Are Gen Eds in college useful or just a drag on finishing? (high school, scholarships)

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by jobaba

Just for one, it should be easier for people to switch careers. I mean, it's doable but it takes a lot of effort, and sometimes expensive degrees and making the right choices.

People are more productive and better teammates I feel when it's not a 35 year grind. When you're faced with that, you look for the easy way out.

I agree. Especially since a career that may be best for somebody in one stage of life may not be best in another stage of life. Somebody who is single, no children, no health problems, and living with their parents may be attracted to a long hour, frequent travel career with poor benefits. But when you have a family, you are going to want a better work-life balance and better benefits.

Rightly or wrongly, I think the perception is that people who want to switch careers are people who burned out in a different career, and employers, rightly or wrongly, prefer an easily moldable 22 year old straight out of college rather than somebody who they feel burned out in a different career.

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by tnff

My question is "should it be required?" What is being learned in freshman English, for example, that shouldn't have already been learned in high school English? I can understand those who major in a subject getting deeper, but at the gen ed level is why? Same thing for math. I can understand those going into a subject requiring it, getting a deeper dive, but does it help the English majors?

How much of gen ed is just a holdover from how college was set up in earlier times?

Especially since the gen eds are often even easier than a high school class. At the college I graduated from for undergrad, most STEM majors took Music 101 for their fine arts requirement. That class was even easier than a middle school general music class, and required no work outside of class at all. Liberal arts majors tended to take Animal Science 101 for their science requirement. Being a STEM major, I never took that class, but was told it was a total joke. There were math and other science classes for liberal arts majors to meet their gened requirements which were easier than what they'd take in high school.

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

Why is it that it seems that the groups that want to skip reading and writing courses in college are almost always engineers and, to a lesser extent, people in Business Administration?

Why is it that it seems that the groups that want to skip math and science courses in college are almost always liberal arts majors?

[tnff]

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

That is because the type of reading and writing that schools tend to teach tends to be the type of reading and writing expected of liberal arts majors, not the type expected of engineers. I did take a technical writing class in college, and it was one of the most useful classes I took, even though the professor was a jerk.

This is a very valid point. In fact we often have to break our young engineers of the habits they learned in college and teach them to write all over again. I've taken many post college courses and in grad school that were much more useful.

Originally Posted by North Beach tPerson

And you have to have the basics. Technical writing is a specialty.

The basics you get in high school. College English was just an impact on GPA with no value in return. The biggest thing I learned was pronouns are sexist. Yep decade's before it hit the media my English prof was taking off letter grades for using gender pronouns like he.

[rabbit33]

Originally Posted by jobaba

If you find yourself in a job that requires high technical skills and analysis and you decide that you can handle it and it's something you want to take on, then you go back to school THEN and take the classes you need.

OK, so when the boss says "we've got this heat transfer problem that needs solving", and you go through your notebook of plug-and-chug equations and realize you don't have the faintest clue what to do, you go back and say "Sorry boss but I can't work on this issue till I upgrade my skills. Here's the tuition reimbursement forms for Freshman Calculus and Physics, then after two semesters of that I'll have the prerequisites for Classical Thermo after two more semesters of which I'll be able to take Heat Transfer, OK?"

"So let me get this straight, I hired you on the presumption that as a degreed engineer you can figure out how to solve heat transfer issues, but it turns out you've got to take THREE YEARS worth of courses first? I think you can leave now. No, don't bother coming in tomorrow, I'll have HR make up your check for what's coming to you. And stop by on your way out the door, and tell the HR manager to come in and see me."

You clearly have no experience or understanding of how actual people do actual technical jobs.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

Especially since the gen eds are often even easier than a high school class. At the college I graduated from for undergrad, most STEM majors took Music 101 for their fine arts requirement. That class was even easier than a middle school general music class, and required no work outside of class at all. Liberal arts majors tended to take Animal Science 101 for their science requirement. Being a STEM major, I never took that class, but was told it was a total joke. There were math and other science classes for liberal arts majors to meet their gened requirements which were easier than what they'd take in high school.

This was not the case at my university, re: science classes. Liberal arts students would take oceanography, which was fun and fascinating in the first half of the course, but then the chemistry part would kick in. People typically died in that part, but got an A in the first half, so the the grades were averaged in the end. Astronomy was also popular, there was botany, etc. None of those were a walk in the park all the way through, but they introduced people to various areas of science that held their interest. And who knows, a few students out of the hundreds that took those classes each semester may have enjoyed them enough to choose to major in one of those fields.

I don't recall being required to take music or art. Hmm....

[mitsguy2001]

Originally Posted by tnff

The basics you get in high school. College English was just an impact on GPA with no value in return. The biggest thing I learned was pronouns are sexist. Yep decade's before it hit the media my English prof was taking off letter grades for using gender pronouns like he.

The technical writing professor that I had said that the Dewey Decimal System is racist and sexist! And he claimed that no library has used it in the past 100 years. In reality, almost every public library outside of his academic bubble uses the Dewey Decimal System. Only university libraries use the Library of Congress system. And I have no idea how the Dewey Decimal System is racist or sexist. The topic immediately switched to how all male engineers are sexist, and he mentioned a specific employee of our university, who he obviously knew nothing about. I tried to defend that employee, but he threatened to kick me out of class if I didn't shut my mouth.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by tnff

This is a very valid point. In fact we often have to break our young engineers of the habits they learned in college and teach them to write all over again. I've taken many post college courses and in grad school that were much more useful.



The basics you get in high school. College English was just an impact on GPA with no value in return. The biggest thing I learned was pronouns are sexist. Yep decade's before it hit the media my English prof was taking off letter grades for using gender pronouns like he.

Gawd, ain't that the truth!

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by mitsguy2001

The technical writing professor that I had said that the Dewey Decimal System is racist and sexist! And he claimed that no library has used it in the past 100 years. In reality, almost every public library outside of his academic bubble uses the Dewey Decimal System. Only university libraries use the Library of Congress system. And I have no idea how the Dewey Decimal System is racist or sexist. The topic immediately switched to how all male engineers are sexist, and he mentioned a specific employee of our university, who he obviously knew nothing about. I tried to defend that employee, but he threatened to kick me out of class if I didn't shut my mouth.

What kind of a bizarre college did you go to?!

[TexasLawyer2000]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

The bolded is supposed to be covered in Highschool. In fact, if you look at how schooling is handled in Europe, our Gen Ed req's are mostly Highschool work; college-bound students in Europe take a lot of that stuff in their 13th year of schooling to qualify for college, in addition to the more extensive coursework they already had in 9th through 12th grade.

But the other purpose of the Gen Ed req's in the US, aside from providing a "well-rounded" education, is to expose students to a wide variety of disciplines so they can decide on a career field. Many students enter college (still, even in 2022) not knowing what they want to major in. In a large university, students can discover fields they never knew existed, and that discovery can create a spark of interest leading to a career path for them.

For those who are fortunate to have learned it in high school, there are AP exams that allow for students to test out of needing to take the classes in college.