Good resource for where school falls on open/core curriculum

juillet
Fri, 31 Aug 2018 23:36:32 +0000

Funny. I always thought of an open curriculum as a tremendous plus!

It’s not necessarily. It kind of depends on your school of thought around college education.

There’s one camp (to which it seems like ACTA belongs) that believes that college should impart at least some baseline level of knowledge/education in specific areas. Part of that is that brand-new college students are not necessarily the best arbiters of what they should know, because how do they know what’s important before they’ve gotten a chance to learn it? In that camp, the general sentiment is that educational experts (aka the professors, deans, and academic advisors at universities) should be putting together a general education program that ensure that students are achieving appropriate breadth across areas.

ACTA has very specific beliefs about what they think needs to go into that kind of curriculum, which they list on the site. They believe that proficiency in foreign language requires 3 semesters of study of a foreign language. They also require schools to require a survey course in U.S. history and/or government, which a lot of schools will fail because they allow you to choose any history or other humanities course to fulfill that requirement - or because they roll this into other requirements. You’ll also notice that the list of schools that require economics courses is very short.

So it’s not just about having a structured curriculum; it’s about having one that matches ACTA’s guidelines. For example, Columbia - which most people here are familiar with having a strong Core Curriculum - only gets a B from ACTA, because their Core doesn’t require economics or mathematics. However, what that doesn’t take into account is Columbia’s admissions standards; most Columbia students are entering with the level of math that other universities might require students to take in their first or second year.

There’s another camp that believes that college should be about totally open exploration and that students should be able to take whatever they want in college. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that students shouldn’t get a breadth of educational experiences and learning; there are many in this group who just think students should have control over which classes and experiences they have in those areas. For example, Brown has an F because they have a totally open curriculum and don’t require any of these classes; however, Brown themselves says on their website about their open curriculum that most students create a program of study with their advisors that touches many areas across the disciplines.