Colleges with good Freshman Philosophy courses

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<p>Your teacher doesn’t understand how colleges work in the US. I don’t understand how he can have attended UCBerkeley and not know about distribution requirements, since they certainly exist at UCB too! No student would be considered well-educated if they didn’t take classes in a variety of subjects to allow them to write and speak well on a variety of topics, and if they only knew about one subject.</p>

<p>Could it be your teacher went to Berkeley for grad school only?
Because in grad school, indeed, you only pursue one subject - the purpose of grad school is to make you a specialist of that subject and an expert who creates knowledge in that subject.</p>

<p>In the US, ALL students have to take general education classes - even students in “technical” majors such as engineering and nursing. You CANNOT take just classes in one subject, regardless of college, and typically you declare your major during your sophomore year (you will take 2 philosophy classes during your first year, and 6-8 other classes, whether you attend Harvard or a state school… of course, the level and depth of the classes will differ.)
[Degree</a> Requirements & Policies | College of Letters & Science](<a href=“http://ls.berkeley.edu/?q=undergraduate/degree-requirements-policies]Degree”>http://ls.berkeley.edu/?q=undergraduate/degree-requirements-policies)
[Homepage</a> § Program in General Education](<a href=“http://www.generaleducation.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do]Homepage”>http://www.generaleducation.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do)</p>

<p>Schools such as Reed and UChicago have a stronger set of couses called a Core Curriculum with compulsory classes and readings for all students although pathways may be different depending on students.
<a href=“https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/core.shtml[/url]”>https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/academics/core.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Let him look for articles as it’s unlikely he’ll find many that state students just enter college and major in something with 100% classes in that subject. :slight_smile:
Note that even if you could, I would NOT advise that for a philosophy major.</p>

<p>Seek out UCAlumnus: I’m sure he’ll confirm that as an undergraduate at UCB, you MUST take general education classes and distribution requirements. :)</p>