It is not that the US students are not trained to compete, it is that they choose not to compete. Most suburban white kids would rather go into law, business, or government instead of grind it out against the asian kids in graduate school. Also given the long years of low pay to get a PhD in a science and the lack of job prospects, maybe the MBA or LLB are better choices, economically) than grinding it out in engineering school.To an extent, this is correct. MBA and JD degrees are indeed financially better options; I've always viewed this as a premium that science PhD's pay for the privilege of doing what they love. However, there are two pieces of evidence that argue against fully accepting this theory.
1. Students who do choose to compete and try to get into graduate school in math, science and engineering often can't get in. It turns out that "the Asian kids" are better prepared and taking their slots. There can be no doubt this is a reflection of an inferior undergraduate preparation (unless one accepts the dubious proposition that Asian students are smarter, which I most definitely do NOT accept).
2. The lack of math preparation is a problem even among those who choose to get an MBA or JD.
(a) As an actuary, I've worked with several ERISA attorneys who are incapable of understanding basic mathematics (a serious impediment to someone who works with employee benefits plans). To them it was almost a badge of pride to admit, "I've always been horrible of math." Well, if they were better at it, they'd be better lawyers.
(b) In the business world, as you're probably aware, one of the largest new challenges facing U.S. corporations is derivatives and the appropriate management of risk. Yet U.S. students can not compete effectively for slots in Financial Mathematics programs. I urge you to look briefly at the list of current students in the University of Chicago's program.
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How to you where the graduate students at the University of Chicago went to undergraduate let alone high school? Want to bet many of those Asian sounding names are Americans? My guess is that most of them just happen to come from social settings that emphasize hard work and do not look down at being "nerdy" but instead look down at being an "air head."
My argument is that most of the upper middle class white kids who are capable of taking the math prep courses in undergraduate do not want to put in the hard work for majors in math or science because it would interfer with their social lives and their drinking.
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