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I'm afraid I'm going to be retreading an old subject, but what really struck me was the culture of science. The hard sciences aren't attracting people like they used to, but there's still the culture of weeding out all but the creme de la creme-- I experienced it on a much smaller scale as a freshman when I took a chemistry class that was basically described as being sink or swim. Very unusual in a school where you can get a fair amount of hand holding (that's not quite the phrase I want, but I can't think of the proper one at the moment).

Not only that, but the different things people want from sciences, according to Tobias' article. I suppose that's what stood out most, for me. She pointed out the humanities student that wanted the "exchange of ideas," rather than the problem set. To me, this is the difference between the hard and the soft sciences-- hard sciences are all about math, numbers, things to be quantified, whereas the soft sciences are like what the humanities student expected. Which is odd, given how much of physics is the exchange of ideas and full of "why" questions.

I also noticed that the "why" questions tend not to be asked or answered, especially early on. It's just a given that X value is what it is, and you can't understand it yet.

Actually I'm pretty much just rambling, but I found it really neat that Tobias was discussing different approaches to physics that would work. Treating physics as a softer science rather than a course in Mathematics With Real World Applications 101 would attract more people, I think.