General Education Requirements in College

[Eric]

Seems like your main issue is with OSU, although even as an OU alum I can say that your experience does not jive at all with the OSU grads I know.

It's not OSU specifically, all though I can speak to it more personally. I have experience at a few other "lesser" schools in the state (all public).

My issue with it (aside from what I have already stated) is that I didn't get anything out of gen ed classes that I didn't already know. I actually paid attention in high school. And what classes I still did have to take in college (didn't have to do Math & Science as I had jumped straight to higher courses) were a rehash of what I did in high school. And I went to a small rural school with no official AP courses (although that level was taught particularly in math and science coincidental). While everyone may not be that exceptional, shouldn't we expect it if they are going to attend "prestigious" universities?

And like it was said above, why should we expect 18 year old's to acquire this, why should we expect 18 and 19 year old's to be able to take it any better. Is one year that much of a change?

Again, it is an insult to our secondary education system, not just Oklahoma's in this case, that's another discussion all together.

[Eric]

These arguments of why they are important are reminiscent of high school. Void of any real quantifiable evidence.

[bombermwc]

One problem I see with public universities like OU and OSU is the inconsistent quality of graduate teaching assistants. There are some really good ones, and some real crap. It sounds to me, that Eric got a good run of the bad quality kind. If you didn't learn anything new, then they didn't do their job. But you also have to consider if the only common thing between the courses was you, then you might have been part of the problem. OCU only employees those with a doctorate or those completing their dissertation. It doesn't mean we had all awesome profs either. I had a couple real doozies myself. But we also paid a LOT more for that. It's not always practical and puts it out of reach for a lot of students. I had a LOT of scholarship (music performance and academic) and spent a LOT of time on activities related to that scholarship money to help me through that....and managed to be debt free when i left. If i could do that with OCU tuition numbers, dont tell me you can't do it with OU numbers people.

My wife is finishing her PHD at OU and has been a GTA there for years. She's one of the top GTAs in her department....consistently. I'm also aware that her department has worked hard to correct some bad habits of some of the staff that weren't performing well....to the point that they are no longer teaching at the university while they complete their degree (ie no longer a GTA). So the school is doing its part to help make things better. The students, on the other hand, get what they put into it. I wont tell you her department, other than it's something in a category that every student is required to take. To most, it would be considered Gen. Ed. coursework. Several of her students have gone on to get a minor in this area. Most of them do fairly well, but there are (and always will be) people that piss and moan about how they dont need the classes, how it's a waste of time and money, and their grades reflect that. Their effort put into the course also reflects that opinion. FYI, my wife also completed every one of her degrees debt free. But she also had to work hard to keep pushing for those scholarships.

I was about as excited about taking Philosophy as i would be to scrape ice off my windows in 10 degree weather. Especially with a book the professor wrote. Definitely my least favorite gen. ed. course....even over Economics!!!! But counter that to History, and i had an amazing prof that really did things differently than any other History class i'd ever had and we really enjoyed it. It was almost all lecture, but i really learned a LOT and enjoyed every minute of it. I actually wished i would have been able to take MORE gen. ed. courses. I honestly DO NOT use the higher level math i had to take for my degree requirements. I would have taken more gen ed in place of some calculus classes any day of the week. My statement about getting what you put in is also not mutually exclusive to gen. ed courses. The same is true in degree courses. I got through all that calc/statistics/discrete math/etc but i hated every minute of it. For me, that was the nails on the chalkboard.

And related to another comment. I was also an OCU commuter....a LOT of students there are. Because there are so many commuters (because it's so centrally located in the city), there is less campus life. I spent a LOT of time on campus because of my music work. But otherwise, being a mostly introvert, i probably would have followed the other poster's wife's trend...go to school, go home. Treat it like a job. Looking back, i really with i had lived on campus so i could have forced myself to break through those habits. it would have saved a lot on gas too!

[Midtowner]

Music is really different from just about any other discipline. If you are not a former music major, or at least unless you were music-adjacent (I attended UCO on a music scholarship), you just don't understand. I use none of the math either. But again, as I've said, I may not have the answer in my mind to every question, but at least, in part due to my general ed studies, I know where to start to look for answers if I have questions.

[Eric]

To be clear, I never once impugned the quality or consistency of the faculty at OSU (or any other school for that matter). I get that there are good and bad TA's. Heck there are good and bad professors/lecturers.

Not to toot my own horn, but I was a really good student. I did fine in the gen ed classes (As couple Bs), but in my major courses, I was consistently in the top spot. Everyone studied with me so they would succeed. I get edumacation.

I also get that I learned pretty much everything I learned in those gen ed classes in high school, where I was also paying attention. If I would have taken Geology in high school, I would have learned it too. Just a different course. My point is, if you are not already thinking critically, how is a few hundred days and many thousands of dollars going to make a difference? Either the public education system stinks (in which these kids shouldn't go to college), or they are fleecing us. In both these gen ed courses are unnecessary.

[Teo9969]

Eric,

If you are such an outlier and you're a top of the class student, you need to understand that you are, well, an outlier and top of the class student. You and your experience does not represent reality and absolutely should not dictate the basis around which the system is molded.

That's not to say everything you're saying is without merit. But if the basis of what informs your opinion is "This was easy for me" that's not the reality for even half of the students who go to college.

That's not to say any critique of the system is invalid, or that your insights and opinions should be discarded immediately...but the reality is, no, most people arriving to college do not know how to critically think and we're a very long ways away from achieving that sort of convergence.

[Eric]

Eric,

If you are such an outlier and you're a top of the class student, you need to understand that you are, well, an outlier and top of the class student. You and your experience does not represent reality and absolutely should not dictate the basis around which the system is molded.

That's not to say everything you're saying is without merit. But if the basis of what informs your opinion is "This was easy for me" that's not the reality for even half of the students who go to college.

That's not to say any critique of the system is invalid, or that your insights and opinions should be discarded immediately...but the reality is, no, most people arriving to college do not know how to critically think and we're a very long ways away from achieving that sort of convergence.

I agree. But because they are not prepared to critically think is not reason to keep gen ed classes in and of itself. Which is the point I have been making.

[Rover]

If educating the uneducated isn't a good reason, what is? I guess you just want to be cheap and let the chips fall where they may.

[Eric]

If educating the uneducated isn't a good reason, what is? I guess you just want to be cheap and let the chips fall where they may.

You all realize our public university system has just such a resource for those who need these sorts of classes. They are called junior colleges. There are a handful spread throughout the state.

I'm saying the resources expended by the state and the student at a four year research university teaching remedial type courses are extremely wasteful to all involved.

[Eric]

And prior to that we have high school. It's this socialist construct that educates are youth to become productive citizens (but apparently doesn't teach critical thought). Who knew. sarc off.

[dankrutka]

General education courses are not remedial courses. Anyway, sorry you see them as useless. Mine were great and certainly prepared me well for future classes, life, and my career.

[White Peacock]

I think the disagreement here is clearly a matter of values, and little more. The gen-ed stuff I took at OCCC opened my eyes to a lot of things that either NW Classen didn't teach me, or that NW Classen tried to teach me but didn't click at the time. The courses were better planned and presented and the knowledge was more complex than what was taught at the basic high school level, even if the same subjects were touched on.

Now, in my opinion, I did it the right way by testing the waters at community college and getting my AA before going to a university and pursuing my Bachelor (albeit with a decade hiatus in between), as it saved a great deal of money and that setup tends to be more forgiving of youthful, idiotic mistakes. For example, right after high school, a friend of mine shipped off to TCU where he stayed on campus. A semester later, he was back in OKC and enrolling at OCCC. He didn't take it seriously enough and it spat him out. That might be a minority situation, but still representative of something that could be avoided by starting at a community college, unless you're well disciplined upon graduating high school.

Whenever the question of well-rounded education vs. trade focus comes up, this Heinlein quote always comes to my mind.

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

There's nothing wrong with wanting to know as much as possible about every subject available. I cut ties with another friend from high school, who was also at OCCC when I was, because he came to only ask to hang out when he needed help with writing essays for his comp I class. Every time, it proved more accurate to say that I wrote his entire essay in the course of trying to show him how to construct an essay, and him just turning that in as his own without retrying it in his own language. Every time we met, I tried to tell him he needed to learn to do this himself, and he flatly refused to try, saying he just wanted to get the grade and get the job and had no interest in learning things. "It's not what you know, it's who you know" was his mantra, whatever that means. So I just stopped taking his calls and cut him off. If you lead a horse to water and he pisses in it, the horse is probably retarded.

The point I'm making with that story is that the "college requirements r dum" argument is something I've long seen, from both the nonintellectual and the anti-intellectual, and in all cases, it's nonsense. Critical thinking doesn't have an on-off switch; it's progressive, and at every stage in our progress we feel like we're at the pinnacle, only to learn later how mistaken we may have been. 1000 level gen-ed courses help to facilitate that progress and to clean up whatever messes high school may have left in a kid's head. If you paid great attention in high school and your 1000 level classes are a rehash, great, enjoy your easy A. But not everyone came away from high school with an honorary doctorate in auto-fellatio. That's an indictment on our public school system, not the university's requirements. Proper AP courses apply as college credits, and the super smart can clep out of some of the baser requirements. For the rest of the lot, the basics are required to make sure you have a good foundation before proceeding to higher level classes, and that foundation can point you in the direction of what you ultimately want to major in and receive your degree in.

[Eric]

If universities want to stick their head in the sand and let society pass them by, that's fine I guess. But I would hope our public institutions would reflect the changes in society. We are a specialized society. Any disagreements here? While it's great to know all those things in your quote, gen ed classes are a pretty poor vehicle to do that. They just teach other specialties. That's all they are. The claim that they create a well rounded student is only backed up by the fact that you all say they teach critical thinking. Never once do you mention the specific subjects. Which are just different specializations than what a person majors in.

You want to know why high schools are failing? Because it is compulsory. Gen ed courses fail too for the same reason. I'm not saying no one no where didn't get anything out of a general ed class. Just that by and large the system is failing. Heck, I see the new crops of new hires every year and wonder what the hell they were doing for four years. I know that's a random observation. My discussions with other industry employers only confirms that by and large the incoming new hire crop is woefully under prepared to enter the workforce, with college degrees.

The reasons to keep them are all hypothetical, and the results are telling a different story all together.

You can call me dumb all you want. It's not just anti intellectuals that think like this. Several at the pinnacle of higher learning also seems to take issue with gen ed classes and how they are not meeting the needs of the modern day student.

http://harvardmagazine.com/2015/05/h...ion-criticized
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/20...gened-harvard/

[dankrutka]

If universities want to stick their head in the sand and let society pass them by, that's fine I guess. But I would hope our public institutions would reflect the changes in society. We are a specialized society. Any disagreements here?

I agree we are a society with not only increased specialization, but also increased fragmentation. People increasingly exist in professional silos and personal echo chambers... all these are great justifications for general education requirements. Again, it is always worth discussing which courses are included in general education, but I think the need for general education is more dire than it ever has been because of increased specialization and fragmentation.

[dankrutka]

You want to know why high schools are failing? Because it is compulsory. Gen ed courses fail too for the same reason.

Honest question - on what basis are you supporting the statement that both high schools AND general education are completely failing? You don't even add any nuance to this sweeping claim that they're underperforming in maybe some respect or another, but just state (without evidence) that they're completely failing. I don't accept that statement.

And, again, I agree that personalization and specialization can be good for individuals and their careers as a component of their education... but some aspects of education are concerned with individuals as they exist in a society that should have common areas of understanding for our democracy to function. You seem to only speak in individual terms and totally ignore any importance for education to advance a common good.

[Eric]

Honest question - on what basis are you supporting the statement that both high schools AND general education are completely failing? You don't even add any nuance to this sweeping claim that they're underperforming in maybe some respect or another, but just state (without evidence) that they're completely failing. I don't accept that statement.

A

I challenge you to the same. Show me how these courses are beneficial to society or the individual. So far it has been no less anecdotal than my "evidence".

Are you really contending that secondary education is not struggling at the very least? I won't start on that at the moment, just focussing on the gen ed requirements at the university level.

By and large the evidence is that students don't take them seriously, which is understandable as it seems that the university doesn't seem to either. They are not difficult courses in general so the challenge isn't there, among other things.

Also, there is a rather small body of literature that is focussed on this subject. In fairness it is generally against the best interest of the potential authors so that doesn't surprise me all that much.

http://docplayer.net/6068083-What-do...-j-miller.html

Per Steven Dutch, Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay

There's value and then there's value. There's what we say we value and then there's what we show we value through our choices. We can say we value equality, but as long as people move out of the cities into affluent, white-dominated neighborhoods, we won't get it. A CEO can say he values general education, but as long as the actual hiring focuses on technical skill, that's what will count in the marketplace. Regardless of how true it may be that broadly educated people make better workers, the economic reality is that employers get acceptable productivity faster by hiring narrowly-trained specialists than generalists. They or the broader society may pay for it later on, but there's an immediate payoff, and lots of people don't care about anything else.

There have been many papers looking to improve general education, so there is obviously a realization that there is a problem of some sort. Again are we going to stick our head in the sand or change with the times. The phrase I always see is there is a mismatch of intent with reality. That's what I see.

I have made several suggestions that could remedy this problem. It's not like I am just complaining to complain. I'm offering solutions.

[Rover]

And prior to that we have high school. It's this socialist construct that educates are youth to become productive citizens (but apparently doesn't teach critical thought). Who knew. sarc off.

Another case of dumbing down of America and blaming someone else.

This state loves to argue AGAINST education in almost all forms...common ed, stem, and on, and on... We are near the bottom in educational funding and results. We have a high drop out rate. We don't support the arts well. And we wonder why we have trouble attracting real growth outside of poking holes in the ground.

[Eric]

Another case of dumbing down of America and blaming someone else.

This state loves to argue AGAINST education in almost all forms...common ed, stem, and on, and on... We are near the bottom in educational funding and results. We have a high drop out rate. We don't support the arts well. And we wonder why we have trouble attracting real growth outside of poking holes in the ground.

That wasn't intended to be a jab solely at Oklahoma.

[White Peacock]

If universities want to stick their head in the sand and let society pass them by, that's fine I guess. But I would hope our public institutions would reflect the changes in society. We are a specialized society. Any disagreements here? While it's great to know all those things in your quote, gen ed classes are a pretty poor vehicle to do that. They just teach other specialties. That's all they are. The claim that they create a well rounded student is only backed up by the fact that you all say they teach critical thinking. Never once do you mention the specific subjects. Which are just different specializations than what a person majors in.

I don’t disagree we’re an increasingly specialized society; I’m arguing that it’s the wrong direction. The Heinlein quote isn’t mean to be a literal reading of the things a person should know how to do; don’t overlook the importance of nuance. Yes, each class you take is an island unto itself taught by a presumed expert on the topic. Ultimately it depends on the student being able to incorporate that material into their greater understanding of the world. Failure to do that is a personal failure.

Let’s talk about subjects: what exactly do you think a person intending to graduate with a college degree shouldn’t be required to know? How to write an essay or paper? US history? World history? Philosophy and logic? Science? Psychology? Where among these subjects is ignorance acceptable when there’s an alternative?

You want to know why high schools are failing? Because it is compulsory. Gen ed courses fail too for the same reason. I'm not saying no one no where didn't get anything out of a general ed class. Just that by and large the system is failing. Heck, I see the new crops of new hires every year and wonder what the hell they were doing for four years. I know that's a random observation. My discussions with other industry employers only confirms that by and large the incoming new hire crop is woefully under prepared to enter the workforce, with college degrees.
The reasons to keep them are all hypothetical, and the results are telling a different story all together.

Is your anecdotal evidence superior to everyone else’s anecdotal evidence? You talk about what you see as though it’s gospel, while you’re being countered with other personal experience examples and rejecting them as valid evidence.

You can call me dumb all you want. It's not just anti intellectuals that think like this. Several at the pinnacle of higher learning also seems to take issue with gen ed classes and how they are not meeting the needs of the modern day student.

I never called you dumb. I did call you anti-intellectual, which is not the same as dumb. It’s a flawed position from which to pulpit, but it’s a position in its own right that doesn’t necessarily reflect the inherent intelligence of the party holding it.

What would you propose be done to make the gen-ed requirements more coherent, since lack of coherency between the courses seems to be the chief argument from your first link? What’s the solution? Remember that if you remove gen-ed entirely, what you’ve got is effectively no better than trade school, so we can forget about forcing people to learn lots of things against their will at colleges. If you’ve identified the problem, what is your solution that doesn’t involve whittling a college down to a multi-practice trade school?

The other arguments I see are basically “students don’t think they’re getting anything from it,” which sounds to me like whining. That kind of “why do I need to know this?” is a carryover from high school, and those are probably the kinds of people that should have opted instead for a trade school instead of a college. Nobody forces people into universities.

If anything needs to change, it’s the Bachelor Degree requirement for an entry level job that has no business requiring a college degree.

[Teo9969]

Considering that an associates degree and a high school diploma are looked at as about equal, I will say that I have personally advised many people who are not sure what they want to do to *not* go directly to university and 1. Identify some things they are passionate about or very interested in 2. Look for opportunities outside of school to get involved with those while working to find out if the field is really that compelling to the individual 3. If going to college, go knock out gen. eds. at a community college, discover what classes interest you and then get involved with the subjects more in-depth.

If the argument is that we need to make better use of community college, then I am 100% on board with that.

Again, this is 100% an advisement issue. Removing Gen Eds. from the university environment is a bad idea. You don't tailor the entire educational system to a particular demographic. The system is solid...it's the usage is poor. A great idea would be removing students who don't know what they're doing at a university. You only accomplish that through advisement.

[jerrywall]

If you want to learn a trade or career go to vo-tdch or something similar. If you want to learn how to be an adult and successful, go to college. People say we're more specialized, but that's not true. Think about folks in the 70s who only knew their trade, and suddenly became unemployed (and unemployable). I'm happy I'll never be there.

My dad was an expert at grocery stores. Owned and ran them. When the oil crash and bank crash of the 80s happened, he lost everything. You know what his skills and experience meant? Nothing. Everyone wanted a degree and they didn't care what type. Know where he ended up, in his late 30s, with 3 kids and a wife? Working for hourly pay at McDonald's. Yeah, he was specialized.

My wife has a liberal arts degree. For all the jokes about it, it has opened doors like crazy. Just showing you have the ability to commit and learn goes a long way. She'll got against any trade school student for any job. I've been unemployed for a total of 4 days since I was 22. And that's with multiple career field changed. Being well rounded in your education helps. If I could choose to model myself after a rennasaince man or a blacksmith I know what I chose.

TLDR; the concept of being well rounded and why employers want that? For a reason.

[bombermwc]

If universities want to stick their head in the sand and let society pass them by, that's fine I guess. But I would hope our public institutions would reflect the changes in society. We are a specialized society. Any disagreements here?

I would argue that this is the very reason to require gen ed so that we counter some of this specialization. We are very specialized these days, but i dont necessarily see that as a good thing. What it means that that people know their one thing really well, and dont know crap about anything else. People know how to plan an investment portfolio, but can't fix a toilet. We can sew back on, but can't repair a fence. The separation of society on these lines has fractured our society in a way that we see with the uncompromising political divide. It's us vs. them in everything, no willingness to compromise because people just dont understand (and aren't taught) to be able to view things from different perspectives.

Now days, if you happen to know things from many disciplines, you're a Renaissance Man. In our parent's day, it would have been that you were a normal functioning adult capable of taking care of yourself. I'm in the age group of Millenials...i think. I'm on the old end of them and we're very different from the younger ones. But so many people my age are just absolutely STUPID about life. Downright morons about normal things. "I'm so awesome, i drive a prius and drink a pumpkin spice latte, i have a beard and drink only organic juice.....i also have no idea how anything in my house works and am completely dependent on others to do everything for me...but im still awesome, right?".

[Jim Kyle]

Music is really different from just about any other discipline. If you are not a former music major, or at least unless you were music-adjacent (I attended UCO on a music scholarship), you just don't understand. I use none of the math either. But again, as I've said, I may not have the answer in my mind to every question, but at least, in part due to my general ed studies, I know where to start to look for answers if I have questions.

I have to disagree with you most emphatically about the sentiment I put in boldface above. As one who was subjected to piano lessons for more than a decade (my final teacher was an OCU professor who had a few private students; she introduced me to Rachmaninoff but instilled a lifetime distaste for Chopin) but learned to love music anyway, I find that most harmonic structure is heavily dependent upon math and physics, while an ear for phrasing has been essential to earning my living as a professional writer for more than half a century.

It's no coincidence that such a high percentage of software architects have a background in music. The underlying structures are quite isomorphic to each other!

As for student interests, I think Tom Lehrer has the absolute essence of education nailed when he observed that "Life is like a sewer. You get out of it what you put into it." Or as we say when dealing with data, GIGO.

[Teo9969]

I have to disagree with you most emphatically about the sentiment I put in boldface above. As one who was subjected to piano lessons for more than a decade (my final teacher was an OCU professor who had a few private students; she introduced me to Rachmaninoff but instilled a lifetime distaste for Chopin) but learned to love music anyway, I find that most harmonic structure is heavily dependent upon math and physics, while an ear for phrasing has been essential to earning my living as a professional writer for more than half a century.

It's no coincidence that such a high percentage of software architects have a background in music. The underlying structures are quite isomorphic to each other!

As for student interests, I think Tom Lehrer has the absolute essence of education nailed when he observed that "Life is like a sewer. You get out of it what you put into it." Or as we say when dealing with data, GIGO.

I believe he was speaking specifically to the experience of those who study music in college as opposed to any other major. It's a very different animal that getting a degree in just about anything else (I feel like Dance/Acting might be a sort of in-between...but those are both also part of the performing arts).

[Jim Kyle]

I'm sure the experiences in college are far different, one from another, depending in large degree on one's major field. The performing arts are almost unique in that the performer's "product" exists only in the instant (movies and recordings can preserve the instant to some degree, but those "products" are always collaborative -- directors control actors, engineers control recordings -- and are not identical to the original product.

My point, though, is that the knowledge and experience gained through study of not-directly-relevant material turns out to be not only useful, but vital, to one's eventual niche in life. That's something not immediately obvious to impatient younglings, a category that includes a majority of undergraduate students.

A well-meaning faculty adviser nominated me (without my knowledge or consent) for a small scholarship during my first year at OU. Winning it came as a complete surprise -- and its requirement that I minor in economics to qualify was an unwelcome shock. Nevertheless I gave it the old college try and spent two semesters of my second year listening to the most boring material I ever encountered.

At the end of that year, I surrendered the scholarship and changed my minor to English, which did fit my eventual career goal. However when, much later, I had to become "assistant market editor" for the OKC Times (meaning that I edited wire copy about futures and Wall Street until the real market editor's shift began), what little I had absorbed during that boring year spent mostly sleeping in the back of the classroom turned out to be gold!