you don't deliver X widgets that you were contracted to provide you don't get paid.