BA of general studies?

JHS
Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:41:02 +0000

I now understand that Twisted has been writing about this problem in other threads that I haven’t read, so I guess I understand the frustration some of you feel. But it bugs me to see people writing things like this:



I think that with a BA in General Studies one would have an area of emphasis, right?

So, if someone earns a BA in General Studies with a concentration in what have you, then it would be an okay thing, eh?



Another point of view is fine, but that was written by someone who hasn’t bothered to look at what a BGS at Michigan entails, or thought about what it would mean to a student, in practical terms, to change degrees at an advanced stage. It is full of a wrong, and unhelpful, assumptions.

As someone else pointed out, Michigan’s BGS degree involves, essentially, three minors. You need 20 advanced-level credits (at generally 3 per course, sometimes 4) in three different areas, and of course to get those advanced-level credits you need to have taken the lower-level prerequisites for them. And no more than 20 credits from any department count. So Twisted would have one area under her belt (poli sci) and a start towards another (poli sci requires two advanced courses in some other cognate field). But that would leave her needing an extra 10+ advanced courses – 34 credits-- not including prerequisites she might have to take in order to take some of them. That’s not a small additional burden if it hasn’t been planned for. 34 credits is a full extra year of college, and that’s assuming you can get them all in.

There’s nothing at all wrong with the BGS degree itself. But there’s something wrong with telling a student who has essentially completed BA requirements to go back and satisfy a significantly different set of degree criteria.

As for the Spanish, unless I am mistaken Twisted is now completing what Michigan will count as her second semester of Spanish, not third. She says she got credit for three semesters at a community college, but obviously not at a level that Michigan accepted, or that let her pass a placement test even for avoiding first semester Spanish. My understanding is that she has taken two years of Spanish in CC with accommodations, for which she is receiving no credit, and one year at Michigan, with a lot of trouble. I assume she had exposure to it in high school, too. So when she is barely holding a C- taking Spanish I for the third time, and it’s interfering with her life, I tend to conclude that (a) she’s not just whining about it, there’s a real problem, and (b) she and her teachers are wasting a lot of time for no real educational value.