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If you ever need to strike up a conversation with a group of academics, a surefire way to get them talking is to ask about their graduate training. Where did they train, in what methods, in which lab, under what mentor? People will speak with great pride about their training as an economist, historian, chemist, philosopher, or classicist. If, on the other hand, you need to make a quick exit, try sharing the opinion that undergraduate education should include a lot more vocational training. You'll soon find yourself standing alone or responding to accusations of classism and questions about your commitment to social and racial equality. You might even hear that "training is for dogs," a common refrain in higher education that carries the unpleasant implication that skills-based education is the equivalent of teaching students to sit, stay, and shake hands.
For reasons that are not entirely clear, in the United States training is widely understood to be the end, not the beginning, of an educational journey that leads to a particular job or career. Undergraduates are supposed to get a general education that will prepare them for training, which they will presumably get once they land a job or go to graduate school. Any training that happens before then just doesn't count.
It is because of this belief that general-education requirements are the center of the bachelor's degree and are concentrated in the first two years of a four-year program. The general-education core is what distinguishes the B.A. from a vocational program and makes it more than "just training." It is designed to ensure that all degree holders graduate with a breadth of knowledge in addition to an in-depth understanding of a particular subject area. Students are exposed to a broad range of disciplines and are pushed to think critically about the social, cultural, and historical context in which they live. It is supposed to guarantee that all graduates can write, have a basic understanding of the scientific method, have heard of the Marshall Plan and Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and know that iambic pentameter has something to do with poetry.
While few would challenge the importance of general education, both to students and to a well-functioning democracy, there is good reason to question why it has to come at the beginning of a B.A.—and just how general and theoretical it needs to be. The pyramid structure of the bachelor's degree, which requires that students start with the broad base of general requirements before they specialize, is what makes college unappealing to so many young people.
It doesn't have to be this way. There is no iron law of learning dictating that students must master general theories or be fully versed in a particular historical or cultural context before learning how to do things. Some students will do well under this approach, but there is solid evidence that some students learn better through experience. For these students, theory does not make sense until it is connected to action. Putting a lot of general or theoretical courses on the front end just leaves them disengaged or, even worse, discouraged. They will do better if they start by learning how to master certain tasks or behaviors and then explore the more abstract concepts behind the actions.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 16 2017, @03:07PM (3 children)
otherwise they make poor citizens in a democracy
Considering that the majority of US citizens will not complete a college degree, it seems that general education during college is much too late. Also, I wouldn't assume that general education requirements are actually sufficient to produce adequate "citizens in a democracy".
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday March 16 2017, @05:14PM (2 children)
They might not be quite sufficient, but they're a lot better than doing nothing at all. Yes, it is a little bit too late, but not that much (most college students start at age ~18, right when they start voting). It is a bit of a Band-Aid for our horrible public education system in high school, but there's not much that can be done about that because that's up to local control; we tried some stuff at the Federal level with NCLB and Common Core and look where that got us. So, the best we can really do is try to push state college as a way to make up for our lousy secondary school systems and try to get kids of up speed there; I know personally my knowledge and ability to think critically was massively improved by the college experience, and most of it was really in those first 2 years of general-ed classes.
Personally, I think it'd help to break up the high schools and follow the German model, where kids are split apart into separate schools based on their scholastic abilities. Having the dumb troublemakers sharing space with the college-bound and AP students doesn't work.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday March 16 2017, @11:07PM (1 child)
I take it you were in school back when they tolerated free speech and dissenting viewpoints, and encouraged healthy debate and shunned professional victimhood?
Fortunately, I was too until the last year or so, when I did my internship. We were required to do a community-service themed internship (shit like building websites for charities, or teaching tech to poor minorities like I did), which was also an opportunity to have the bullshit concepts of White Privilege and Social Justice down our throats.
The most infuriating part was having to read a piece about White Privilege written by a Harvard-educated Jew who'd more likely than not never experienced poverty or other hardship (as I did through much of my childhood and some of my adulthood) or even set foot outside her gated community*. Then there was the reading about Blacks in Silicon Valley, and I pointed out in a discussion that it was only about exploiting Blacks' ideas to sell more shit to more people rather than being about true diversity. Indeed, Blacks are still severely underrepresented in Tech and the few who are there are mostly tokens to look good for the camera.
Unlike others here, I'm not one of those elitists who looks down on those who choose to study art, or social sciences, or any other non-STEM field -- even if they are mostly liberals -- I think we need good teachers and scholars in those fields. The problem is that American education, thanks to their anti-dissent stances and professional victimhood they've adopted, is preventing both students and instructors alike from exercising true critical-thinking skills required to form their own educated opinions. In short, it's just one righteous circle-jerk and, worst of all, students can be sanctioned for voicing opinions ever-so-slightly outside the party line.
It's ironic that the students fought for free speech at Berkeley decades ago, now they fight against it, with faculty egging them on. Those fuckers need to be pulled out by the roots. Federal funding should be withheld from any university which does not tolerate free speech or fosters intimidation of those who express alternative viewpoints.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 17 2017, @03:08PM
Its OK EF, soylentnews provides you a "safe space" so you can stop whining so much.