Comment gen. ed. requirements (Score 1) 741
I almost agree with your support of general education requirements. I got a liberal arts education-- studied philosophy, political science, chemistry, math, english, music-- lots of different stuff. My education has been enormously valuable since then.
However, I learned the most from the classes that I took voluntarily. My experience was that when I was forced to take certain classes, I was much less interested in them, so I put less effort into them, and learned much less. This was common in the required classes, which was depressing for the professors. The students disappointed the profs, and they reciprocated by investing less effort in teaching the classes.
So, I disagree with general education requirements. I think a much stronger proposition is letting students take what they want. The sharp ones take a broad array of classes, get prepared for everything, AND they don't have to endure lame classes. The clueless folks focus too early, graduate from college and are limited to a small zone of proficiency for 40 years.
Really, I see a lot of reasons to take a spectrum of classes. When I was an undergrad, I had no idea what the hell was going on. I graduated, and had 40 YEARS of working ahead of me. It would have been ridiculous for me to think "Yeah, I know exactly how to prepare myself for the next 40 years." Since then, I've gone from newspaper editor to math teacher to embedded systems engineer.
So grateful for the liberal education . . .
Brandon.
However, I learned the most from the classes that I took voluntarily. My experience was that when I was forced to take certain classes, I was much less interested in them, so I put less effort into them, and learned much less. This was common in the required classes, which was depressing for the professors. The students disappointed the profs, and they reciprocated by investing less effort in teaching the classes.
So, I disagree with general education requirements. I think a much stronger proposition is letting students take what they want. The sharp ones take a broad array of classes, get prepared for everything, AND they don't have to endure lame classes. The clueless folks focus too early, graduate from college and are limited to a small zone of proficiency for 40 years.
Really, I see a lot of reasons to take a spectrum of classes. When I was an undergrad, I had no idea what the hell was going on. I graduated, and had 40 YEARS of working ahead of me. It would have been ridiculous for me to think "Yeah, I know exactly how to prepare myself for the next 40 years." Since then, I've gone from newspaper editor to math teacher to embedded systems engineer.
So grateful for the liberal education . . .
Brandon.
