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

[tnff]

Excellent list. Really don't have a lot to disagree with here.

Originally Posted by 509

For STEM students I would suspect these general education classes would be worthwhile.

Technical Writing
Public Speaking.
Literature... Review of Science Fiction and Science
Cultural Norms and Expectations in the World
Economics (both micro and macro)
Basic Design Concepts & Drawing (introduction to drawing) --
Ethics and Morality in Science --
For Biology Majors.....note I had to take two quarters of physics for biology majors but I suspect that requirement has been dropped.

Basic concepts of Physics....how things work and why.
Shop Classes at the University level on the tools to build things with wood, metal, and electricity.

For Engineering types and the Physical Sciences

Basic Ecology--the science, not the political hype. Make it a easy, interesting class. It does not have to hard.
Basic Biology---bio-chemistry, humans and plant physiology.


There might be others that I have missed.

Likewise, on the Liberal Arts front. In today's world if you do not have a basic background in math, sciences, and statistics you are basically illiterate in todays world. So with that thought. General Science requirements for Liberal Arts majors.

Basic Ecological concepts--see above the woke crowd can take it with the Engineers. That would be a class on diversity by itself.
Statistical Concepts....statistics and probability without the math requirements.
History of Science and Society (full year)
Basic Biology concepts...see above
Basic Physics...how things work
Basic Economics without the math for both micro and macro.

Probably should add some more to the list. More science is always better.

Technical Writing -- Agree, would be better than English Comp/Lit; took it in grad school as were as multiple courses in career training.
Public Speaking -- Also agree. ROTC and DoD career training provided a lot but should be required for all STEM majors. So much of a career is spent speaking to an audience.
Literature... Review of Science Fiction and Science
Cultural Norms and Expectations in the World -- Could be useful since so much in today's world is dealing with other cultures. I got this in DoD training & War College but should be taught much sooner.
Economics (both micro and macro)
Basic Design Concepts & Drawing (introduction to drawing) -- I got these in high school shop and found that one of the most useful courses I took.
Ethics and Morality in Science -- Agree, but I'd amend it to scientific/research integrity. Typical courses hammer on plagiarism but don't talk much about the more insidious aspects of integrity.

For Biology Majors.....note I had to take two quarters of physics for biology majors but I suspect that requirement has been dropped.

Basic concepts of Physics....how things work and why.
Shop Classes at the University level on the tools to build things with wood, metal, and electricity.
I consider shop one of the best courses I took. Prepared me for everything from lab to work later.

[rabbit33]

I'm not sure what this much-vaunted "Technical Writing" course is supposed to include; I just had normal English and I've used that for the last 40 years of technical writing; but I will say that the most informative, to-the-point technical writing I've read seems based far more on standard techniques than on something specially ginned up for the engineers.

See Tufte, Anscombe, Wm. S. Cleveland, Wayne Nelson, Dr. Deming (I particularly like his use of the (almost vanished) subjunctive tense), etc. These writers make their meaning abundantly clear, while also possessing individual styles.

Frankly I suspect the biggest problem in technical people's writing is that they do not read. The best way to grasp what constitutes good writing in English is to read a large quantity of well-written English. Most published papers require as much effort to figure out what's meant as to understand the actual content. \

The advent of Powerpoint as the standard means for communications in business has accelerated the decline in the ability of people to communicate effectively. I'm sorry, clip art is not a substitute for data.

[RamenAddict]

Originally Posted by rabbit33

I'm not sure what this much-vaunted "Technical Writing" course is supposed to include; I just had normal English and I've used that for the last 40 years of technical writing; but I will say that the most informative, to-the-point technical writing I've read seems based far more on standard techniques than on something specially ginned up for the engineers.

See Tufte, Anscombe, Wm. S. Cleveland, Wayne Nelson, Dr. Deming (I particularly like his use of the (almost vanished) subjunctive tense), etc. These writers make their meaning abundantly clear, while also possessing individual styles.

Frankly I suspect the biggest problem in technical people's writing is that they do not read. The best way to grasp what constitutes good writing in English is to read a large quantity of well-written English. Most published papers require as much effort to figure out what's meant as to understand the actual content. \

The advent of Powerpoint as the standard means for communications in business has accelerated the decline in the ability of people to communicate effectively. I'm sorry, clip art is not a substitute for data.

Good point. I think one problem people have with technical writing is that it is often too jargony. I have a friend who works in tech (on the customer side now, but he started out as a developer) and one thing that allowed him to progress was his ability to present things in a manner that was easy to read by both the tech and non-tech folks. I think in any good sort of writing, it is best to assume that the reader is not always going to have the same technical background as you.

I remember back in the day, my sister did her first interview for the job she has now and tanked it just because she didn’t use the same jargon they used. They switched the job interview techniques and she got the job and has since done very well in the position. FWIW, when she was in high school, her highest scores were on the SAT verbal (perfect score) and on the IB English exam. She enjoys reading and writing.

I can’t tell you how many trainings I have where it is just people reading verbatim off a PowerPoint or script. I did one earlier this week where it was 30 minutes of someone sounding like a bot- like what sort of writing/training is this? One person from my office (this was a multi-office training) was like “Um, sorry but I didn’t get it” and I ended up messaging her separate from this training to explain it to her when they were like um, we have no idea how to address your issue. It was like they did not even know what they were presenting!

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by RamenAddict

Good point. I think one problem people have with technical writing is that it is often too jargony. I have a friend who works in tech (on the customer side now, but he started out as a developer) and one thing that allowed him to progress was his ability to present things in a manner that was easy to read by both the tech and non-tech folks. I think in any good sort of writing, it is best to assume that the reader is not always going to have the same technical background as you.

I remember back in the day, my sister did her first interview for the job she has now and tanked it just because she didn’t use the same jargon they used. They switched the job interview techniques and she got the job and has since done very well in the position. FWIW, when she was in high school, her highest scores were on the SAT verbal (perfect score) and on the IB English exam. She enjoys reading and writing.

I can’t tell you how many trainings I have where it is just people reading verbatim off a PowerPoint or script. I did one earlier this week where it was 30 minutes of someone sounding like a bot- like what sort of writing/training is this? One person from my office (this was a multi-office training) was like “Um, sorry but I didn’t get it” and I ended up messaging her separate from this training to explain it to her when they were like um, we have no idea how to address your issue. It was like they did not even know what they were presenting!

I would think that a good technical writing class would teach when to use technical jargon vs when to use more simple language.

[mitsguy2001]

Another reason why engineers might dislike gen eds: rightly or wrongly, there is a lot of effort to push women into STEM fields, but no similar effort to push men into humanities / liberal arts fields. In fact, the opposite is done. In middle and high school English class, nearly all of the books that were assigned were more geared toward girls rather than boys. If they want to attract boys / men into literature, they need to choose more books that boys are interested in, or at least books that are of interest to both genders. Humanities in general and literature in particular is an area that really can be targeted to a particular gender. STEM, on the other hand, is going to teach the same material, regardless of what gender you are trying to target. Another poster and I agreed that most efforts to target girls / women into STEM tend to be focused on treating girls / women more leniently when it comes to grading and discipline. But that won't actually encourage them to go into a STEM career.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

I would think that a good technical writing class would teach when to use technical jargon vs when to use more simple language.

I think that creative writing courses geared to STEM majors would excellently complement their technical (as well as non-technical) writing skills. It’s also a fun way to make writing less intimidating and more accessible to “non-writer” audiences.

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

Another reason why engineers might dislike gen eds: rightly or wrongly, there is a lot of effort to push women into STEM fields, but no similar effort to push men into humanities / liberal arts fields. In fact, the opposite is done. In middle and high school English class, nearly all of the books that were assigned were more geared toward girls rather than boys. If they want to attract boys / men into literature, they need to choose more books that boys are interested in, or at least books that are of interest to both genders. Humanities in general and literature in particular is an area that really can be targeted to a particular gender. STEM, on the other hand, is going to teach the same material, regardless of what gender you are trying to target. Another poster and I agreed that most efforts to target girls / women into STEM tend to be focused on treating girls / women more leniently when it comes to grading and discipline. But that won't actually encourage them to go into a STEM career.

The humanities are nowhere near as gender-stacked as STEM courses. My political science courses were around 60/40 female/male (not far off my university as a whole). Creative writing was closer to 70/30, but that’s still less gender-stacked than most STEM fields, and I can assure you that I never felt oppressed or ostracized as a result of my gender. As for the notion that women are treated with kid gloves to attract them to (and allow them to succeed in) STEM courses, I find it unfortunate (as such gendered notions invariably are).

[RamenAddict]

Originally Posted by ElijahAstin

I think that creative writing courses geared to STEM majors would excellently complement their technical (as well as non-technical) writing skills. It’s also a fun way to make writing less intimidating and more accessible to “non-writer” audiences.


The humanities are nowhere near as gender-stacked as STEM courses. My political science courses were around 60/40 female/male (not far off my university as a whole). Creative writing was closer to 70/30, but that’s still less gender-stacked than most STEM fields, and I can assure you that I never felt oppressed or ostracized as a result of my gender. As for the notion that women are treated with kid gloves to attract them to (and allow them to succeed in) STEM courses, I find it unfortunate (as such gendered notions invariably are).

I tend to agree. I didn’t see any gendered work in middle or HS- we had a lot of books with male protagonists, for example. My current job is a job that solely involves reading/writing all day and until recently it was 50/50 gender distribution. I have had a few friends who are published writers and all of them are men. One teaches creative writing now at a flagship state university. I met him at our training for this job and thought he was way overqualified, but thankfully he got into a job more suited to his abilities.

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by ElijahAstin

I think that creative writing courses geared to STEM majors would excellently complement their technical (as well as non-technical) writing skills. It’s also a fun way to make writing less intimidating and more accessible to “non-writer” audiences.

I disagree. Engineers won't find it to be "fun". A class in technical writing makes more sense, since it's the type of writing that engineers will be doing. Plus, creative writing just leads to too many arbitrary grades.

The humanities are nowhere near as gender-stacked as STEM courses. My political science courses were around 60/40 female/male (not far off my university as a whole). Creative writing was closer to 70/30, but that’s still less gender-stacked than most STEM fields, and I can assure you that I never felt oppressed or ostracized as a result of my gender.

According to my parents, at meet the teacher night, my 7th grade English teacher was proud of the fact that she chose books that boys hate. I remember her mentioning removing a few books that girls didn't like. In my other English classes, I don't think it was intentional, but I think mostly female English teachers will choose books that interested them when they were young, which will be books more geared toward girls rather than boys.

As for the notion that women are treated with kid gloves to attract them to (and allow them to succeed in) STEM courses, I find it unfortunate (as such gendered notions invariably are).

I agree that it does nothing in the long run to help women. They will eventually run into the weed-out professor who doesn't care what gender you are.

[tnff]

Originally Posted by RamenAddict

Good point. I think one problem people have with technical writing is that it is often too jargony. I have a friend who works in tech (on the customer side now, but he started out as a developer) and one thing that allowed him to progress was his ability to present things in a manner that was easy to read by both the tech and non-tech folks. I think in any good sort of writing, it is best to assume that the reader is not always going to have the same technical background as you.
!

A big part of a technical writing course is learning to write for the audience; using the appropriate jargon for the audience. Much of the technical writing you see is full of jargon because they weren't taught good technical writing skills. So many of the engineers coming out of school write in "academic" style with a lot of third person passive voice. And, in college you tend to get rewarded for using as many words as possible (if nothing else to stretch out a thought to meet a length requirement). Good technical writing using as many words as needed, but no more.

Originally Posted by RamenAddict

I can’t tell you how many trainings I have where it is just people reading verbatim off a PowerPoint or script. I did one earlier this week where it was 30 minutes of someone sounding like a bot- like what sort of writing/training is this? One person from my office (this was a multi-office training) was like “Um, sorry but I didn’t get it” and I ended up messaging her separate from this training to explain it to her when they were like um, we have no idea how to address your issue. It was like they did not even know what they were presenting!

What happens is a lot of time the presenter is merely a stuckee. "Hey Jane, it's your turn in the barrel. Here's the PowerPoint and script to follow." I remember one "train the trainer" session where I was the stuckee from our office. We were given a script and explicit instructions to follow the script exactly. No adlibbing; no paraphrasing; no summarizing. We were just human bots up there presenting. We hated it and the audience hated it.

[ElijahAstin]

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

I disagree. Engineers won't find it to be "fun". A class in technical writing makes more sense, since it's the type of writing that engineers will be doing. Plus, creative writing just leads to too many arbitrary grades.

I was saying it would complement (and not replace) a technical writing course, and it helps hone skills that everyone can benefit from. If you want to truly excel in any white collar professional field, you need the ability to write clearly and effectively to a broader audience.

We must know different engineers, because I’ve known plenty (along with other STEM majors) who have enjoyed survey-level creative writing courses. If you take the time to write reasonably well and engage with the assignment, you will earn a good grade, and the standard is more relaxed at the introductory level (as it should be). Not every professor is out to get you.

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

According to my parents, at meet the teacher night, my 7th grade English teacher was proud of the fact that she chose books that boys hate. I remember her mentioning removing a few books that girls didn't like. In my other English classes, I don't think it was intentional, but I think mostly female English teachers will choose books that interested them when they were young, which will be books more geared toward girls rather than boys.

That’s nice. I’ve never had any such experience.

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

I agree that it does nothing in the long run to help women. They will eventually run into the weed-out professor who doesn't care what gender you are.

You misread my post. I was chiding you for your stereotypical STEM male chauvinism. And while I’m not in a STEM field, people say the same bigoted nonsense about under-represented minorities in my field (as well as many others), and it’s exactly that—bigoted nonsense.