In another thread, there was a digression on the value of general education requirements or lack thereof in college:
Certainly, various colleges have different opinions about the value of general education requirements, based on the general education requirements they have or do not have. They also show variation in what types of courses they list for their general education requirements. Do people here have strong opinions on how much and what general education should be required for college students?
Regarding other countries, how different is the breadth and depth of general education in high school for university-bound students compared to the US (where the base college prep high school curriculum is a type of general education)?
In that thread I cited the Echols scholars program at UVA, which says this about their exemption from General Education requirements. In summary, UVA believes that many of their most talented students want depth rather than (enforced) breadth:
Because of their deep curiosity and intrinsic motivation, Echols Scholars enjoy flexibility in their academic requirements in order to pursue their individual scholarly interests. Echols Scholars are granted an exemption from the General Education requirements within the College of Arts & Sciences. While the majority of Echols Scholars will end up satisfying the General Education requirements by pursuing their wide-ranging interests, this flexibility enables them to explore new academic subjects and to take higher-level courses in their areas of interest from the outset of their time at UVA.
Certainly there are excellent schools on both ends of the spectrum (e.g. Brown vs. Columbia.)
It may depend on the student. Some students may receive a lopsided education and yet self-study into a reasonable balance. Other students with the same lopsided education may stay lopsided in their knowledge. Then again, some individuals do just fine in life with lopsided knowledge.
My oldest attends a college with pretty extensive distribution requirements causing him to take classes he never would have chosen otherwise. He has ended up enjoying all of them and has learned a lot. Again, maybe it depends on the student. Some students will rebel or zone out if forced to take classes outside their areas of interest while other students will find a way to engage and grow.
Huge proponent of general education requirements here. Three-quarters of American college graduates go on to a career unrelated to their major—a trend that includes math and science majors. Those gen ed courses could therefore end up being hugely important, given than all of us, and especially 18-20 years olds, change and grow and end up in careers and with side-interests and hobbies that we would have never predicted when we started college.
I recommend the book “Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World.” It argues that generalists, not specialists, are better suited to excel in most fields. The book’s premise is that in today’s complex world, the ability to bridge knowledge and experience from multiple fields is more important than specialization.
I’m not sure that I agree the it’s better to be a generalist, and I do think that the world needs specialists as well as generalists, but in my view the pendulum has swung too far in the direction toward the expectation of early specialization for our kids. To their detriment. High school and college students should be encouraged to explore, try new disciplines and expose themselves to a variety of ideas. Right now, societal expectation is that kids should know going into college what they want to major in and what they plan to do for a career after they graduate. Some do, but many don’t, and all young people should be getting the message that it’s normal and expected to explore, to try new things, and even to change course if the original chosen path isn’t working.
I am also a big fan of broad gen ed requirements. Those were some of my most interesting courses as an undergrad, and that I would never have selected on my own.
However, our D wanted the opposite and only looked at schools that were generous with their AP credit. We tried hard to sway her but to no avail. She could have placed out of every single gen ed at Purdue but she opted to do some out of pure interest. (She came in with three history classes, college level FL, and 2 English classes on top of all the STEM APs/DEs).
BUT, she took 6 interdisciplinary honors seminar courses that were very much critical thinking/debate like classes from topics ranging from jazz to Italian art history (only 1 was required), she took a sequence of communication courses and obtained a certification in collaborative leadership, some business Econ courses, a dance class, and a then was able to take masters levels classes for her technical concentration. It was exactly what she wanted because she had the say in what she took and what she skipped. IMO, she still made it a well rounded education while still getting the depth she needed in her major, just with much more control over what she took.
But does that imply general education requirements are needed? Why force students to take specific types of courses when most will just optimize for the easiest A rather than seeking to “expose themselves to a variety of ideas”.
You might reasonably require everyone to complete an introductory writing course (or gain exemption with AP English). Beyond that why not encourage rather than require? For example, like @momofboiler1 my D got exemptions from all GEs with her APs, so additional courses were only required if she wanted to get an honors degree.
Many students also optimize for the easiest A within their own majors. It seems wrong for schools to back off from requiring what they feel is necessary just because some students may seek out easy professors. As the old quip goes “Education is the only time when people try to get less than they paid for.” I don’t think distribution requirements are the cause of this mentality.
I will also note that some students don’t optimize for the easy A in any class, required or not.
I can tell you that athletes routinely don’t have the choice of taking Gen Eds that interest them. Their classes need to fit into certain windows of the day. Major and minor courses take priority in scheduling, then Gen Eds come into play. I didn’t necessarily need to spend thousands of dollars for a Chinese Lit class but that was the only thing that fit into a very busy schedule. Thankfully many Gen Ed requirements overlapped with major and minor required courses.
Not sure that it is true that “most will just optimize for the easiest A.” Sure some will, but it is not self evidently true that most will do that. In a college curriculum where all students are required to take a number of classes outside of their primary discipline, the academic “culture” becomes quite different. If students are required to take a large number of core curriculum classes, not all of them can be blow-off, “easy A” classes, and students will naturally end up taking some classes to meet requirements that surprise them in good ways. This happened with me in college and I’ve seen it happen with my own college students, especially the one who is at a college with an extensive core curriculum. She’s found she’s hugely interested in philosophy, something she would never have taken if not for the core curriculum requirements, and now it is her minor.
That can depend on the nature of the requirements. If the requirements are very humanities focused, then a student strong in humanities will not find them difficult, and if the requirements allow Physics for Poets to fulfill the science category, then that can allow for “easy A” courses outside of one’s strength.
That brings up this question for those who favor general education requirements: what should general education requirements contain?
Great point! And, as a humanities/social sciences focused person myself, I’ll reveal that I did “get around” the science requirement at my liberal arts school by taking “Chemistry for Citizens.” So, I’m a good example for the point I’m trying to make. I should have been forced to take a lab science in college! I wouldn’t have liked it, but it would have been beneficial for me to have been required to take a least one college-level lab science class.
To answer your larger question, in my own fantasy college or university where I got to personally decide on the general education requirements, here’s what I’d require: 1) Some minimum foreign language requirement, 2) two classes in Humanities (literature, art, music, religious studies, philosophy) 3) two classes in social science (history, political science, economics, geography, sociology, anthropology), 4) two classes in math and science (with no ability to take Physics for Poets or other blow off to satisfy this!), and 5) a series of multiple writing-intensive classes (could be in any of the aforementioned disciplines, but college students need to learn how to write.) In this fantasy school, AP credits could not satisfy these requirements, so students would have to take these classes while in college and could not be exempted out. I realize this would likely not be a very popular school!
I like the gen ed concept too. There are just certain things someone should know to be considered “educated”.
Foreign language
I largely agree with your requirements–
2 Humanities (1 not Western Civ)
2 Social Sci
Instead of math and science, id have a stats/understanding data req
I also like your writing req and ill add that there should be a heavy research component-- how to find sources, primary vs secondary, bias in sources
I went to a university with no gen ed requirements, but I still ventured out of my comfort area (I’m a humanities person) to take classes in the sciences and stats. I learned a lot from those classes, and I appreciated the opportunity to explore both in my fields of interest and in unexpected areas of study. But – I was well-prepared for college, so I don’t think I lost much by not having extensive gen-ed requirements.
My daughter goes to a college with minimal and flexible gen-ed requirements. Students have to take a few courses across a few categories, with lots of choices. This requirement guarantees they’ll have a broad education without weighing them down too much. Again, most students at that school are well-prepared with a rigorous high school education.
I teach at a university with comprehensive and extensive gen ed requirements, and I support our gen ed curriculum because many of our students come without the kind of course work that provides a good foundation for college education. Many have never written a paper or done any research or taken an essay exam, for example. So diving into a pre-professional major in which they do not have to undertake these tasks or develop those skills would cost them a lot, I think. So when I talk to my students in my intro classes (which generally include a mix of students in the major and students who are just taking the class to meet a requirement), I tell them that each discipline offers different ways to solve problems and ask questions. The reason we want them to study across disciplines is that we want them to try out a wide range of strategies for asking questions and solving problems – so when they focus on their majors, they’ll be even better equipped for success.
Some colleges require writing or communication intensive courses in major beyond the usual frosh-level writing courses. Also, some colleges now offer frosh-level writing courses on more varied selections of subjects (e.g. history, cultural studies, etc.), presumably to engage students better than when all writing instruction used to be in the context of literary analysis (that not all students are equally engaged in).
In other words, would you prefer that the general education requirements are more advanced than what AP scores would give advanced placement for at the college? I.e. math beyond single variable calculus, statistics at a higher level than intro non-calculus statistics / AP statistics, foreign language at the fourth or fifth semester (depending on what an AP 5 places above) level or higher, etc… Currently, many general education requirements at many colleges can be fulfilled with introductory courses that are no higher level than AP courses in those subjects.
I and all 3 of my kids hated general education. All 3 felt it was total waste of time and could not wait to be done with them. All 3 are technical kids. 2 like humanity, read non-stop and educate themselves in area that are interesting for them. So they got nothing out of these classes. 3rd one probably would benefit from stronget general education (I feel she misses a lot in that area), but since her school had a lot of religious general education classes, she totally missed the boat…
Would the science courses be allowed to be Physics for Poets level, or have to be more advanced? Most colleges’ science general education requirements allow Physics for Poets type courses to fulfill them.
Statistics may be more generally useful, although statistics at a level higher than AP statistics typically has calculus as a prerequisite.
Philosophy is generally considered a humanities rather than social science area.
Communications or writing requirements at colleges are commonly separate from humanities general education, and sometimes include communication or writing in major as well as frosh level course work.
Ethnic studies of one’s own ethnicity may be less broadening than ethnic studies of some other ethnicity; some colleges may have a requirement that allows only for courses with a multi-ethnic emphasis.
Both of our kids went to colleges with a strong core course requirement and we and they liked it.
Kid one was a music performance major, and his courseload was heavily music. He liked his core courses because they were a break from his usual music (which he loved…but he found some great courses to fulfill his core requirements…including personal finance which he thinks every single person should be required to take in college).
Kid two was a STEM double major and she also really liked the core, because again, it was a break from all the math and science she was required to take. She attended a Jesuit college and there was a religion requirement with about 150 courses from which to choose. My kid who really has no religious affiliation found some great courses to fulfill the three course requirement. I remember the ethics course and Women in Religion which she said was one of the best courses she ever took.
Both of our kids felt the core gave them the chance to take courses they otherwise would not have chosen, and these courses gave them a broader view of lots of things.
I’m pretty open minded about different approaches–core, distributional, open but with advising/norms that encourage breadth, I think all can work.
That said, I think my favorite approach I came across while helping my S24 explore colleges was Rochester’s:
Basically their distributional requirements take the form of one required writing course and then “clusters” outside of the area in which your primary major is located, which are thematically related and sort of operate as mini-minors.
My S24 ended up at WashU, and their Arts & Sciences distributional requirements are similar in that they include something that WashU calls “integrations”, but they also have some more specific requirements than Rochester and there are different forms integrations can take (it is actually confusing as heck how all this intersects when you are first looking at it, but the advising has been good and apparently you figure it out):
I think curriculum structures like this which are trying to capture both breadth but also some sort of coherency in the non-major courses help encourage exploration in a way that can lead to kids productively switching majors, adding second majors, adding minors, and so on. But even if they just stick to one original major and the requirements, I think this way of thinking about your college education can be good.
Finally, I do agree it is preferable from a pedagogical perspective when pre-college courses (APs, DEs, and such) are used more for placement and possibly general credit, but not so much fulfillment of these requirements. That said, I do NOT want to stand in the way of kids making college more affordable when necessary, so if in practice using pre-college courses to satisfy some substantive requirements is necessary to make that work for some kids, so be it.