Academically Unbalanced

Parents Forum
1

<p>All my life, I've been far more interested in and much better at the verbal spectrum of school. I'm much more skilled in writing than math, literature than algebra. I'm fairly certain to major in English or Humanities, or some such thing. But now I'm wondering if I should branch out in college. I'm wondering if it would be better for me to fill electives with more variety than English/Literature classes. At the same time, though, I'm afraid I would miss out on building my skills. I'm not sure what I would most regret.</p>

<p>Here's my question: Do you think that an LAC student should go for depth or breadth? Should they follow their passions or sample other fields?</p>

2

<p>I think students should attend schools that have distribution requirements that include other disciplines than their major.
They will be going for depth and breadth. Depth in their major, but breadth in that they are taking courses that they wouldn't normally.
This is what the princeton review says about the distribution rec at Reed college

[quote]

The curriculum at Reed is both demanding and wide-ranging. Through required studies, Reed students receive a solid grounding in the liberal arts and sciences. All freshmen must complete "Hum 110," a survey of Greek and Roman scholars from Homer to St. Augustine, in order to acquaint themselves with the foundations of western culture. The course entails both weekly lecture classes and small discussion groups of fewer than 20 students. Professors utilize the Socratic method to direct the all-important student discussions at the core of the Hum 110 experience.</p>

<p>Distribution requirements set a substantial portion of a student's curriculum for the first two years at Reed. Freshmen and sophomores must complete a year-long course in each of the four major divisions of the College. No specific courses are required; students are free to pursue their interests within the strictures of the requirements, which force many to broaden their intellectual purviews.</p>

<p>Reed juniors must pass a comprehensive exam in their major; the purpose of the exam is to allow faculty members the chance to determine the student's readiness for his or her senior thesis project.</p>

<p>The required senior thesis is the capstone experience of a Reed education. Every senior must produce an original independent research project over the course of the final year. The project may be creative, critical, or experimental in nature. Students typically spend the first half of the year researching their subject, then spend the second half of the year shaping their work into a finished written product. The thesis process is completed when the student successfully defends his or her thesis before a faculty panel.

[/quote]
</p>

3

<p>At my college everyone has to take the following:</p>

<p>English Compisition
Writing about Literature
Human Communication
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving (or higher math course)
Information Literacy</p>

<p>and then you have to take </p>

<p>2 Credit's of Physical Education Courses
6 Credit's of Arts/Humanities
6 Credits of Social and Behavioral Sciences
6-8 Credits of Laboratory Sciences
6 Credits of History
6 Credits of Foreign Language</p>

<p>You can choose any courses you want that fall under those categories and they are in addition to your major.</p>

<p>Then, every major has a "core" group of courses for the department, and then another set of courses for the major itself, and then of course free elective courses at the end. Some majors have senior thesis projects - mine does not, however we have two 100+ page papers to do during the last semester of our senior year, as well as a comprehensive examination. Many people use their free electives to work on completing a minor or two.</p>

4

<p>Scripps also has general requirments, but their Core is especially interdisciplinary. What I'm actually wondering about is classes beyond the basic requirements, such as electives. If I chose English as my major, should I fill up those elective slots with courses in other areas, or polish my talents in English by taking more literature courses? In other words, speaking hypothetically, should I take a class in political science because I might be interested in it and because I might enjoy it, or should I take and English class because I know I'm interested in it and I know I probably would enjoy it. </p>

<p>Should a LAC graduate know a little bit about everything or a lot about one thing?</p>

5

<p>well you'll already know a lot about 1 thing: English. Use your electives for things that interest you, but maybe you haven't tried before</p>

6

<p>If you only had enough time... Choose classes because you're curious about the subject, regardless of discipline. Become an educated person, knowledgable in many areas, with a degree of expertise in the one you eventually major in. For instance, you may not enjoy pure math or science, so look instead into an introductory statistics course (similar to AP Stats offered in high school). It will help you interpret information as technology floods our real lives with data. Remember, you are acquiring education for life, to add to your talents in English/Humanities. Have a great time at Scripps. A friend's D is a sophomore there and has been extremely happy with her academic and social experiences.</p>

7

<p>Maize & Blue's suggestion for taking a stats course given your specific "imbalance" is a great idea. If the numbers in stats scare you too much, you might try taking a logic course in philosophy which would give you a very different viewpoint from literary analysis but not be mathematical in nature.</p>

8

<p>Emeraldkity wrote: "I think students should attend schools that have distribution requirements that include other disciplines than their major.
They will be going for depth and breadth. Depth in their major, but breadth in that they are taking courses that they wouldn't normally."</p>

<p>I wholeheartedly endorse this point of view. College is a time to expand your horizons. In my own case, 30 years later I still read Shakespeare and frequent museums, but college was the only chance I had to actually study astronomy, anthropology, Latin, economics. Try something new, something hard, something you know nothing about. Take some chances (and accept the collorary that you may not excel, it's okay!). </p>

<p>Life continues after college. Believe me, knowing something about a lot of subjects will stand you in good stead in whatever field you choose as your life's work and make you a good dinner party guest as well. Go for the variety.</p>

9

<p>The concept of a liberal arts education has been summed up this way: to know a little about several areas and to know a lot in one area. </p>

<p>Besides the distribution requirements and the requirements of your major, you might be interested in taking courses in anthropology (where there are sometimes courses on gender, writing ethnography, etc...) film studies, history, social theory, and other majors that are writing-heavy. They will enrich your perspective on literature. And who knows? You might find that you enjoy a different discipline than English lit!</p>

10

<p>Thank you all for the wonderful advice. Just what I was looking for.</p>

<p>Marite, I'm already exploring those courses at our local community college. I was disappointed in the anthropology class, but I think that was more due to the professor than the subject material. Film studies sounds very interesting-I'd been thinking about it but had forgotten. Thanks for the perceptive suggestions. </p>

<p>Maize and mol, my interviewer reccomended a statistics class to fill the math requirement. I enjoy debate, so logic classes are already must for me.</p>

<p>Another question: What do you think of minors/or double majors?</p>

11

<p>Another discipline that is invaluable for understanding world literature is religion. No way can you appreciate the symbols and allusions in Milton, Shakespeare, Dickens, Conrad, Joyce, Faulkner and on up to David Foster Wallace (and many, many others) without a fundamental understanding of the Bible and Judeo/Christian theology.</p>

12

<p>"Another question: What do you think of minors/or double majors?"</p>

<p>If you have a couple of strong interest areas, this is a great idea to do to satisfy yourself (so many do it only to look good for grad school). My S did a double major with history and poli sci. He had deep interest in both and there was a lot of cross-over with course requirements. He also was at a large university so just taking the course work was enough to fulfill the requirements. Most LAC's (my daughter is at one) have thesis requirements to complete a major, so a double major means two of them! Don't know Scripps' policy on this. A minor would be more reasonable under this circumstance.</p>

13

<p>I used my art distribution requirements and my electives to complete minors in Visual Communications, Photography, and Fine Arts. It was really great - I was taking upper level art courses without the stress of senior thesis projects and whatnot.</p>

14

<p>Yes, Scripps has a thesis requirement for a major, so doing a double major would be rather difficult. However, it does allow self-designed majors, so I could be flexible. </p>

<p>Do you know how grad schools view minors? How about in future career possibilites?</p>

15

<p>Momrath: Yes, absolutely. I hadn't thought of that. Luckily, my dad is a theology/history buff, so I do have some foundation in those areas. </p>

<p>To be honest, I'm wondering how religious classes are handled in a college. Are they often taught by a professor who is of that religion? I would expect that they are often handled from an expert but outside view. Or would that depend on the professor. But I suppose that they are just like any other class that has to do with opinions. Are they balanced in their coverage of issues or merely based on the prof's point of view, in general?</p>

16

<p>I imagine tanstaafl, to answer your question would really depnd on the course and the college.Here is an article from the alumni magazine at my daughters college that highlights a few religion majors.
<a href="http://web.reed.edu/reed_magazine/may2004/features/islam_law_of_land/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.reed.edu/reed_magazine/may2004/features/islam_law_of_land/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

17

<p>At the LACs where I've worked, the overall philosophy was that students at LACs learn how to think critically, regardless of the subject. A student has the opportunity to take classes in so many diverse subjects and then to focus on just a small "piece of the pie" for the major. I regret not taking advantage of so many interesting courses when I was an undergrad and appreciate having had to take distribution courses b/c I continue to apply the knowledge that I gained from astronomy and philosophy classes. In essence, go for both breadth and depth.</p>

18

<p>In general, depth is more what you expect to gain from graduate school and breadth during the BA phase is a basis for greater fllexibilty later on. Any student should seek enough breadth to put his/her major in perspective but students differ-some may be more inclined to dig deeper earlier--these are usually the types clearly headed for Ph.D. programs later on or dedicated theater/music/ art majors. Those who seem inclined to finish their formal education with the BA should take a broad mix of courses to be prepared for an ever-changing job market.</p>

19

<p>Liberal arts = breadth (imho). :)</p>

20

<p>First off, the Scripps general ed requirements are called "breadth of study" requirements. Their whole purpose is to remedy exactly your worries :-) You will be required to take one course in math (can also be fulfilled by stats, logic, or by testing into Calc 1), 3 in foreign language (can be fulfilled by testing out or scoring high enough on SAT2s in foreign language), and at least 1 each in social science, women's studies, race and cultural studies, lab science, fine arts, letters (philosophy, religious studies, literature), plus the other requirements (writing and 3 semesters of CORE). One of my complaints is the abundance of GEs on top of degree requirements. I happen to be in a situation where I have ridiculous major/minor requirements, so I feel this rather strongly, but I have little time for true electives. The breadth of study requirements are simultaneously blessing and curse...they force me (in a positive way) to take electives outside of my degree area, and I'm glad I get to do this, but some of those areas I'd like to take more than one course, while I'm TRULY uninterested in others, and there's not a lot of flexibility there. I'm just working on getting reqs out of the way now, so I might feel better about this in the future :-)</p>

<p>Also, you can either double or dual major. Double requires two theses (depending on the degrees, these could be different semesters, or different types of theses. Dance, art, and psych, for example, all have different sorts of theses, not just straight research). Dual majors do a combined thesis, and while you could have to get pretty creative, it's a possibility (I know someone who did a dual neuroscience/music major and managed to write a thesis using both). Many people also choose to take one of their interests and use it as a minor (thesis-free!). </p>

<p>I guess the nice thing about all these requirements is that we do get, to an extent, both breadth and depth. Breadth of general study, depth of degree. Scripps in general is pretty interdisciplinary, which helps in both of these areas (classes that would normally be viewed as increasing breadth of study can also contribute to depth, and vice versa).</p>

<p>I'm focusing on Scripps because, if I'm not mistaken, I believe that's where you'll be going. Hopefully I'm right and this was of some benefit!</p>

<p>There's also always the option of auditing a course, so that if you're not sure you'd do well in it and don't want to mess up your GPA, but think you should be exposed to it, you can check it out. Or if there's a course in an area of interest that you want to take, but don't really have time for the added work on top of all your other courses, you could audit it. It's a nice option.</p>