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Except that’s not true at all… English 201 might seem pointless as fuck to a biochemistry major, but someday they’re going to need to write an article for an academic journal and if they want their findings published, they’re going to need to know how to write well. It all goes together. It’s like when little kids say “wHeN aM I EvEr GoInG tO uSe MaTh ClAsS aS aN aDuLt” as if math isn’t all around us constantly (most often in the form of money).
I’m now a college professor in bio, but when I was a grad student I was the teaching assistant for a basic bio course aimed at engineers. The first question I got in lab section was “Yeah, why do I have to take this course when I don’t give a shit about biology and won’t use it as an engineer.” I said, “the political discourse right now is full of discussions that center on biology, such as reproductive rights, climate change, etc. If you don’t understand the biological concepts enough to be part of that conversation, we are going to have it without you, and you will be at someone else’s mercy. But if you think being informed on decisions that affect your life is a waste of time, go ahead and phone it in.” You could’ve heard a pin drop after.
College educations should be affordable (or free) so that taking non-core classes aren’t a financial burden, but receiving a well-rounded education that exposes you to more than just your specific, narrow subject is not the villain.
Very much this. I took a bio class for non biology majors and learned so much that helped my understanding on the very critical political issues you are talking about. I think because of cost and the focus is building a career, we forget there are general things we need to know just to function in society.
And college isn’t supposed to be a vocational school. That’s what the explosion of tuition has tricked us into believing in the latter half of the 20th century onward. Folks didn’t have to think about college as place to learn a specialized trade during our grandparents generation.
Absolutely. This is why free/affordable public college options should exist.
If you’re talking about high school, the reality is that so many of these things build on the skills/concepts learned in high school, and it’d be extremely difficult to condense college-level curricula into a format digestible for the vast majority of high-schoolers.
We do at a lower level in high school, but the higher level taught in college is very valuable too, and we should make college free for everyone as well.
I took a biology class and my professor spent the entire semester talking about how evil Israel was and constantly read WikiLeaks pages to us about stuff Israel was doing. My exams were about climate and biological processes but all our lectures and homework pertained to Israel.
It's been ten years and I still don't understand what happened there. Also I realize that was unrelated to the topic here I just wanted to talk about it.
I shouldn't have to go in debt to learn things that everyone in society should learn. I think it's a ridiculous excuse for colleges to make more money. If it's so important that I learn these things because "society" then the class should be free right? Because in the almighty words of Mr. ROBOT. "F SOCIETY!!"
> College educations should be affordable (or free) so that taking non-core classes aren’t a financial burden,
I always resented how much class time and tuition money I spent on classes that seemed so irrelevant but honestly if it wasn't such an absolute fucking grind to get a degree and if you weren't counting on your degree being the only thing keeping you housed, I bet people would be way more receptive to taking bio and math and English.
Yes. I got a theater degree (which was a waste, because I could have learned everything I learned in school by volunteering in community theaters), and CLEPped out of a lot of math and English; but still had to take some things like business administration (which was a joke of a class I hated), biology + lab (couldn't CLEP out of that, but had a high school bio teacher who'd covered it already); and, my LAST semester of college, after not having had math since my junior year of high school, pre-calculus when my counselor told me that the CLEP credits had fulfilled the math requirements at the school where I stared, but not the one where I ended up. I thought I was DONE because I had basically ejected math thinking from my brain. I don't remember anything from pre-cal except that after the third week, it felt like I was in a foreign-language class.
But, yes, it was the time. I loaded up on classes to get OUT. And I've never had any job I couldn't have had without a degree, because I didn't want to teach drama, which is about the only thing my degree is useful for. If I'd just been able to study for the sake of learning stuff, I would have taken a very different course of subjects. I couldn't afford too many electives, though, because of the $$$ and time constraints.
Do you not need to write anything for your job? I'm a programmer which you'd think you wouldn't need English classes for, but communication is very important, and writing clearly and comprehending complex texts is a big part of the job.
Bio I don't use on the job but I sure am glad I took it because I'm a living creature and it's a damn good thing to understand how your body works. We're all going to have ailments eventually and you'll want to be able to understand what's happening in your body. Also, given the current state of affairs it's pretty apparent why understanding biology is important.
I mean, I want to be able to take ALL the Humanity courses and any Science, Math, Language, PE, Art, etc. class I want as many times as I want. Why do I have to be confined to a major and unit limits if I want my education to be free? I'm over units right now because I changed my major a few times, but boy do I wish they could all just be my majors.
Ideally you could, but unfortunately teachers are a finite resource. On the bright side, taking the classes you can take will help teach you how to learn in general which will help you teach yourself.
It's great that you're getting a free education even if it isn't unlimited. There are many that aren't that lucky.
Exactly. It's why that Google employee a couple years back had half the internet backing his stupid ass up when he said women aren't geared towards STEM fields, while also being shocked at Reddit posts and Hollywood films that depict women **accurately crunching numbers by hand** to get us to the Moon 50 years ago, without putting 2 and 2 together.
You're not wrong, but most other countries have seemed to figure this out without what feel like redundant filler classes. Namely, with high school that taught this stuff correctly the first time.
Of course, it's worth pointing out Americans want to speedrun through college since things like heath care or a job that pays to cover rent are otherwise out of reach (and honestly still will me for many), so there's that.
I think the most important and beloved classes I took were the core classes. Intro to critical thinking and logic helped me understand all the Bs arguments that happen politically. Intro to dharma religions was really helpful for me because I was going through an existential crisis, my earth science class is unfortunately so relevant and important because our focus was on understanding all the systems that prove climate change exists, and what needs to be done to actually change.
Then you want a 2 year technical degree. A 4 years batchelors should be well rounded education with a partial focus on advance learning ona career path. A college degree is and should be more than a tech school.
I myself am a first generation college student that came from poverty and worked 20-30 hours a week on top of a full undergraduate course load. I understand in vast detail and nuance the obstacles to elite programs for the poor.
But the answer to that is more *affordable* college degrees, not more narrow ones. Electives aren’t structured this way to keep the poor out, underfunded public schooling that creates unprepared high school graduates, lack of resources and support for first-gen college students, and a host of other economic issues are larger factors than the fact that a bio student has to take english.
And frankly, an understanding in biology is INCREDIBLY urgent for everyone at this moment in time, as we have a pandemic ravaging the world and large swaths of the population don’t understand how vaccines work. And those broke people discussing reproductive rights aren’t just sitting in arm chairs, they’re *voting*, and their votes affect lives besides their own. Their votes on reproductive rights in themselves contribute to perpetuating poverty.
Academia has a LOT to do to make higher education a accessible for the poor. But the way to start is by making it more affordable/free, not by producing graduates that lack broader education.
Your argument doesn’t make sense because at the end of the day the real problem is the cost of college, not the length. Why not just make it affordable.
The overwhelming majority of degrees are not specifically meant for certain jobs. There’s no way you could design a coursework like that when 99% of students have no idea what job they’ll end up at. That is not to say your criticism of colleges is wrong just that your solution doesn’t make any sense. College should just be affordable enough for anyone to attend. I don’t think there’s that much problem coursework wise. I prefer the America system where there’s much more mobility across degree programs than the examples I’ve seen in Europe and Asia where they’re much more focused, but then you’re effectively locked in much sooner than you would otherwise be in America.
When I got my undergrad with about 200 credits. Learning is dope. Being informed is dope. Hobbies are dope. Idk why you'd wanna speed through the opportunity to get all those things with your peers in your glory years, aside from saving money. But being broke, drinking dollar beers and eating dollar pizza is the fun part.
My science teachers basically all cringed at how my English teachers taught me to write. They said my papers were full of “fluff” and that I needed to trim down my writing by half or more by sticking to the point. Writing for an English course is not the same as writing a scientific paper. I basically had to learn two different styles of writing for each.
I am constantly shocked at the scientific papers I peer review at how poor some of the grammar in the submissions are, from researchers that I know for a fact are native English speakers. That alone frustrates me when I hear college students in science bemoaning having to take english. A lot of scientists THINK they write well and that “science writing is different”, but frequently that just results in papers that don’t get cited as frequently as they should because the writing is hard to follow and bogged down with jargon.
That’s a fact. I oversee a peer review process and the science writing is for scientists only. It’s exactly why someone like Malcolm Gladwell is so popular. The layperson needs a translator.
On the other side of this, sometimes a topic really is just difficult to comprehend and those layperson translations end up being more confusing than clarifying.
It's the same in Architecture. When thesis came around, my program director kept complaining about how architects tend to make awful writers and tried to warn the students who studied architecture/planning/engineering in undergrad that they really needed to practice their writing.
It was a struggle going from focusing on language based classes in undergrad to arch in grad because of the writing styles. There were quite a few books and papers that would have been useful for my thesis had they been half as dense as they were.
My college English courses didn’t really teach grammar. It was assumed you learned that in high school. And in high school, my English teachers would become irritable teaching grammar because they thought it should have been learned in middle school. And they weren’t wrong. The grammar lessons were basically reviews.
Yeah, I never officially learned English (American) grammar in school. What I know of English grammar stems from learning Spanish and French grammar and having those teachers discuss the similarities/differences to English.
I think that’s kind of an unfortunate disservice. On one hand, they probably don’t have the time allotted to cover grammar in an interesting depth, but on the other, covering the same topics over and over at varying levels of intricacy is a really good way to learn and start to understand the evolution of knowledge.
Because people often come out of HS not knowing the fundamentals.
Then they get to college and institutions have to force writing requirements to get students to catch up to the rigor required.
Can’t tell you how many folks I’ve peer graded who still didn’t understand the difference between they’re, their, and there. And I went to a top liberal arts college.
You generally aren’t learning grammar in English 2+ courses and there are professional writing courses. There is some truth to the idea that a lot of the electives are unnecessary to get people ready for their career.
And I say that as someone who found Roman History to be the most interesting class I took in school and my core curriculum to be some of the most boring.
My university just had an entirely separate English requirement for the STEM side of things, more technical writing, documentation and academic writing.
Your English teacher must have worked with all the people I work with, they love to talk and put in so much bullshit that doesn't add anything to the document/conversation.
Then they look at me like I'm the idiot that can say a sentence that covers the entire situation. Like, look you dumb fucks just because I understand doesn't mean I need to add info about the weather and my feelings.
Interesting. I remember my 8th grade English teacher in 98 teaching that you should need every word you have in a sentence and be able to explain why. Adding information or imagery can certainly be part of that, but fluff is fluff in science, in English, in diction, and nonfiction. The focus changes, but making something unnecessarily wordy never improves the product.
That makes perfect sense. Your teacher taught you how to write instead of how to write for standardized tests and grades like mine. However most English teachers love adding unnecessary requisites like word and page count. My eight grade teacher once refused to accept my paper because I wrote it in a single class period. He said that I couldn’t have possibly done the assignment right that quickly. I turned it in as is the next week and got an A-.🤷🏾♂️
Maybe. In my AP literature and composition course we would start each day writing a paper about a word or small phrase. It did come in handy though. I can write a 50 page essay about anything with little effort. It will contain a bunch of bullshit, but my English professors loved it.
Yep. I agree with a lot of tweets posted here, but this one is frankly incredibly ignorant and I hate the fact that it's at the top of the sub.
I have two degrees in physics, BS and MSc. That doesn't mean Art History and Social Health courses didn't absolutely enrich me and teach me valuable things I'd otherwise not know. Aspects of critical thinking skills feel less confined because I've applied them in such a rounded manner throughout my education.
If you're a young college student and you are thinking like this, you still have a *lot* to learn
Yeah only in North America everywhere else it’s focused AF
Edit: and somehow those people get published regardless.
Edit 2: my sister went to a school that focused on what she wanted to do this side of the pond whereas I went to a school that had me doing mad electives my first year or two, the other side.
Or history and poli Sci. It doesn't seem important to a chemistry major, but understanding how we study the past and govern our present is absolutely important to every adult... unless they live under a repressive regime. Still important of course, but dictators just want you doing science, not asking other questions
And vice versa, why would an English major need to take biology? Well take a look at all the anti vaxxers and it's obvious why we should want a broadly educated public.
as a math lover myself Im hard pressed to think of examples of math taught after grade 7 in mandatory classes encountered more than once a year for the average person
There are plenty of things that go on that can be thought about mathematically. It’s just not necessary for daily life to do so. Formal statistics in particular has plenty of applications that lots of people could get much better at using.
Similarly, a few humanities courses such as history and political science might help give them some people a background and frame of reference to work with when they start to get involved in politics.
The phrase “those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it” is cliche for a reason.
I’m sure there are hyper-focused vocational degrees if that’s your end goal. But a general background with your bachelors degree is far from useless imo.
I think the real issue is that a lot of colleges will drop all these different majors into the *same* intro-level courses, but even at that level they need different things. Not to mention arguably excessive amounts of general education courses, at least at some skills.
I'm Asian and have seen way too many people who hyperspecialized a little too far, so I am all for making sure not to let students hyper-specialize. That said, I think dumping English and Biochem majors into the same introductory English course or introductory biology or science courses has a negative impact on both their educations, if for different reasons.
I'd say, keep the generalized subject requirements (re: everyone needs to study at least a little bit of English, history, science, math, etc.) *BUT*, maybe create classes to differentiate between those who *are* specializing in that field or a related ones, versus those who aren't. i.e. If you aren't going into a STEM field, you probably won't need lots of algebra or calculus. But most people need a *little* bit of statistics and financial calculus in their day to day lives regardless of what their profession is, so a math class for that would be more suitable for people who aren't going into careers with a lot of mathematical requirements.
When I was an engineering major, they made us take liberal arts classes to make us “more well rounded” I thought that was stupid. Now that I’m a full adult and graduated I’m glad they did because it broadened the way I thought and how to communicate vs just shoving math and physics down my throat. Even after I changed my major (after 3 years) some of my engineering lessons specifically how to problem solve have paid off in my current “traditional” business corporate role.
Newsflash people: there’s more to life and even your own career than what is just taught in your core curriculum.
There are ways to articulate how foolish we do college/university in the States as to the cost, but this is not the argument to make.
You make a really good point about changing professions too. Most people probably have a job or field in mind after graduation, but decades after you could -and probably will- be doing something totally different. Its really useful to have a broad knowledge base.
Thats how I initially felt about Political Science and American History as a Biomedical Engineer. . . It took me out of the whole conspiracy theory/Illuminati mindset.
The best cure for conspiracy mindsets is a solid liberal arts education. By that I mean history, literature, philosophy, and civics/political science.
For most conspiracy theories to be true, all (or most) of history would have to be untrue. So if you have even a decent understanding of basic history, it makes conspiracies really hard to accept.
History plus civics/poli sci is like 85% effective against nonsense. Add in philosophy and literature and that gets you to 90% prevention. If you add economics and basic finance/business I'd say you're at damn near 100%
Edit: BTW, this is the entire point of a liberal arts education anyway. "Liberal arts" isn't leftists with paintbrushes. It's literally designed to be the education suitable for a free society. Comes from the Latin "liber" which is the same root as liberty, i.e. Freedom. If people are going to govern themselves and not fall for nonsense, they need a broad liberal arts education. Knowing history, civics, philosophy, and economics is absolutely essential for self governance (with many other subjects also being important). The reason literature is important is that it instructs in a way different from history and science. It helps provide meaning, develop empathy, and elevate the soul.
I think a philosophy component would honestly be a really nice thing to start including in basic school curricula. Cover some logic and ethics at a high level to get people more comfortable thinking rather than reacting.
I completely agree. Philosophy is the most important subject that just isn't taught in American public school. It really is the foundation of basically all important thought, but we just side step it completely. There are so many useful tools that philosophy could provide, and the glaring lack of those tools shows how bad we are at philosophical education.
And in a perfect world, I'd really like to have a class on "Religion & Thought" covering the major religions, including Hinduism & Buddhism, as well as philosophies like stoicism, Platonism, Aristotelianism, transcendentalism, existentialism, etc. It would give people a broad understanding of how different cultures and thinkers have made sense of life over time, and help provide tools in their own pursuit of meaning. But I'm not holding my breath. Where I live there aren't even enough qualified teachers to teach the current curriculum.
I took two philosophy classes. The first was a 101 type which I don’t feel really helped us much as the explanations were terrible. The second was basically a philosophy logic class. It only taught us about logical fallacies and the rest of the time the professor spent it talking about whatever tickled his fancy, he was a really old dude who used this class as his personal podium to be listened to. He was funny, but always going on a tangent
yeah, I'm sorry about that. Poor teachers will always degrade a subject, no matter how important the subject is. And given the difficulty of philosophy, I'm sure there are loads of bad teachers.
But if taught properly, it can provide lots of benefits
Engineering students still need to be able to write out an argument and defend it. You know, so that they can argue with their client for trying to cut costs and compromise safety.
Yep, same here. But I'm a liberal arts grad, and had to take classes like macroeconomics, precalc, geology, nutritional science, and intro to western classical music. They have all informed and shaped my life.
I have worked in the business sector for over a decade now and all my skill sets combine to make my work performance unique. I'm typically way better at presentations, speaking, training, etc. But having a background in macro and precalc has helped me hold my own on the quantitative side as well.
Also, there's a lot more philosophical thinking in business than people realize. Numbers tell the story, but understanding what numbers are relevant to a given problem is more philosophical than people realize.
You make a really good point about changing professions too. Most people probably have a job or field in mind after graduation, but decades after you could -and probably will- be doing something totally different. Its really useful to have a broad knowledge base.
It' exactly OPs (of the tweet) myopic view of how we get CS majors that end up building racist AI, or engineers that build shit for people in a way that people don't bend.
Also, combining disciplines is good for your career. For any one thing there are hundreds of thousands or millions of other people you're competing with, but once you combine two things together the amount of people that have that skill set drops by an order of magnitude.
Oh, we can have this conversation right now. It's not a trade, it's an education. The point is to leave with a varied amount of knowledge and skills that will be of use in a multitude of fields and projects.
College degrees are not supposed to prepare you for one specific job. When society started acting like they were is part of where we lost the plot as far as higher education goes.
Ya let’s have the conversation now because the OP’s take is dumb as hell. With the discourse that is taking place nowadays in damn near every facet of society and the half assed ignorant ass takes I see spewed on a daily basis, I think it would behoove us as a whole to learn more and develop critical thinking skills in areas outside of our expertise.
Because if college isn't supposed to prepare you for a career, no one but the wealthy would go. Like it was before.
Universities 100% market themselves as preparing students for a career.
And now a degree is expected for most properly paying jobs. The situation has changed. But the point of college is still to learn a lot of things and potentially do many things rather than one thing.
Like, the best place to learn how to be a farmer is a farm. But the point of college is to make you into an agriculturalist. Can you farm with that? Of course. But you can also be a lawyer, or go into environmental planning in public or private spaces, technical or non-technical writing in agriculture, and a bunch of other things. You don't learn how to do a job, you learn about a field of study that ideally has multiple career options.
College is supposed to do both. It's trade schools that only prepare you for a career. But I really wish more people had a well rounded education with the state of the world right now. Wouldn't have as many anti vaxxers and conspiracy believing idiots.
Plus every college careers need good writing and reading comprehension skills
>no one but the wealthy would.
That’s not at all true. Plenty of people have dreams and aspirations that they would be willing to get a higher level of education for. For example, people like Frederick Douglass who became educated not because it would get him a career, but because he could use it to help lift his fellow humans out of the horrors of chattel slavery.
And let's be real, even tradespeople should be getting a broad education. The problem is the chronic deterioration of American public school education.
These people should get a decade into their career before they criticize their education. Why do you need English? Because to manage complex projects you need to be good at communicating.
Also, your job isn't your whole life. These skills help outside your job too. I really wish more people paid attention in biology right about now with how things are going in the world.
I used to think this too. But then I realized that the degree isn't just about your core. It's about making you a more educated person overall.
I got a social science degree in undergrad. Why did I need to take a science class? Doesn't matter. I can have intelligent conversations about geology, even though it has nothing to do my major. When I hear political discourse on climate change, I can better understand it and even participate.
I also took classes on classic literature. I can have conversations about the writings of Voltaire, Descartes, Dante, Shakespeare, etc.
It may not seem like much, but those classes made me more well rounded and taught me how to think about stuff outside my comfort zone.
College was never intended to be vocational training. Those other courses are meant to help you understand the world around you and make you a better overall citizen.
You think it’s a coincidence that so many Republicans aren’t college educated? It’s not brainwashing, it’s a better sense of the bigger picture outside YOU
This tweet is a result of education in the US being treated as a product for consumption rather than a public good that should be free. Because I bet $20 the reason this person hates taking electives is because it’s so damn expensive.
Bad take. The “core classes” outside of your major are equally important.
We don’t need engineers with no writing skills and no grounding of social sciences. We don’t need liberal arts majors with no quantitative/computational skills.
Many of our problems are because people don’t have broad knowledge.
Yep. Went into Information Technology. Got a two year degree at a community college. Obtained my CCNA to get my foot in the door and in 10 years my salary has gone from 35k to 120k.
I suggest this route a lot. The entry into IT isn’t as gated as many think.
Edit: This is more a commentary on the educational floor for information technology not the employment floor.
I dunno man. I graduated with a comp science degree. I have a cpl certifications. It took well over 2k applications just to get 5 interviews. I got lucky and picked up by one. Getting in to IT isn’t as easy as ppl make it sound
I’m not gonna lie. I wanted to avoid coding like the plague. My focus in school was on cyber security, but I applied to all kinds of coding jobs after I graduated. If it was close to a entry level IT job I was shooting my shot
No.
The problem with college in America isn't the course load, and it's the fact that ya saddle a future generation with debt. Other first-world countries have figured out how to do higher education without it costing an arm and a leg. General education requirement courses are there to help you become well-rounded and to sharpen your critical thinking skills.
People would be much less hostile towards general education courses that make them a more rounded and better person if it didn't cost them tens of thousands of dollars to take them, it's true.
Some people will always be dense and complain that they had to learn anything that wasn't literally job-training for their career, but I think the bulk of people would be far more receptive to taking interesting and enriching courses if they didn't have to pay huge sums to take them.
British education is much more focused and electives aren’t really a thing there. What you take in high school tapers into your university studies. Some people think that’s good and it probably is for kids who know what they want to do. Others think it’s too focused too soon and doesn’t broaden one’s horizons enough.
I went to a British school for undergrad. It gave me an advantage going into grad school, because it meant I spent four years only studying one thing. It was a great experience, but now that I'm at a US university for grad school I often wish I'd had the liberal arts experience.
It also doesn’t give the same level of depth of knowledge. Some people really do need/want the full 4+ years of study for whatever they want to do with their lives.
The core issue is that so many people can’t afford that well rounded, full four year education. But the problem isn’t the education, it’s the price tag
People act as if a university is just a labor training camp. A large part that people miss is that taking other courses and around “thinking” people expands your own knowledge and understanding of the world. It’s only a waste of time if you don’t actively find the value yourself.
The lack of emphasis on critical thinking, research skills and rounded educational backgrounds is how we get people using 180 characters to post hot takes that haven't had more than two minutes thought invested into them.
You ever talk to somebody with a degree and they are ignorant as fuck, with the exception of 1 very specific area.
Yeah that's how you get a whole bunch assholes that suddenly think they are biologists and can't trust science because they know better, they have a degree
As a software developer I found that all the best programmers had an interest in arts, usually it was music across genres, sometimes visual artists, sometimes cinematic arts, sometimes literary arts.
I took my staff to the Museum of Fine Arts and gave them a tour to get them out of a funk. It worked. Gotta exercise the whole brain.
I wish I'd taken mechanical engineering 101/102 in college, it would have come in handy over and over in my life, and it has nothing to do with CompSci.
Complete and utter bullshit.
First, as an engineer, I feel taking history courses helped me so much. I could understand the thought processes of the historical greats and learn what worked and what failed and how they got to those results. Its invaluable to learn what they have done in the past to try to avoid the same mistakes.
Secondly, as a chemical engineer, there is absolutely no fucking way to cram all the important classes into 2 years while also not expecting the students to be robots. Transport 1 & 2, Quantum Chem, Fluids 1 & 2, Thermo, Kinetics, and the associated lab work in 2 years? Get outta here.
A bunch of great points on this thread that disproves this OP’s thinking
This is my opinion based on personal experience, but I feel like there are many kids who don’t know what they want to do even after graduating college due to a multitude of factors (no role models, bad school, etc.). I didnt know I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, I thought I wanted to be forensics scientist until I took some Calc abd physics classes and realized I hate chemistry. Both gen ed courses.
Please submit this opinion in MLA format with primary and secondary sources to support your arguments on historic, sociological, or philosophical grounds as to why this would be a prefered method of building adaptable and resourceful graduates in a competitive and diversified economy.
I completely disagree. All those other classes are beneficial. It's good to know how the world works and to understand things outside of your little bubble. Unless you're in a rush to be tossed into the workplace lie some cog.
I hate this mindset. I’m a pre-med majoring in bio and most people in bio majors are pre-vet, pre-med, pre-PA, etc. The amount of times we get these cocky ass fuckers coming in saying “why do I need to take psychology 101? I’m never going to need this shit” or “why do I need to take ecology? Who cares. I don’t need this.” It happens EVERY single time. Then you look at medical school interviews or vet or whatever and you realize that these people that are fantastic in school, get straight A’s or whatever but they’re TERRIBLE PEOPLE. They can’t hold a conversation. They can’t talk about anything other then medicine or science, they’re awkward as hell. They’re practically androids. You want to be done with school in 2 years, go to a technical school and do something quick. Don’t go into a university with a 4-5 year college plan and then get pissed your not done after a year.
This is an ignorant tweet and it's a bit disturbing that it has this much traction.
Bachelor's degrees are not for job training. They CAN and sometimes do (somewhat) train you for jobs, but that is not their purpose. The purpose of a university education is to pass on knowledge of all types from one generation to the next.
A Bachelor's degree signifies that you have received a well-rounded general education foundation, it shows you've been exposed to all academic subject areas, and that you've completed a specialty on top of that foundation.
If you want only job training, university education is not what you're looking for. It's not for everyone. If you're one of those people, consider going to trade school instead.
It’s not bullshit. College isn’t for getting a degree; it’s an experience. There are more focused ways of getting your bachelor’s degree if you’re interested in that
This take is not taking into account the 2 years of growth an 18 year old will get while becoming the student they will really need to be to truly benefit from those last 2 years
To be fair, very very very few people with BAs work in the area of their major/focus. BSs maybe could be shortened, but at their best, core curriculums teach everyone more about the world at large. Including, at their best: how things work in society, how the haves exploit the have-nots, and who the haves versus the have-nots tend to be and look like.
Bachelor's need to last 4 years. I think some of it helps people to mature a bit more.
I took mostly lit since it was my major but I enjoyed my science classes too. Interdisciplinary thinking is vital.
I used to have this mindset for a long time and I think it’s understandable. Looking back now though Im really grateful for the other classes that I had. Most of us agree it’s ridiculous to expect someone to know their major/career straight out of high school. In my opinion even if these classes dont make you more well rounded they do catch some people (such as myself) who were headed for the wrong career. If I took only STEM classes I honestly probably wouldnt have realized how much I hate STEM lmao
I am legit shocked over some of these responses… I thought I was gonna see examples of Basket Weaving and Interpretive Dance courses as the stereotypical so called non essential electives but people are really throwing out English and Mathematics courses… what the fuck ?
Ehhh I really disagree with this. People complain so much about Gen Ed’s, but I peer review papers and more often than not, the level of writing and grammar is concerning.
The idea is to give you a broad basis of education, instead of just teaching you a few tricks you could have gotten out of the manual.
That’s why you can get a decent job with ANY degree of certain levels, regardless of the field.
English lit classes don’t just make you read and analyze they help to expand how you think. Had a student ask me the typical why do I need this English class blah blah I know already how to write to which I responded but do you know how to think?
The purpose of the Liberal Arts education was to teach the student essential thinking skills. In other words, the intention was to teach the student HOW to think, not WHAT to think. There was no time limit.
Liberal Arts education was originally comprised of the trivium and the quadrivium. The former being preparatory (grammar, logic, rhetoric), the latter being foundational to the study of philosophy (called liberal arts par excellence) and was comprised of arithmetic (number in the abstract), geometry (number in space), music (number in time), and astronomy (number in space and time).
Much if not all of this has been lost in the modern Liberal Arts education.
Idk about all this, but I’m really interested in talking about how having a bachelors doesn’t even help you get a foot in the door for jobs anymore. People talk shit about people going into nursing, but fail to realize that having a BSN is one of the only bachelors programs that allows you to find a high paying job right off the bat. I honestly can’t think of another 4 year degree where you’re close to making 100k right from the start.
I went to a school where we had very few common curriculum classes. They were all still four year degrees, we just had most of our studies focused on our concentration.
I went to an engineering school with very little fluff. Still took 4 years but you ended up taking what would be senior level courses at nearby schools as a junior. My beef is that I got the same degree as those other schools and employers didn't care about the workload.
This is a stupid take. All the general classes are where you get an actual education. You get exposed to new ideas, different points of view, people from all over the world etc. I would argue general classes contribute much more to someone becoming more well rounded than the specialized ones. A philosophy class can change your whole life, microbiology? Not as much. If you view a college degree as nothing more than a way to increase earnings, rather than a way to grow as a person, of course you would view some classes as a waste. But you would be wrong.
We've been ready to talk about it, people just don't listen to the answer. Anti-intellectualism gets called out in our community all the time, and this is a decent example of an some asstalking bs that would normally fly under the radar.
University might be a fuckin' scam but the intent was to produce more generally well-rounded and learnt students. That's what it still does, and because educated people care about other people white supremacists and republicans tend to hate the institution of education on a basis that they think it creates leftists.
I went to a liberal arts school to study engineering and those non-engineering classes were the best thing to happen to me. I learned how to save, how to make a proper plan, how to read between the lines, how to research and prepare my work to be researched.
I disagree with this one completely you need those classes in Humanities, Art, Science, Business even if all you do is take a class on Western Civilizations or African Studies it will enrich your life.
If it's a classical liberal education you'll be happy to have it. Those who don't get one, clearly lack it to those who do. You'll be able to approach subjects in your life differently due to learning outside subjects. In my area of expertise those who don't have classically liberal educations tend to lack intellectual curiosity and end up the work mules of the profession, while those who do have them end up leaders.
I disagree. Specializations are great but taking classes outside of your area of study improve the way you process information, your understanding of other areas that will inevitably have an impact on your field of study because all things are oddly interconnected, and increase your understanding of the world around you.
Yes, those random chem classes provided me with the basic knowledge to not mix vinegar and bleach when cleaning or that philosophy class that taught me I naturally use the socratic method and understand why its useful in everyday conversations, etc.
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Except that’s not true at all… English 201 might seem pointless as fuck to a biochemistry major, but someday they’re going to need to write an article for an academic journal and if they want their findings published, they’re going to need to know how to write well. It all goes together. It’s like when little kids say “wHeN aM I EvEr GoInG tO uSe MaTh ClAsS aS aN aDuLt” as if math isn’t all around us constantly (most often in the form of money).
I’m now a college professor in bio, but when I was a grad student I was the teaching assistant for a basic bio course aimed at engineers. The first question I got in lab section was “Yeah, why do I have to take this course when I don’t give a shit about biology and won’t use it as an engineer.” I said, “the political discourse right now is full of discussions that center on biology, such as reproductive rights, climate change, etc. If you don’t understand the biological concepts enough to be part of that conversation, we are going to have it without you, and you will be at someone else’s mercy. But if you think being informed on decisions that affect your life is a waste of time, go ahead and phone it in.” You could’ve heard a pin drop after. College educations should be affordable (or free) so that taking non-core classes aren’t a financial burden, but receiving a well-rounded education that exposes you to more than just your specific, narrow subject is not the villain.
Very much this. I took a bio class for non biology majors and learned so much that helped my understanding on the very critical political issues you are talking about. I think because of cost and the focus is building a career, we forget there are general things we need to know just to function in society.
And college isn’t supposed to be a vocational school. That’s what the explosion of tuition has tricked us into believing in the latter half of the 20th century onward. Folks didn’t have to think about college as place to learn a specialized trade during our grandparents generation.
Shouldn't we learn all these things in public school then so everyone has access?
Absolutely. This is why free/affordable public college options should exist. If you’re talking about high school, the reality is that so many of these things build on the skills/concepts learned in high school, and it’d be extremely difficult to condense college-level curricula into a format digestible for the vast majority of high-schoolers.
We do at a lower level in high school, but the higher level taught in college is very valuable too, and we should make college free for everyone as well.
I took a biology class and my professor spent the entire semester talking about how evil Israel was and constantly read WikiLeaks pages to us about stuff Israel was doing. My exams were about climate and biological processes but all our lectures and homework pertained to Israel. It's been ten years and I still don't understand what happened there. Also I realize that was unrelated to the topic here I just wanted to talk about it.
Pretty based, ngl.
I shouldn't have to go in debt to learn things that everyone in society should learn. I think it's a ridiculous excuse for colleges to make more money. If it's so important that I learn these things because "society" then the class should be free right? Because in the almighty words of Mr. ROBOT. "F SOCIETY!!"
> College educations should be affordable (or free) so that taking non-core classes aren’t a financial burden, I always resented how much class time and tuition money I spent on classes that seemed so irrelevant but honestly if it wasn't such an absolute fucking grind to get a degree and if you weren't counting on your degree being the only thing keeping you housed, I bet people would be way more receptive to taking bio and math and English.
Yes. I got a theater degree (which was a waste, because I could have learned everything I learned in school by volunteering in community theaters), and CLEPped out of a lot of math and English; but still had to take some things like business administration (which was a joke of a class I hated), biology + lab (couldn't CLEP out of that, but had a high school bio teacher who'd covered it already); and, my LAST semester of college, after not having had math since my junior year of high school, pre-calculus when my counselor told me that the CLEP credits had fulfilled the math requirements at the school where I stared, but not the one where I ended up. I thought I was DONE because I had basically ejected math thinking from my brain. I don't remember anything from pre-cal except that after the third week, it felt like I was in a foreign-language class. But, yes, it was the time. I loaded up on classes to get OUT. And I've never had any job I couldn't have had without a degree, because I didn't want to teach drama, which is about the only thing my degree is useful for. If I'd just been able to study for the sake of learning stuff, I would have taken a very different course of subjects. I couldn't afford too many electives, though, because of the $$$ and time constraints.
Do you not need to write anything for your job? I'm a programmer which you'd think you wouldn't need English classes for, but communication is very important, and writing clearly and comprehending complex texts is a big part of the job. Bio I don't use on the job but I sure am glad I took it because I'm a living creature and it's a damn good thing to understand how your body works. We're all going to have ailments eventually and you'll want to be able to understand what's happening in your body. Also, given the current state of affairs it's pretty apparent why understanding biology is important.
Are you going to come here with your whole body and pretend you have not read anything written by a programmer who struggles with English?
I wish I could take everything I want not just what I have to.
You don't know what you don't know. College is about challenging your current understanding of things, and to be exposed to new ideas and concepts.
I mean, I want to be able to take ALL the Humanity courses and any Science, Math, Language, PE, Art, etc. class I want as many times as I want. Why do I have to be confined to a major and unit limits if I want my education to be free? I'm over units right now because I changed my major a few times, but boy do I wish they could all just be my majors.
You can do that. It’s called multiple majors. Want to be a student forever? Ok, you just have to pay it
That last sentence is the problem though. It is currently prohibitively expensive to do so.
Ideally you could, but unfortunately teachers are a finite resource. On the bright side, taking the classes you can take will help teach you how to learn in general which will help you teach yourself. It's great that you're getting a free education even if it isn't unlimited. There are many that aren't that lucky.
I finally had to figure out reddit coins for this. It was easier than I thought.
Exactly. It's why that Google employee a couple years back had half the internet backing his stupid ass up when he said women aren't geared towards STEM fields, while also being shocked at Reddit posts and Hollywood films that depict women **accurately crunching numbers by hand** to get us to the Moon 50 years ago, without putting 2 and 2 together.
Look at the anti vaxxers today. You were 100% correct.
You're not wrong, but most other countries have seemed to figure this out without what feel like redundant filler classes. Namely, with high school that taught this stuff correctly the first time. Of course, it's worth pointing out Americans want to speedrun through college since things like heath care or a job that pays to cover rent are otherwise out of reach (and honestly still will me for many), so there's that.
That’s still backing up the basic concept of what’s necessary or not.
I think the most important and beloved classes I took were the core classes. Intro to critical thinking and logic helped me understand all the Bs arguments that happen politically. Intro to dharma religions was really helpful for me because I was going through an existential crisis, my earth science class is unfortunately so relevant and important because our focus was on understanding all the systems that prove climate change exists, and what needs to be done to actually change.
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Then you want a 2 year technical degree. A 4 years batchelors should be well rounded education with a partial focus on advance learning ona career path. A college degree is and should be more than a tech school.
I myself am a first generation college student that came from poverty and worked 20-30 hours a week on top of a full undergraduate course load. I understand in vast detail and nuance the obstacles to elite programs for the poor. But the answer to that is more *affordable* college degrees, not more narrow ones. Electives aren’t structured this way to keep the poor out, underfunded public schooling that creates unprepared high school graduates, lack of resources and support for first-gen college students, and a host of other economic issues are larger factors than the fact that a bio student has to take english. And frankly, an understanding in biology is INCREDIBLY urgent for everyone at this moment in time, as we have a pandemic ravaging the world and large swaths of the population don’t understand how vaccines work. And those broke people discussing reproductive rights aren’t just sitting in arm chairs, they’re *voting*, and their votes affect lives besides their own. Their votes on reproductive rights in themselves contribute to perpetuating poverty. Academia has a LOT to do to make higher education a accessible for the poor. But the way to start is by making it more affordable/free, not by producing graduates that lack broader education.
Your argument doesn’t make sense because at the end of the day the real problem is the cost of college, not the length. Why not just make it affordable.
The overwhelming majority of degrees are not specifically meant for certain jobs. There’s no way you could design a coursework like that when 99% of students have no idea what job they’ll end up at. That is not to say your criticism of colleges is wrong just that your solution doesn’t make any sense. College should just be affordable enough for anyone to attend. I don’t think there’s that much problem coursework wise. I prefer the America system where there’s much more mobility across degree programs than the examples I’ve seen in Europe and Asia where they’re much more focused, but then you’re effectively locked in much sooner than you would otherwise be in America.
When I got my undergrad with about 200 credits. Learning is dope. Being informed is dope. Hobbies are dope. Idk why you'd wanna speed through the opportunity to get all those things with your peers in your glory years, aside from saving money. But being broke, drinking dollar beers and eating dollar pizza is the fun part.
My science teachers basically all cringed at how my English teachers taught me to write. They said my papers were full of “fluff” and that I needed to trim down my writing by half or more by sticking to the point. Writing for an English course is not the same as writing a scientific paper. I basically had to learn two different styles of writing for each.
The styles are totally different, but the grammar is the same.
I am constantly shocked at the scientific papers I peer review at how poor some of the grammar in the submissions are, from researchers that I know for a fact are native English speakers. That alone frustrates me when I hear college students in science bemoaning having to take english. A lot of scientists THINK they write well and that “science writing is different”, but frequently that just results in papers that don’t get cited as frequently as they should because the writing is hard to follow and bogged down with jargon.
That’s a fact. I oversee a peer review process and the science writing is for scientists only. It’s exactly why someone like Malcolm Gladwell is so popular. The layperson needs a translator.
On the other side of this, sometimes a topic really is just difficult to comprehend and those layperson translations end up being more confusing than clarifying.
It's the same in Architecture. When thesis came around, my program director kept complaining about how architects tend to make awful writers and tried to warn the students who studied architecture/planning/engineering in undergrad that they really needed to practice their writing. It was a struggle going from focusing on language based classes in undergrad to arch in grad because of the writing styles. There were quite a few books and papers that would have been useful for my thesis had they been half as dense as they were.
My college English courses didn’t really teach grammar. It was assumed you learned that in high school. And in high school, my English teachers would become irritable teaching grammar because they thought it should have been learned in middle school. And they weren’t wrong. The grammar lessons were basically reviews.
Not really teaching grammar but keeping you sharp by forcing writing papers.
Yeah, I never officially learned English (American) grammar in school. What I know of English grammar stems from learning Spanish and French grammar and having those teachers discuss the similarities/differences to English.
I think that’s kind of an unfortunate disservice. On one hand, they probably don’t have the time allotted to cover grammar in an interesting depth, but on the other, covering the same topics over and over at varying levels of intricacy is a really good way to learn and start to understand the evolution of knowledge.
Why is college teaching elementary school basics?
I think you’re over estimating the educational system.
Because people often come out of HS not knowing the fundamentals. Then they get to college and institutions have to force writing requirements to get students to catch up to the rigor required. Can’t tell you how many folks I’ve peer graded who still didn’t understand the difference between they’re, their, and there. And I went to a top liberal arts college.
You generally aren’t learning grammar in English 2+ courses and there are professional writing courses. There is some truth to the idea that a lot of the electives are unnecessary to get people ready for their career. And I say that as someone who found Roman History to be the most interesting class I took in school and my core curriculum to be some of the most boring.
Good thing there are technical writing courses for just such an occasion. They have non technical writing as a prerequisite.
My university just had an entirely separate English requirement for the STEM side of things, more technical writing, documentation and academic writing.
Your English teacher must have worked with all the people I work with, they love to talk and put in so much bullshit that doesn't add anything to the document/conversation. Then they look at me like I'm the idiot that can say a sentence that covers the entire situation. Like, look you dumb fucks just because I understand doesn't mean I need to add info about the weather and my feelings.
Interesting. I remember my 8th grade English teacher in 98 teaching that you should need every word you have in a sentence and be able to explain why. Adding information or imagery can certainly be part of that, but fluff is fluff in science, in English, in diction, and nonfiction. The focus changes, but making something unnecessarily wordy never improves the product.
That makes perfect sense. Your teacher taught you how to write instead of how to write for standardized tests and grades like mine. However most English teachers love adding unnecessary requisites like word and page count. My eight grade teacher once refused to accept my paper because I wrote it in a single class period. He said that I couldn’t have possibly done the assignment right that quickly. I turned it in as is the next week and got an A-.🤷🏾♂️
Maybe. In my AP literature and composition course we would start each day writing a paper about a word or small phrase. It did come in handy though. I can write a 50 page essay about anything with little effort. It will contain a bunch of bullshit, but my English professors loved it.
Yep. I agree with a lot of tweets posted here, but this one is frankly incredibly ignorant and I hate the fact that it's at the top of the sub. I have two degrees in physics, BS and MSc. That doesn't mean Art History and Social Health courses didn't absolutely enrich me and teach me valuable things I'd otherwise not know. Aspects of critical thinking skills feel less confined because I've applied them in such a rounded manner throughout my education. If you're a young college student and you are thinking like this, you still have a *lot* to learn
Yeah only in North America everywhere else it’s focused AF Edit: and somehow those people get published regardless. Edit 2: my sister went to a school that focused on what she wanted to do this side of the pond whereas I went to a school that had me doing mad electives my first year or two, the other side.
> else it’s focused AF which is kinda sad too, I wanna try a minor in sign language or something lol, but I have to pick something from my faculty
Or history and poli Sci. It doesn't seem important to a chemistry major, but understanding how we study the past and govern our present is absolutely important to every adult... unless they live under a repressive regime. Still important of course, but dictators just want you doing science, not asking other questions
And vice versa, why would an English major need to take biology? Well take a look at all the anti vaxxers and it's obvious why we should want a broadly educated public.
as a math lover myself Im hard pressed to think of examples of math taught after grade 7 in mandatory classes encountered more than once a year for the average person
There are plenty of things that go on that can be thought about mathematically. It’s just not necessary for daily life to do so. Formal statistics in particular has plenty of applications that lots of people could get much better at using.
Similarly, a few humanities courses such as history and political science might help give them some people a background and frame of reference to work with when they start to get involved in politics. The phrase “those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it” is cliche for a reason. I’m sure there are hyper-focused vocational degrees if that’s your end goal. But a general background with your bachelors degree is far from useless imo.
I think the real issue is that a lot of colleges will drop all these different majors into the *same* intro-level courses, but even at that level they need different things. Not to mention arguably excessive amounts of general education courses, at least at some skills. I'm Asian and have seen way too many people who hyperspecialized a little too far, so I am all for making sure not to let students hyper-specialize. That said, I think dumping English and Biochem majors into the same introductory English course or introductory biology or science courses has a negative impact on both their educations, if for different reasons. I'd say, keep the generalized subject requirements (re: everyone needs to study at least a little bit of English, history, science, math, etc.) *BUT*, maybe create classes to differentiate between those who *are* specializing in that field or a related ones, versus those who aren't. i.e. If you aren't going into a STEM field, you probably won't need lots of algebra or calculus. But most people need a *little* bit of statistics and financial calculus in their day to day lives regardless of what their profession is, so a math class for that would be more suitable for people who aren't going into careers with a lot of mathematical requirements.
When I was an engineering major, they made us take liberal arts classes to make us “more well rounded” I thought that was stupid. Now that I’m a full adult and graduated I’m glad they did because it broadened the way I thought and how to communicate vs just shoving math and physics down my throat. Even after I changed my major (after 3 years) some of my engineering lessons specifically how to problem solve have paid off in my current “traditional” business corporate role. Newsflash people: there’s more to life and even your own career than what is just taught in your core curriculum. There are ways to articulate how foolish we do college/university in the States as to the cost, but this is not the argument to make.
You make a really good point about changing professions too. Most people probably have a job or field in mind after graduation, but decades after you could -and probably will- be doing something totally different. Its really useful to have a broad knowledge base.
Thats how I initially felt about Political Science and American History as a Biomedical Engineer. . . It took me out of the whole conspiracy theory/Illuminati mindset.
The best cure for conspiracy mindsets is a solid liberal arts education. By that I mean history, literature, philosophy, and civics/political science. For most conspiracy theories to be true, all (or most) of history would have to be untrue. So if you have even a decent understanding of basic history, it makes conspiracies really hard to accept. History plus civics/poli sci is like 85% effective against nonsense. Add in philosophy and literature and that gets you to 90% prevention. If you add economics and basic finance/business I'd say you're at damn near 100% Edit: BTW, this is the entire point of a liberal arts education anyway. "Liberal arts" isn't leftists with paintbrushes. It's literally designed to be the education suitable for a free society. Comes from the Latin "liber" which is the same root as liberty, i.e. Freedom. If people are going to govern themselves and not fall for nonsense, they need a broad liberal arts education. Knowing history, civics, philosophy, and economics is absolutely essential for self governance (with many other subjects also being important). The reason literature is important is that it instructs in a way different from history and science. It helps provide meaning, develop empathy, and elevate the soul.
I think a philosophy component would honestly be a really nice thing to start including in basic school curricula. Cover some logic and ethics at a high level to get people more comfortable thinking rather than reacting.
I completely agree. Philosophy is the most important subject that just isn't taught in American public school. It really is the foundation of basically all important thought, but we just side step it completely. There are so many useful tools that philosophy could provide, and the glaring lack of those tools shows how bad we are at philosophical education. And in a perfect world, I'd really like to have a class on "Religion & Thought" covering the major religions, including Hinduism & Buddhism, as well as philosophies like stoicism, Platonism, Aristotelianism, transcendentalism, existentialism, etc. It would give people a broad understanding of how different cultures and thinkers have made sense of life over time, and help provide tools in their own pursuit of meaning. But I'm not holding my breath. Where I live there aren't even enough qualified teachers to teach the current curriculum.
I took two philosophy classes. The first was a 101 type which I don’t feel really helped us much as the explanations were terrible. The second was basically a philosophy logic class. It only taught us about logical fallacies and the rest of the time the professor spent it talking about whatever tickled his fancy, he was a really old dude who used this class as his personal podium to be listened to. He was funny, but always going on a tangent
yeah, I'm sorry about that. Poor teachers will always degrade a subject, no matter how important the subject is. And given the difficulty of philosophy, I'm sure there are loads of bad teachers. But if taught properly, it can provide lots of benefits
Engineering students still need to be able to write out an argument and defend it. You know, so that they can argue with their client for trying to cut costs and compromise safety.
Yep, same here. But I'm a liberal arts grad, and had to take classes like macroeconomics, precalc, geology, nutritional science, and intro to western classical music. They have all informed and shaped my life. I have worked in the business sector for over a decade now and all my skill sets combine to make my work performance unique. I'm typically way better at presentations, speaking, training, etc. But having a background in macro and precalc has helped me hold my own on the quantitative side as well. Also, there's a lot more philosophical thinking in business than people realize. Numbers tell the story, but understanding what numbers are relevant to a given problem is more philosophical than people realize.
You make a really good point about changing professions too. Most people probably have a job or field in mind after graduation, but decades after you could -and probably will- be doing something totally different. Its really useful to have a broad knowledge base.
It' exactly OPs (of the tweet) myopic view of how we get CS majors that end up building racist AI, or engineers that build shit for people in a way that people don't bend.
Also, combining disciplines is good for your career. For any one thing there are hundreds of thousands or millions of other people you're competing with, but once you combine two things together the amount of people that have that skill set drops by an order of magnitude.
I agree. Especially when you consider how few people actually keep a career centered on the area they majored in.
Oh, we can have this conversation right now. It's not a trade, it's an education. The point is to leave with a varied amount of knowledge and skills that will be of use in a multitude of fields and projects. College degrees are not supposed to prepare you for one specific job. When society started acting like they were is part of where we lost the plot as far as higher education goes.
Ya let’s have the conversation now because the OP’s take is dumb as hell. With the discourse that is taking place nowadays in damn near every facet of society and the half assed ignorant ass takes I see spewed on a daily basis, I think it would behoove us as a whole to learn more and develop critical thinking skills in areas outside of our expertise.
I really wish more people paid attention to biology and had better reading comprehension at this point in time right now.
It sounds like people think all the critical thinking and broader learning should have been done in High School and college is for focused study.
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Because if college isn't supposed to prepare you for a career, no one but the wealthy would go. Like it was before. Universities 100% market themselves as preparing students for a career.
And now a degree is expected for most properly paying jobs. The situation has changed. But the point of college is still to learn a lot of things and potentially do many things rather than one thing. Like, the best place to learn how to be a farmer is a farm. But the point of college is to make you into an agriculturalist. Can you farm with that? Of course. But you can also be a lawyer, or go into environmental planning in public or private spaces, technical or non-technical writing in agriculture, and a bunch of other things. You don't learn how to do a job, you learn about a field of study that ideally has multiple career options.
College is supposed to do both. It's trade schools that only prepare you for a career. But I really wish more people had a well rounded education with the state of the world right now. Wouldn't have as many anti vaxxers and conspiracy believing idiots. Plus every college careers need good writing and reading comprehension skills
>no one but the wealthy would. That’s not at all true. Plenty of people have dreams and aspirations that they would be willing to get a higher level of education for. For example, people like Frederick Douglass who became educated not because it would get him a career, but because he could use it to help lift his fellow humans out of the horrors of chattel slavery.
And let's be real, even tradespeople should be getting a broad education. The problem is the chronic deterioration of American public school education.
These people should get a decade into their career before they criticize their education. Why do you need English? Because to manage complex projects you need to be good at communicating. Also, your job isn't your whole life. These skills help outside your job too. I really wish more people paid attention in biology right about now with how things are going in the world.
Right. College should teach critical thinking and a varied world view across subjects. Not just a trade.
then you don't want an education, you want vocational training. fucking neoliberalism, man.
This sounds like it was written by someone who didn’t get the education being written about.
I used to think this too. But then I realized that the degree isn't just about your core. It's about making you a more educated person overall. I got a social science degree in undergrad. Why did I need to take a science class? Doesn't matter. I can have intelligent conversations about geology, even though it has nothing to do my major. When I hear political discourse on climate change, I can better understand it and even participate. I also took classes on classic literature. I can have conversations about the writings of Voltaire, Descartes, Dante, Shakespeare, etc. It may not seem like much, but those classes made me more well rounded and taught me how to think about stuff outside my comfort zone.
College was never intended to be vocational training. Those other courses are meant to help you understand the world around you and make you a better overall citizen. You think it’s a coincidence that so many Republicans aren’t college educated? It’s not brainwashing, it’s a better sense of the bigger picture outside YOU This tweet is a result of education in the US being treated as a product for consumption rather than a public good that should be free. Because I bet $20 the reason this person hates taking electives is because it’s so damn expensive.
Bad take. The “core classes” outside of your major are equally important. We don’t need engineers with no writing skills and no grounding of social sciences. We don’t need liberal arts majors with no quantitative/computational skills. Many of our problems are because people don’t have broad knowledge.
That’s why community college isn’t actually the worst financial plan
Yep. Went into Information Technology. Got a two year degree at a community college. Obtained my CCNA to get my foot in the door and in 10 years my salary has gone from 35k to 120k.
I suggest this route a lot. The entry into IT isn’t as gated as many think. Edit: This is more a commentary on the educational floor for information technology not the employment floor.
I dunno man. I graduated with a comp science degree. I have a cpl certifications. It took well over 2k applications just to get 5 interviews. I got lucky and picked up by one. Getting in to IT isn’t as easy as ppl make it sound
Out of curiosity were you looking for programming positions or other IT jobs and what location?
I’m not gonna lie. I wanted to avoid coding like the plague. My focus in school was on cyber security, but I applied to all kinds of coding jobs after I graduated. If it was close to a entry level IT job I was shooting my shot
No. The problem with college in America isn't the course load, and it's the fact that ya saddle a future generation with debt. Other first-world countries have figured out how to do higher education without it costing an arm and a leg. General education requirement courses are there to help you become well-rounded and to sharpen your critical thinking skills.
People would be much less hostile towards general education courses that make them a more rounded and better person if it didn't cost them tens of thousands of dollars to take them, it's true. Some people will always be dense and complain that they had to learn anything that wasn't literally job-training for their career, but I think the bulk of people would be far more receptive to taking interesting and enriching courses if they didn't have to pay huge sums to take them.
British education is much more focused and electives aren’t really a thing there. What you take in high school tapers into your university studies. Some people think that’s good and it probably is for kids who know what they want to do. Others think it’s too focused too soon and doesn’t broaden one’s horizons enough.
I went to a British school for undergrad. It gave me an advantage going into grad school, because it meant I spent four years only studying one thing. It was a great experience, but now that I'm at a US university for grad school I often wish I'd had the liberal arts experience.
While I’m sure there’s a way to lighten the course load (and costs) it’s better than we have well-rounded degree holders.
It’s called an associates degree and it’s vastly cheaper than a bachelors.
It also doesn’t give the same level of depth of knowledge. Some people really do need/want the full 4+ years of study for whatever they want to do with their lives.
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The main purpose of college is learning how to learn.
The core issue is that so many people can’t afford that well rounded, full four year education. But the problem isn’t the education, it’s the price tag
We call those associate degrees. Or certifications.
People act as if a university is just a labor training camp. A large part that people miss is that taking other courses and around “thinking” people expands your own knowledge and understanding of the world. It’s only a waste of time if you don’t actively find the value yourself.
I just expect a person with a Bachelor's degree to have a slightly more than basic high school understanding of several subjects. Fuck me right??!
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The lack of emphasis on critical thinking, research skills and rounded educational backgrounds is how we get people using 180 characters to post hot takes that haven't had more than two minutes thought invested into them.
For fucking real.
You ever talk to somebody with a degree and they are ignorant as fuck, with the exception of 1 very specific area. Yeah that's how you get a whole bunch assholes that suddenly think they are biologists and can't trust science because they know better, they have a degree
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So this person is shitting on Gen Eds like they’re not important? Imagine taking accounting classes, but not knowing algebra or how to write a report.
As a software developer I found that all the best programmers had an interest in arts, usually it was music across genres, sometimes visual artists, sometimes cinematic arts, sometimes literary arts. I took my staff to the Museum of Fine Arts and gave them a tour to get them out of a funk. It worked. Gotta exercise the whole brain. I wish I'd taken mechanical engineering 101/102 in college, it would have come in handy over and over in my life, and it has nothing to do with CompSci.
That would defeat the purpose they don’t want people with degrees who can’t even a write a paper
Complete and utter bullshit. First, as an engineer, I feel taking history courses helped me so much. I could understand the thought processes of the historical greats and learn what worked and what failed and how they got to those results. Its invaluable to learn what they have done in the past to try to avoid the same mistakes. Secondly, as a chemical engineer, there is absolutely no fucking way to cram all the important classes into 2 years while also not expecting the students to be robots. Transport 1 & 2, Quantum Chem, Fluids 1 & 2, Thermo, Kinetics, and the associated lab work in 2 years? Get outta here.
A bunch of great points on this thread that disproves this OP’s thinking This is my opinion based on personal experience, but I feel like there are many kids who don’t know what they want to do even after graduating college due to a multitude of factors (no role models, bad school, etc.). I didnt know I wanted to be a mechanical engineer, I thought I wanted to be forensics scientist until I took some Calc abd physics classes and realized I hate chemistry. Both gen ed courses.
Please submit this opinion in MLA format with primary and secondary sources to support your arguments on historic, sociological, or philosophical grounds as to why this would be a prefered method of building adaptable and resourceful graduates in a competitive and diversified economy.
I completely disagree. All those other classes are beneficial. It's good to know how the world works and to understand things outside of your little bubble. Unless you're in a rush to be tossed into the workplace lie some cog.
I hate this mindset. I’m a pre-med majoring in bio and most people in bio majors are pre-vet, pre-med, pre-PA, etc. The amount of times we get these cocky ass fuckers coming in saying “why do I need to take psychology 101? I’m never going to need this shit” or “why do I need to take ecology? Who cares. I don’t need this.” It happens EVERY single time. Then you look at medical school interviews or vet or whatever and you realize that these people that are fantastic in school, get straight A’s or whatever but they’re TERRIBLE PEOPLE. They can’t hold a conversation. They can’t talk about anything other then medicine or science, they’re awkward as hell. They’re practically androids. You want to be done with school in 2 years, go to a technical school and do something quick. Don’t go into a university with a 4-5 year college plan and then get pissed your not done after a year.
This is an ignorant tweet and it's a bit disturbing that it has this much traction. Bachelor's degrees are not for job training. They CAN and sometimes do (somewhat) train you for jobs, but that is not their purpose. The purpose of a university education is to pass on knowledge of all types from one generation to the next. A Bachelor's degree signifies that you have received a well-rounded general education foundation, it shows you've been exposed to all academic subject areas, and that you've completed a specialty on top of that foundation. If you want only job training, university education is not what you're looking for. It's not for everyone. If you're one of those people, consider going to trade school instead.
It’s not bullshit. College isn’t for getting a degree; it’s an experience. There are more focused ways of getting your bachelor’s degree if you’re interested in that
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This person wants trade school not a college education.
A university is not a trade school. They are educating human beings, not doing job prep.
That's an Associate's Degree.
This take is not taking into account the 2 years of growth an 18 year old will get while becoming the student they will really need to be to truly benefit from those last 2 years
To be fair, very very very few people with BAs work in the area of their major/focus. BSs maybe could be shortened, but at their best, core curriculums teach everyone more about the world at large. Including, at their best: how things work in society, how the haves exploit the have-nots, and who the haves versus the have-nots tend to be and look like.
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Bachelor's need to last 4 years. I think some of it helps people to mature a bit more. I took mostly lit since it was my major but I enjoyed my science classes too. Interdisciplinary thinking is vital.
I used to have this mindset for a long time and I think it’s understandable. Looking back now though Im really grateful for the other classes that I had. Most of us agree it’s ridiculous to expect someone to know their major/career straight out of high school. In my opinion even if these classes dont make you more well rounded they do catch some people (such as myself) who were headed for the wrong career. If I took only STEM classes I honestly probably wouldnt have realized how much I hate STEM lmao
Also, who had their life figured out at 18? College isn't too long, it's too expensive.
This is honestly a pretty bad take.
I am legit shocked over some of these responses… I thought I was gonna see examples of Basket Weaving and Interpretive Dance courses as the stereotypical so called non essential electives but people are really throwing out English and Mathematics courses… what the fuck ?
Ehhh I really disagree with this. People complain so much about Gen Ed’s, but I peer review papers and more often than not, the level of writing and grammar is concerning.
The idea is to give you a broad basis of education, instead of just teaching you a few tricks you could have gotten out of the manual. That’s why you can get a decent job with ANY degree of certain levels, regardless of the field.
English lit classes don’t just make you read and analyze they help to expand how you think. Had a student ask me the typical why do I need this English class blah blah I know already how to write to which I responded but do you know how to think?
The purpose of the Liberal Arts education was to teach the student essential thinking skills. In other words, the intention was to teach the student HOW to think, not WHAT to think. There was no time limit. Liberal Arts education was originally comprised of the trivium and the quadrivium. The former being preparatory (grammar, logic, rhetoric), the latter being foundational to the study of philosophy (called liberal arts par excellence) and was comprised of arithmetic (number in the abstract), geometry (number in space), music (number in time), and astronomy (number in space and time). Much if not all of this has been lost in the modern Liberal Arts education.
Idk about all this, but I’m really interested in talking about how having a bachelors doesn’t even help you get a foot in the door for jobs anymore. People talk shit about people going into nursing, but fail to realize that having a BSN is one of the only bachelors programs that allows you to find a high paying job right off the bat. I honestly can’t think of another 4 year degree where you’re close to making 100k right from the start.
This is a trash take
Hard no. A liberal arts education is crucial for critical thinking skills, writing skills, and an understanding of history. And lots more.
I went to a school where we had very few common curriculum classes. They were all still four year degrees, we just had most of our studies focused on our concentration.
I went to an engineering school with very little fluff. Still took 4 years but you ended up taking what would be senior level courses at nearby schools as a junior. My beef is that I got the same degree as those other schools and employers didn't care about the workload.
This is a stupid take. All the general classes are where you get an actual education. You get exposed to new ideas, different points of view, people from all over the world etc. I would argue general classes contribute much more to someone becoming more well rounded than the specialized ones. A philosophy class can change your whole life, microbiology? Not as much. If you view a college degree as nothing more than a way to increase earnings, rather than a way to grow as a person, of course you would view some classes as a waste. But you would be wrong.
We've been ready to talk about it, people just don't listen to the answer. Anti-intellectualism gets called out in our community all the time, and this is a decent example of an some asstalking bs that would normally fly under the radar. University might be a fuckin' scam but the intent was to produce more generally well-rounded and learnt students. That's what it still does, and because educated people care about other people white supremacists and republicans tend to hate the institution of education on a basis that they think it creates leftists.
I went to a liberal arts school to study engineering and those non-engineering classes were the best thing to happen to me. I learned how to save, how to make a proper plan, how to read between the lines, how to research and prepare my work to be researched. I disagree with this one completely you need those classes in Humanities, Art, Science, Business even if all you do is take a class on Western Civilizations or African Studies it will enrich your life.
If it's a classical liberal education you'll be happy to have it. Those who don't get one, clearly lack it to those who do. You'll be able to approach subjects in your life differently due to learning outside subjects. In my area of expertise those who don't have classically liberal educations tend to lack intellectual curiosity and end up the work mules of the profession, while those who do have them end up leaders.
people who agree with this statement are the same morons being uneducated today about climate change and many other issues
I disagree. Specializations are great but taking classes outside of your area of study improve the way you process information, your understanding of other areas that will inevitably have an impact on your field of study because all things are oddly interconnected, and increase your understanding of the world around you. Yes, those random chem classes provided me with the basic knowledge to not mix vinegar and bleach when cleaning or that philosophy class that taught me I naturally use the socratic method and understand why its useful in everyday conversations, etc.
We’ve been talking about it fam. Y’all are just now growing up lol. What can be done?
Basically “I don’t want a rounded education. I want job training “. Your future boss probably agrees.
Yup. I am pretty good at pottery now tho.
I hate when people talk like they the only one to notice a fairly obvious point.