Are Gen Eds in college useful or just a drag on finishing? (quantitative, syllabus)

[bu2]

Originally Posted by YorktownGal

Exactly, with 120 credits need for graduation, there should be enough time for those general education course that you wouldn't pick on your own or relate directly to your major.



Our public educational system is failing students. Especially in English! Students need to learn phonics!!! Students need to read the classics to appreciate great writing and to increase vocabulary. Instead of newer, easier novels required today as was discussed on another thread. http:////www.city-data.com/forum/par...your-kids.html

It's true about the lack of writing skills. It's why the SAT's now have a writing section to screen students. It seems like summer course would be the best way to go.

The college writing courses don't teach grammar, but formatting. It's things like Associated Press Stylebook, Chicago, APA or MLA notes and bibliography style, the “Four S's” of singposting, stating, supporting, and summarizing of an argument. It's usually geared toward college required writing styles.

In my third English course in college I finally learned how to write. Of course, I could have taken a technical writing course instead of expository writing, but I thought technical writing would be boring.

Then when I got into the work world, I had to unlearn all I learned in college. They wanted noun-verb-subject, KISS. They didn't want interesting, convoluted sentence structures.

They teach technical knowledge in college, but time changes much of that. Mainly they teach you a way to approach problems. Engineers, lawyers, chemists and accountants all have somewhat different ways to approach things.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by bu2

In my third English course in college I finally learned how to write. Of course, I could have taken a technical writing course instead of expository writing, but I thought technical writing would be boring.

Then when I got into the work world, I had to unlearn all I learned in college. They wanted noun-verb-subject, KISS. They didn't want interesting, convoluted sentence structures.

They teach technical knowledge in college, but time changes much of that. Mainly they teach you a way to approach problems. Engineers, lawyers, chemists and accountants all have somewhat different ways to approach things.

It depends on what line of work you go into. Some journalists do use interesting sentence structures in feature articles, writing they learned how to do as English majors. Some employers want interesting writing, including some magazine editors.

I'm curious as to why you took 3 English courses in college. You did this voluntarily, because you wanted to improve your writing? The only "English" courses I found in college were all about literature, not improving students' writing, but I wasn't an English major, so I didn't examine all the course offerings. We were expected to be able to write decently, for the basic purpose of writing essays on our readings, and for term papers.

[YorktownGal]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Are you sure your son was required to take calculus based statistics for his history degree? I just looked at UG history paths across several universities (Texas, Florida, Yale, Rice) and couldn't find one that required any statistics per se let alone calculus based statistics.

He needed two quantitative reasoning courses to fill his general education requirements. The statistics and macroeconomics courses happened to fit into his schedule. In his senior year, one course was first semester and the other course was second semester.

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Most colleges don't require a student to take world history or US history.

My son was a history major and AP allowed him to skip American History and World History Survey courses required for his major.

[lhpartridge]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

The same is true of writing skills. If you can't put together a coherent sentence, let alone write at college level, you don't belong in college. And yet. a large percentage students admitted to college have abysmal writing skills, and that's been true for generations now. I noticed awhile ago, that some stage flagship schools require students who have been admitted to take a diagnostic test in writing, and make up any deficiency in their skill via a summer catch-up program.

That's one way to address the issue, but why aren't the schools doing a better job of teaching college-level writing? Why isn't the message reaching HS "English" teachers, not to mention gradeschool administrators, who should be hiring basic grammar teachers?

The mandates coming from state departments of education are all about improving test scores on relatively narrow subjects and not on ensuring that graduates are actually college-(and career-)ready as their marketing claims. Math = same thing.

The push for equity in AP testing is laudable, but it has had the same unintended consequences that the requirements for all students to take ACT or SAT had. The average scores drop, the schools are rated lower because of that, there is a narrowing of the curriculum to teach to the test, and there is a diminished value to the institutions of higher learning leading many of them to drop awarding credits based on scores.

When our daughter was researching medical school admissions, I found that many schools of medicine would not consider applicants who substituted AP credit for college-earned credit. Some explicitly wanted high school students to take the AP classes to earn placement in a better college or university, but they still wanted the student to earn all college credits at post-secondary institutions. It's important that high school students are aware of how decisions in high school can affect graduate and professional school choices.

[tnff]

Originally Posted by YorktownGal

Exactly, with 120 credits need for graduation, there should be enough time for those general education course that you wouldn't pick on your own or relate directly to your major.
s.

The idea is, if you remove the gen eds because that's done in high school, instead of 120 credits, you only need, say 90. That cuts four years of college down to three. Big savings.

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

I didn't know that was going on. What's the point of AP classes, then? And why do away with college prep curricula altogether? Why not keep them as a choice for college-bound students? Or make designate the AP courses as college-prep? According to posters on the Bay Area forum, that's what Berkeley High has been doing for about 50 years. It seems like a no-brainer.

Colleges accepting fewer AP courses has been going on for some time. The argument they make is AP doesn't truly cover the college material and a student who APs out of a course is not prepared for the follow on. For example the university my oldest attended only accepted some of her AP credits against the degree and then only against some of the gen eds. They didn't accept enough of them to shorten her time in school, but did make the first couple of years easier by having fewer classes. For my youngest, the school would not allow substituting AP credits for university credits. You could AP out of a course, let's say English 101 for example. Then the student was required to take an advanced English course instead.

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

I do recall being required to take 1 lab science course within a narrow band of choices. I along with a lot of other students ended up taking a basic biology course, which I had just taken in my senior year of HS. If this kind of thing is what the OP intended to discuss: repeating HS coursework in college, though perhaps at a slightly deeper level, then I would agree it's a waste of time.

That is kind of where I was going. Gen eds basically being a repeat of high school courses.

Originally Posted by bu2

Then when I got into the work world, I had to unlearn all I learned in college. They wanted noun-verb-subject, KISS. They didn't want interesting, convoluted sentence structures.
.

Exactly. One of the first things I had to do when I started working was take a course that was essentially how to write in the real world. Over my career I've taken numerous training and even graduate courses. One of the lessons is almost no one outside academia writes in the academic style. Even academics shouldn't write in it. We are constantly training our new college graduates how to write. Like you said, they first have to unlearn everything they learned in college.

Originally Posted by YorktownGal

The college writing courses don't teach grammar, but formatting. It's things like Associated Press Stylebook, Chicago, APA or MLA notes and bibliography style, the “Four S's” of singposting, stating, supporting, and summarizing of an argument. It's usually geared toward college required writing styles.

How often are those styles actually used in the working world? In decades of work, I have never once had to do something in any of the classic "official" styles taught in college. Letters, memos, white papers, research reports, journal articles (typically in the specific style that journal wants --- wish our org used LateX), etc.

[TexasLawyer2000]

Originally Posted by tnff

The idea is, if you remove the gen eds because that's done in high school, instead of 120 credits, you only need, say 90. That cuts four years of college down to three.

It doesn't though. Sure, you might get away with less classroom time, but it doesn't cut down the length of time for most people..

I recognize and respect that geniuses do, indeed, exist... but they are far and few between. The vast majority people wouldn't be able to learn everything in 3 years. Many can't even do it in 4 years (there's nothing wrong with that).

[TexasLawyer2000]

Originally Posted by tnff

How often are those styles actually used in the working world? In decades of work, I have never once had to do something in any of the classic "official" styles taught in college. Letters, memos, white papers, research reports, journal articles (typically in the specific style that journal wants --- wish our org used LateX), etc.

I'm curious onto how much peer reviewed research you've published that has been in another style other than what you learn in college... How much of that research was funded by grants? I find it strange that one would be so successful in this space without writing in such a style...

[Rocko20]

Originally Posted by tnff

The idea is, if you remove the gen eds because that's done in high school, instead of 120 credits, you only need, say 90. That cuts four years of college down to three. Big savings.

Correct, which also means less overpaid college professors.

So it will never happen.

[YorktownGal]

Originally Posted by Rocko20

Correct, which also means less overpaid college professors.

So it will never happen.

My daughter thought about becoming a college professor. I wasn't too happy!

According to Zip Recruiter: The national average is $50,782 a year.

https://www.ziprecruiter.com/Salarie...ginia-Beach,VA

Faculty members may be working harder than ever, but their pay has “barely budged” in four years, according to the American Association of University Professors’ annual Faculty Compensation Survey.

Average salaries for full-time professors increased by 2.8 percent this year over last, but consumer prices grew 2.3 percent over the same period, the AAUP notes in a preliminary report on the data: “Following the Great Recession of the late 2000s, nominal salary growth remained below consumer price growth until 2015-16 and has remained flat ever since.”

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/...pay-flat-again

Colleges have switched to Adjunct professors to decrease college costs.

How Adjuncts Became the Norm, Not the Exception

Many in academia aren’t happy about this trend. Adjunct professors earn less pay, get fewer benefits, and don’t have the same job security as their full-time or tenured counterparts. Adjuncts typically earn between $20,000 and $25,000 annually, while the average salary for full-time instructors and professors is over $80,000.

Some adjuncts cobble together a full-time schedule by teaching classes at more than one university. However, professors who “moonlight” at multiple colleges may not earn the same salary or benefits as full-time instructors. Adjunct or not, a professor’s expectations remain: teach classes, maintain office hours, grade papers, and participate in campus events. The commitments build, even without the commensurate voice in faculty decisions.

https://blog.insidescholar.org/hidde...ct-professors/

The professor at the head of your college classroom may be on food stamps.

In search of cuts to their bottom line, American colleges and universities are using part time instructors to teach classes that a generation ago would have been the responsibility of tenured professors.

Paid as little as a couple of thousand dollars for each semester-long course, hundreds of thousands of people with doctorates or multiple master’s degrees are earning near-poverty wages working as adjunct professors. And as a result, one in four families of part-time college faculty are enrolled in at least one public assistance program, like food stamps, Medicaid or the Earned Income Tax Credit, according to calculations of Census data by researchers at University of California, Berkeley’s Labor Center.

“We’re seeing a second class status of professors emerging,” says Carol Zabin, Director of Research at the Berkeley Center. “More broadly, professional occupations have increased contingency and low pay.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/in-p...stamps-n336596

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by tnff

Colleges accepting fewer AP courses has been going on for some time. The argument they make is AP doesn't truly cover the college material and a student who APs out of a course is not prepared for the follow on.

Is that because the AP classes have become deficient in recent years? Even for students who got a 5 on the exam? Or do colleges not accept them because the AP class didn't have an exam at 10 PM the night before Thanksgiving (and even if they did, their parents' house doesn't close, unlike the dorms), didn't give a 0 for exams missed due to a funeral or hospitalization, and didn't give hours and hours of busy work as homework, so, in other words, they didn't weed people out well enough?