The NZ Herald online has a piece about the University of Auckland setting limits on student numbers, so that there is no longer open entry to the B.A., and limited entry into other programmes.
The article, at least insofar as the Herald quotes details, seem to suggest that the cap is largely cosmetic, indeed, somewhat aspirational. The limits seem to all be set at numbers higher than current student enrolment. There's a word for that : Marketing.
The University market is highly competitive, with a plethora of billboard campaigns, TV advertisement and bus stop signs trying to attract students.
Limiting numbers is a way for Auckland to claim prestige, and high standards (particularly necessary in the wake of the bad publicity the University got last year, when a lecturer's e-mails to a post-graduate international student with poor writing abilities were made public.)
I should declare an interest: I'm a University of Canterbury Alumni (B.Com, LL.B ), both degrees which had restricted entry to all or some of the courses back when I did them (graduating 1994).
What Auckland is doing isn't new, but it is clever. When I enrolled at Canterbury I pre-enrolled for Law, and also for Economics. I didn't really expect to study Economics, but I wanted to keep my options open, but it was one of the few courses with limited entry, and pre-enrolment was essential.
When I arrived at University, the whole first-year experience was quite overwhelming, and I stuck with what I'd pre-enrolled for.
I had no background in Economics because I'd done Physics at school instead (we had an excellent Physics teacher). I found when I started it that it was for me. I loved microeconomics in particular (maths! graphs!), and still enjoy reading economic topics today - Freakonomics a case in point. I'm glad I took it. (not only because I got an A+, and the letter from Head of Department Frank Tay inviting me to do the economics honours courses - another piece of good departmental marketing)
Auckland's new "caps" which seem to be more aspirational than effective are a good move, because of the perceived prestige that scarcity brings, and because students who enrol "just in case" to keep their options open, will be captured, and go with the easy option.
Clever.
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label economics. Show all posts
17 June 2008
Beautiful graphs - a maths geek moment.
Sometimes a picture paints not only a thousand words, but a thousand numbers as well. The very best graphs can tell a story.
I remember in my stage two Econometrics class, our Professor David Giles showing us a picture of a truly elegant graph, produced in the pre-computing days, showing Napoleon's advance into Russia, and retreat. From memory it captured the distance travelled, the size of the army and other variables on one sheet.
I found a new cool graph today, at Name Voyager courtesy of a link from the Freakonomics blog.
It's of a baby names graph of the 1000 most popular names in the US from the 1880s onward. You can type in a name, letter by letter, and it instantly graphs the letter combinations over time.
For example, my Mother's name, Judith, peaked hugely in the 40s - I wonder why? Was there a film star? The name means Jewish Woman, and at around the time the name peaked there was a lot of newspaper coverage about the fate of the Jews in Europe. Was there sympathy? Or just that the very sound was heard so much that it triggered an awareness and prompted more naming?
My own name, Rachel, hit a peak in the 70s and 80s. I was surprised to see that there wasn't a mini-bubble following the TV show Friends, but it seems that the name had passed on through by then.
Our shared second name, Mary, was the number one name from 1880s through to the 1950s, and moved into number 2 spot in the 60s before falling sharply away. What's most interesting though, was that in the 1880s more than 30000 names per million were Mary - or more than 3 percent of the total. By the 50s, it was still the most popular name, but now had only 1%, pointing to either a more Multi-cultural America, or an increasing pool of names (and spellings) in use.
Warning: name voyager can be addictive!
I remember in my stage two Econometrics class, our Professor David Giles showing us a picture of a truly elegant graph, produced in the pre-computing days, showing Napoleon's advance into Russia, and retreat. From memory it captured the distance travelled, the size of the army and other variables on one sheet.
I found a new cool graph today, at Name Voyager courtesy of a link from the Freakonomics blog.
It's of a baby names graph of the 1000 most popular names in the US from the 1880s onward. You can type in a name, letter by letter, and it instantly graphs the letter combinations over time.
For example, my Mother's name, Judith, peaked hugely in the 40s - I wonder why? Was there a film star? The name means Jewish Woman, and at around the time the name peaked there was a lot of newspaper coverage about the fate of the Jews in Europe. Was there sympathy? Or just that the very sound was heard so much that it triggered an awareness and prompted more naming?
My own name, Rachel, hit a peak in the 70s and 80s. I was surprised to see that there wasn't a mini-bubble following the TV show Friends, but it seems that the name had passed on through by then.
Our shared second name, Mary, was the number one name from 1880s through to the 1950s, and moved into number 2 spot in the 60s before falling sharply away. What's most interesting though, was that in the 1880s more than 30000 names per million were Mary - or more than 3 percent of the total. By the 50s, it was still the most popular name, but now had only 1%, pointing to either a more Multi-cultural America, or an increasing pool of names (and spellings) in use.
Warning: name voyager can be addictive!
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