Math and physics are my son’s prospective two majors as well.
S23’s college seems to be extremely picky about accepting credit for courses at other colleges. It requires petitioning in advance and usually only is granted if there’s some special edge case like being on academic probation or behind on graduating. So we can’t take advantage of the local CC or nearby Rutgers for summer classes. And most of their required courses have no easy parallel somewhere else anyway – they are fairly unique to the college. Even so, he wants to use the summer for research so something will have to give, whether it’s one of the majors or the research or something.
our S20 has room in his schedule to take one last non-stem class his last semester. SO many possibilities that sound great!! I appreciate all the cool classes out there with fascinating titles! … . . but he’s looking at taking 3 phys. ed classes
I look at some of the course offerings and they just sound so interesting. All kinds of things about world culture, or some random period of history to do a deep dive on, or literature, etc… oh well.
I went to college in the U.K. so have the opposite view, that the US system lacks depth and has too many fluff courses. If I want to read world history, I can do that in my spare time, I don’t need to pay tens of thousands of dollars in fees.
I did math, so 30 math courses and nothing else for three years, starting at a level roughly equivalent to US sophomore courses (first term was intro to proofs), after the last two years of high school was just math and physics. I can still just about recall enough to help S23, but it’s all from my high school classes at the moment and probably will be for the rest of this year.
That level of focus would have been S23’s preference too, but we didn’t want to send him far away to a system that is very much sink-or-swim.
If they’re fluff courses, then they’re the wrong courses
Anyone can read world history, or physics, or math. The reason to do it in a college course is for the opportunity to spend 15 weeks with an expert in the field who can share something of their passion and excitement for the field, and perspectives/approaches that would be quite difficult to acquire on one’s own.
That said, I appreciate that some folks would prefer to have a more focused education -but breadth is not just fluff, just as depth is not just myopia.
Yeah, it’s a bit of a philosophical difference, and it’s difficult to place an objective value of a liberal arts education.
I think it’s useful to have people practice in rigorous thinking across a number of disciplines - economics, literature, philosophy, history, etc.
That being said, looking at the four years my son is looking at for his intended major, and it’s an average of 17 credit hours a semester with no wiggle room and honestly he’d still need to learn stuff outside of classes or get a masters… so I’m not sure where he’d fit a good class on philosophy or rhetoric anyway.
D23 had made it back fine. She came home on a TH and had a Friday online final. She ended up 4 As and one A-. A- was in a 300 level class. She is an education major so I expected solid grades. Also she has very few GenEds to take because of AP.
D19 rolled in on the 21st. We went and saw John Mulaney and then we headed to Mexico the next morning and got back yesterday. We all needed a relaxing time and it sure was. And with D23 being 18 we got to go to the Adults only resort. D23 had fun because she was legal down there.
The challenge at S’s college is that many of the listed GE courses have significant pre-requisites. Without those additional courses you have a very limited choice. So you either end up doing a bunch of courses oriented towards activists (“science as a colonial practice”!?! and “gaming as activism”!) or take the most basic introductory history/economics/language/arts courses.
Which is why my son chose to swap majors a bit already. Vocal performance was giving him zero room so he switched to music industry which allows him more flex.
That makes it tough! I know at some schools the intro courses are orphans- no one taking ownership or caring about them. But at other schools, there are a few departments that take great pride in their intro courses, and think of them as opportunities for disciplinary “evangelism” to the masses. These schools will sometimes put their best lecturers on display, and the intro course can suddenly become life-changing - or at least fascinating! Worth asking around campus about …
Cool! My son really doesn’t care about the breadth of classes that I do, he’s pretty happy to only be taking STEM classes since he tested out of almost everything else. He’s more annoyed that he doesn’t know exactly which STEM major he wants and some of the ones he’s interested in are already diverging so if he switches he’ll have to play catch up (extra classes on an already heavy course load or summer classes which interfere with internships).
I didn’t realize vocal performance would be so heavy to not allow some choice, but I admittedly know very little about it. I assume music industry will still allow him to pursue his interests?
I have to speak up in defense of wide-ranging gen-ed courses.
The purpose of gen-ed courses is twofold:
For students who don’t know what they want to major in, or who discover after entering college that they don’t want to major in what they thought they would (a very large percentage!), exposure to a wide range of fields via gen-eds allows a more informed choice of major than would otherwise be the case.
A BA or BS degree (as opposed to professional baccalaureates such as the BMus or BSN) has historically not had—and, I would argue, still should not have—as its primary aim certification that a graduate can function in their major field. (It does certify that the graduate has the foundational knowledge necessary to learn how to function in their major field, but that’s a big difference.) Rather, its primary aim is to certify that a graduate has a range of competencies that will allow them to function not just in workplace interactions with those who have similar training, but also in and out of the workplace with those who are trained in different fields.
The idea that a baccalaureate degree is or ought to be purely (or even primarily) a job training certification is a recent idea, and IMO a perniciously problematic one.
Oh, interesting. Yes, our kid almost chose to attend Purdue for engineering but went OOS to a less prestigious private because he got a great scholarship and liked the vibes better. He only has one other friend that left Indiana for college. The rest didn’t apply to balanced lists and were lucky to have great in-state acceptances.
We’ve heard that the lower division STEM courses can be especially hard at Purdue. His friends that are STEM majors at there have been texting my spouse and I (and our son) for help throughout the semester (we’re both STEM profs). They did well but were definitely challenged and didn’t find quite the level of academic support they were hoping for (maybe they could have been more proactive, who knows). In contrast, our son didn’t ask us for help even once.
Our kid has done well academically at his school (all A’s and a prof recruited him for paid research out of the blue). He has enjoyed it, but hasn’t made friends there yet. He’s still super close with his HS friends. We haven’t asked him to reflect on his school choice because we don’t want him to start second-guessing himself prematurely. This week his Purdue friends were over and I overheard them suggesting that he transfer there. Sigh. I was relieved that he didn’t respond to that suggestion. He misses his loved ones but doesn’t miss our state at all, which is a good sign I suppose. He’s super motivated to not come back to his food service job at home this summer which helps.
Adjusting to college can be hard, in different ways for different kids. I hope yours can find the right path for himself. It sounds like you’re doing everything “right”. I hope that being nearby buffers some of the rough edges of the process. We’re worried about similar things for our younger child and he’ll be restricted to nearby schools. Being 18 can be really confusing. Let us know how things go. It’s nice to have this space where there’s always someone whose kid has gone through something similar.
I’m glad to hear this. I’m always surprised when I sit down with students that are shocked and dismayed to find out how many gen eds they need to graduate. For some majors at my university, it’s difficult to add a second major without careful planning. I hate to be the one to break the bad news to them, but I don’t understand why they didn’t bother to look before they enrolled.
Like you, we looked at gen ed and major requirements when my S and D were applying to colleges. Even engineering programs (S23) have differences. Requirements were definitely a consideration when putting together a list. It’s one of the reasons D20 selected a college with an open curriculum.
I agree. One of the things S23 likes about his engineering program is the number of courses he has to take OUTSIDE of the engineering department. His university believes engineers should have some rounding. He doesn’t have a lot of outside requirements, but there are enough that he gets a bit of a break from the engineering grind. His goal is to take the very popular “Introduction to Wine” course before he graduates!
A good example of a “fluff” course. S23 is planning on “The Science of Cooking” but you need access to a kitchen so he’ll have to wait until he’s moved out of the dorms. But I’m not happy about it when I work out that these GEs are costing $3500 per course for tuition, room and board. Hence considering CC in the summer where it will cost almost nothing.
My S23’s first semester Freshman math course was accelerated proof-based linear algebra. They didn’t intro proofs in the class – there was an optional seminar the first few weeks for those who need a proof boot camp – the core class just assumed students had it covered. But, yeah, he will end up with about half of the 30 courses you describe overall.
I wouldn’t describe his core required courses as fluffy. But they definitely result in less time for depth in major.
Perhaps I have a different view given my profession. I often encounter students who assume a course is “fluffy” and lacks rigor, only to then turn around and struggle to earn even an average grade in the course. I see this all the time as a professor in the humanities. Many assume certain subjects equal “fluff” without understanding rigor is not the exclusive domain of certain fields. In fact, one can get a professor who designs their syllabus with little rigor while other professors do the opposite. Subject and one’s perception of that subject are not the only considerations.
S23 is in an intense engineering program and finished with top grades his first semester. I have no problem with him using one of his electives in a few years to learn about wine. It has been one of the most popular courses at the university for years. And this is not because of a lack of rigor, but it’s because students find the information interesting and useful long after they graduate. (We keep hearing about it from alums, and the professor even presented an introductory lecture during family weekend.) But I also acknowledge my view on education tends to be broader than many parents. From what I have read on CC over the years, many posters consider my field one of the more useless majors anyway.
