So How's That Open Curriculum going

mpnsoft
Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:37:44 +0000

Maybe this is a dumb question, but given that your daughters have wide-ranging interests (good for them) and have (or will) take courses in a variety of departments (again, good for them) – then why was the open curriculum a priority ?

Or to put it another way: what is the downside of schools with distribution requirements, if your course selection will be broad enough to fufill distribution requirements anyway ?



Ideally, you’d have to ask them that. But, especially with the younger one, she was willing to make other sacrifices to attend an “open curriculum” school.
If I had to sum it up on their behalf, I’d guess they wanted to maximize their control in order to take what they wanted when they wanted with the widest possible degree of freedom… but that doesn’t necessarily mean they believe distribution requirements are inherently “bad.” They simply chose the option of being free of such constraints. I know my oldest daughter will graduate Brown wishing she’d had time to take other courses that interested her. Imagine how she might feel if she’d missed an opportunity to take a class she coveted in order to fulfill someone else’s concept of what she needed to learn…