Our University System in the US -- Too Much GenEd?

[m_the0ry]

At my institution for a B.S. in Electrical Engineering my gen ed consists of

5 credits 'composition'
25 credits arts/humanities

This amounts to two quarters or about one semester of work. Roughly 1/6th of my overall degree. I took some very interesting humanities classes, like introduction to law, which I believe should be required. Too many people don't know their rights.

My only gripe with the gen ed was the 'composition' class. My degree requires classes in technical communication, which is writing research papers, specifications, and other scientific documents. On top of that it gives you skills to effectively present design plans and persuade management. These classes were incredibly valuable and are definitely not gen ed. 'Composition' on the other hand was your typical 'literature analysis' english class. Where you read poetry and pick out rhetoric and analyze it until there's nothing left to analyze. This class structure pisses me off to no end. Learning to write rhetoric and wade through its ambiguity such that you can tell an instructor exactly what they want to hear is certainly a skill but it is an absolutely worthless one. I don't know how the universities or even high schools get away with this garbage. The AP 'english' exam/metric is meaningless. There are definitely some wonderful modern writers out there who got 'english' degrees, but the factof the matter is you have a greater likelihood of being struck by lightening than helping society out in any way with your skills with rhetoric.

[foal]

[ QUOTE ]

5 credits 'composition'
25 credits arts/humanities

This amounts to two quarters or about one semester of work.

[/ QUOTE ]
How is 30 credits 1 semester? I guess quarter-based schools are different, but that would take me 2 semesters or slightly more.

I agree with you about literature analysis classes. We talked about the most useless things. Even if I actually wanted to analyze Mary Shelly's Frankenstein I could think of far more interesting ways to do it than "who was the real monster, Victor Frankenstein or his creation?" or "what does x symbolize". The books are basically treated like they are gospel and analyzed for all sorts of symbolisms that probably aren't there. I hated every paper I wrote for those classes, but like you said I gave the teachers what they wanted.

[Siegmund]

As others have said, depends on whether you (and your institution) believe in the liberal arts model or not. There are some schools that are very focused on a particular area and design the programs to match, and others that heavily emphasize the broad-based requirements. Most state schools do the latter; private schools vary widely.

Even if you don't believe in the merits of the liberal arts model, there's another reason a lot of the public institutions do it. It gives clueless new arrivals time to fish around and decide what to major in, and still be able to count the credits they earn during their "fishing" time toward their eventual degree. To me, it's just bizarre to go to college without knowing what you want to study -- but the numbers are undeniable: at the medium-size public institution where I work, about 40% of our incoming freshmen do not declare a major their first semester. An additional 10 or 15% change their mind at some point along the way, and don't graduate in the same field they started out in.

If you are an engineering major here, there will be a series of 7 or 8 courses that you must take one after another to finish your program, and if you take that first year just messing around with general requirements you will HAVE to take a fifth year to finish your program -- but you can finish all of the serious science programs in 6 semesters, and most of the fuzzy things like justice or journalism in 4 or 5, after fulfilling your core requirements in your first year or two.

At a school where the degrees were more tightly focused, there would be very few majors that could still be completed in fewer than four years from the time you decided what to major in.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
It's the general education requirements I really have a problem with. Does anyone else feel like the majority of these classes are useless?


[/ QUOTE ]
Do you appreciate the difference between education and training? When this type of discussion occurs, many people confuse the two, but the difference is important.

To the extent that requirements interfere with education, I dislike them. However, it's quite reasonable to have courses that get in the way of training.

By the way, you weren't required to go to college. You chose to go, and had some choice about which school to attend. Some colleges have more extensive requirements than others.

At New College, a public school in Florida, there are no required classes (unless that has changed since I last checked), and students are averse to any arbitrary restrictions, such as finishing in 4-5 years or wearing clothing. However, if you want to graduate with a particular major (many don't), you have to fulfill the requirements set by a department. Do you disagree with those requirements? Should someone who studies a lot of topology be able to graduate as a mathematics major without taking a basic real analysis class? The department has decided that the answer is no, that graduating as a mathematics major means you have to understand the basics in all areas of mathematics. This constrains some students who don't want to go on to graduate school in mathematics, but it provides guidance to students who don't know what is important, and prepares them for graduate study.

The same type of decision has been made by other colleges on a more general level. You don't have to take the required classes. You only need to take them if you want a degree.

[ QUOTE ]
I learned how to write a good paper in the first English class I took. That was a good skill to learn, but did I really need it honed through a ton of other classes over 4 years?

[/ QUOTE ]
The ability to write is one of the most important skills students are expected to pick up from college. I hope it wasn't the focus of many classes, but it is worth practicing.

I've dealt with many people who haven't gone through college, and it is remarkable how many seem intelligent, but are essentially illiterate. Many can't write a coherent essay of a few paragraphs to state their understanding of critical subject, and they feel uncomfortable reading a page without bullet points. Even in the business world, where many of the worst students go, it is useful to be able to write a business plan or case study, or to read a contract critically.

[ QUOTE ]

Is there really a point to going through 120 credits of this stuff?

[/ QUOTE ]
I have no idea how many classes 120 credits is at your school. The numbering of units and classes vary widely from school to school. Maybe it is excessive, and maybe you made a mistake to go there.

[ QUOTE ]
Calculus and statistics are important for psychology students, so I'm not including them in my gripe.


[/ QUOTE ]
Other students, who don't recognize their importance, routinely do gripe about calculus and statistics requirements. I believe calculus is more important for economics majors, but plenty of economics majors have tried to get out of the calculus requirement. They get no support from me, since I majored in economics and know better. These requirements may chafe, but they are beneficial.

Besides, the way I teach calculus is designed to fit calculus into an education, not just training.

[ QUOTE ]

Does anyone feel that majority of their undergraduate classes were important/helpful (besides making your resume look much nicer)?


[/ QUOTE ]
The majority of classes I took because I was required to take them turned out to be good parts of my education if not training, but sometimes both. However, they were not always the best use of my time, and there were times that I had to take a class when I already understood almost all of the material.

[OrigamiSensei]

I guess I have a bit of the opposite opinion. As an electrical engineering graduate who did nine years of design work and technical sales for the last twelve there's an awful lot of technical courses I took in college that I never used at all. Being involved in digital electronics I never used electrical field theory, physics, thermodynamics, mechanical engineering and strength of materials, etc. That's not to say they aren't necessary to laying a solid foundation for an engineering degree, just noting that in terms of a "trade school" mindset they haven't done anything for me since graduation. Meanwhile, "non-relevant" courses like writing, speech, economics, accounting, foreign languages and so forth would have immense value to me throughout all of my career. Some of those I took, some I very much wish now I had taken.

The flaw with the "trade school" philosophy is that it tends towards knowing more and more about less and less until one knows everything about nothing. Also, when the world changes as it inevitably does and more rapidly an over-specialized education is a hindrance rather than a help. Give me someone with some brains and a good general education and we can get quite a lot accomplished. We'll set up whatever specific training we need to in the course of getting the job done.

This is not meant to demean specialists since they serve a valuable purpose. However, many people will be better served by having a broad knowledge base, good communication skills and an understanding of how money and business works.

[foal]

[ QUOTE ]
By the way, you weren't required to go to college. You chose to go, and had some choice about which school to attend.

[/ QUOTE ]
But I couldn't have simply chosen to go to graduate school and skipped the undergrad level. Nor could I have chosen to get a lot of jobs requiring a degree. College degrees are too valuable in this society for "you don't have to go" to be a valid point. Yes, I did have some choice about which school to attend, but not everyone can afford to simply pick the private school of their choosing. Those two reasons are why I would like to see the system changed. By the way I'm not opposed to education (as opposed to training) completely. Like I said it's the extent of it required that I see as a problem. I also see no reason why typical college degrees need to be 4 years.

I'll share the requirements for my degree (Bachelor of Science in Psychology) that are outside of Psychology.

English Composition (2 courses)

Intensive Writing (1 course)

Math (1 approved course)

Computer Science (2 courses)

Foreign Language (3 courses)

College of Arts and Sciences Topics Courses (1 course)

Arts and Humanities (3 courses)

Social & Historical Studies - (3 courses)

Natural and Mathematical Sciences - (4 courses)

And yes I disagree with them.

[doucy]

Without reading the thread, my attitude is that gen ed isn't completely worthless, but it's definitely not worth the tuition you pay for it.

[Bill Haywood]

[ QUOTE ]
I've learned how to write papers... but that only took a semester.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you are that good, you don't need any formal classes whatsoever.

[foal]

I take it you're being sarcastic, but I'm not sure why. Is it unusual to be able to learn a skill such as paper writing in 3-4 months? The first paper I wrote for college was not very good and got me a C. The next 3 papers I wrote for that class all got me As, and that's not to say that they were brilliant, but I can't say I've really improved at all in paper writing since then. These are generic composition papers I'm talking about, not research papers.
At any rate, I would still need the degree even if I am "that good".

[Bill Haywood]

[ QUOTE ]
These are generic composition papers I'm talking about, not research papers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ah, okay. Yes, I can believe you quickly mastered turning in papers that get A's. But research and sophisticated analysis is not up to speed until graduate school.

A lot of what universities do is vetting -- we certify to employers that so-and-so has the drive and ability to slog through multiple demands. It may not be very edifying for you, but we can't know it till ya do it.