[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > An inconvenient truth. > > According to now-identified Patrick Cabe, > > "Because the course is "introductory," some students imagine that Intro > Psych ought to be a relatively easy course. Yet many students are shocked > to discover that it is one of the most difficult courses they take..." > > I demur. As Barbie has perceptively noted, math is hard. Also, physics is > hard. But psychology, not so much.
A rare agreement between Stephen and I (it only took 25 years!). Intro Psych could be hard, but we don't insist on our students learning the hard stuff in the discipline. I have sometimes joked that psychology is for students who want to avoid both the math of hard sciences and the reading load of the humanities. > I speak from first-hand experience, > having earned an undergraduate degree in physics at the cost of > considerable pain, and then entered graduate school in psychology, where > the pain was less. > You were a better student than I, Stephen. I just took a half-dozen math courses in the first year of my PhD, thinking that this stuff was important stuff for my intellectual development (my dept mostly thought I was crazy). And a lot of philosophy of science as well. > But an anecdote is not data. For data, consider the GRE scores of > applicants to graduate school in various disciplines (see the table down > the page at http://www.econphd.net/guide.htm ). For applicants to > doctoral programmes in the USA, the average score for physics is 1899; > for mathematics, 1877; for psychology 1583. Of the 28 fields listed, > physics and mathematics rank 1 and 2, psychology, 24. Math and physics > attract smarter candidates than psychology does, and the most likely > reasion is that physics and math are harder, and so you need those > smarts in order to aspire to these fields. So, perhaps our fellow TIPSters are correct after all, in the sense that Intro Psych is difficult for those students who typically end up in our dept's. :-) Regards, Chris -- Christopher D. Green Department of Psychology York University Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 Canada 416-736-2100 ex. 66164 [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.yorku.ca/christo/ "Part of respecting another person is taking the time to criticise his or her views." - Melissa Lane, in a /Guardian/ obituary for philosopher Peter Lipton ================================= --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
