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<p>This made me spray water all over my keyboard. Thanks :p</p>
<h1>94 :);):)</h1>
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<p>Here is an example – to satisfy the “American Cultures” requirement, a student might have to take American Studies 132: American Art and Culture, 1528-1910 :“The visual arts and literature of the U.S. from the beginnings of European exploration to the Civil War. Focus is on questions of power and its relation to culture from early Spanish exploration to the rise of the middle classes. Cabeza de Vaca, Benjamin Franklin, John Singleton Copley, Phillis Wheatley, Charles Willson Peale, Emerson, Hudson River School, American Genre painters, Melville, Hawthorne and others.”</p>
<p>Imagine having Ben Franklin and the Hudson River School pushed down your throat.</p>
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<p>Maybe Californiaa prefers Macs running OSX Mavericks. :D</p>
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<p>There are some groups who feel Ben Franklin is a potential “corrupter of youth” due to some publications of his such as “Fart Proudly”. Admittedly, they are exceedingly fringe groups. </p>
<p><a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fart_Proudly[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fart_Proudly</a></p>
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Actually if you read what you quoted a little more carefully, I believe you only need to cover two of the four areas, so if gender studies is not your cup of tea, you can choose one of the other areas. I had zippo interest in gender studies when I was in college, but the women’s history course I took, which was agenda-free IMO, was one of the best I took in college. </p>
<p>But colleges can make students take whatever they value. If you go to Georgetown you have to take a theology course. (Though my son was rather relieved to discover the variety of courses that were in the theology department - one was on existentialism during the Fifth Republic in France.) Tufts has a much more onerous language and world culture requirement than most schools. Chicago has a core curriculum. If you want to just study STEM, you’d probably be better off looking at universities overseas.</p>
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The solution is to send D to Brown, which has no required courses.</p>
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<p>That’s ironic considering Brown’s has probably the most PC campus culture of all the Ivies from what I’ve heard from alums who attended. </p>
<p>Several classmates who’ve visited both my LAC and Brown or who went to Brown for grad school have remarked at the similarities between the two campuses cultures.</p>
<p>Brown requires writing courses and a concentration (major), although it has no general education requirements.</p>
<p>Evergreen State has no degree requirements for a BA degree other than completion of 180 quarter units of college courses. [Degree</a> Requirements at Evergreen](<a href=“http://www.evergreen.edu/advising/degrees.htm]Degree”>Degree Requirements | The Evergreen State College) However, it may not be the right environment for someone who thinks of Brown as being too leftish or something like that.</p>
<p>So, Californiaa, at what point, exactly, does the study of English become your dreaded Humanities? Can you study Shakespeare <em>only if</em> you do not touch on his treatment of class (Twelfth Night is a quick example), his treatment of religion (Measure for Measure, or Merchant of Venice), of women (Taming of the Shrew), of homosexuality (his sonnets, some of which are written to a man, some to a woman)? My mother, who attended a Catholic high school, used to tell the story of her nun/teacher, who in teaching Hamlet’s famous soliloquy had to argue that “to be or not to be” was not a contemplation of suicide, because Hamlet was a hero, and heroes weren’t guilty of mortal sin. Is the study of great literature and history valid only if they are taught in accordance with your own world view? </p>
<p>Are some proponents of particular ideas prone to overstatement? Why, yes, it appears we have excellent proof right here. But merely because an idea is proposed for class discussion does not mean it is required of the students to espouse or even to regurgitate it. I will warrant you that I have attended a great many more Humanities courses than you have done, and I have never, ever found a professor to be so wedded to her own point of view that she did not entertain an opposing one. The only professor, in fact, I ever found really close-minded was my American Lit prof in grad school at UVA, who insisted that the only woman in pre-20th century amlit worth reading was Emily Dickinson. And when I wrote a paper on Harriet Beecher Stowe, he didn’t mark me down for it, but merely made dismissive comments about “popular” writing. Old farts are old farts, but they are not necessarily ideologues.</p>
<p>In short, your arguments are anecdotally-based, overstated, unsubstantiated, and unworthy of a scientist–or a student of the humanities.</p>
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Note that students meet the EFC requirement by taking 2 courses in areas of their choice, among the 4 options you listed. Students do not need to take a class in sexual identity and/or gender studies, if they do not want to. For example, a CS major might choose to meet the EFC requirement by taking Computers, Ethics, and Public Policy; and Growing Up in America. There are hundreds of classes to choose from, so I’d expect most students to be able to find something that interests them.</p>
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<p>From the title, it could also be Shakespeare’s remarkable anticipation of dietary and biochemical ethics. :D</p>
<p>There’s a grain of truth to what you say, californiaa, in that obviously, it is easier to bring a political agenda to a study of literary texts than it is to bring a political agenda to a study of chemistry, and doubtless some do. But you’re arguing against a straw man here. Most humanities professors are not turning their courses into liberal political screeds, unless your definition of “liberal” or “progressive” involves things like “acknowledging that the US has a dismal history of racism.” </p>
<p>English departments sometimes get preoccupied with identity politics in a way that I don’t think is productive. Looking at every text exclusively through the lens of race, class and gender is reductive. But if you dismiss all of this kind of analysis as liberalism run amok, the problem isn’t with the humanities, the problem is with you. Refusing to engage with these types of problems is as silly as ONLY engaging with them. </p>
<p>I don’t love Stanford’s requirements, which seem to privilege a certain type of humanistic inquiry over another. Studying a diverse group of authors is important - but if you’re not going to be majoring in the humanities, you’re going to be cherry-picking in any case, and I see no reason why a student shouldn’t be free spend his two literature courses on the Victorian novel and Shakespeare rather than feeling pressure to take courses that fulfill a diversity requirement. I also think these kinds of requirements sometimes have the effect of ensuring that a lot of students make it through college without ever getting meaningful exposure to any type of canon. There is such a rich tradition of African American literature that if you’re just going to take one course, taking African-American lit strikes me as no narrower than taking Renaissance Poetry. But if your only lit course is Gender and the Novel, or Queer Theory, or Asian-American Literature, I think there’s a problem. Not that ethnic or gender studies are the only courses I have that reservation about, but the focus on them can compound the problem. </p>
<p>But, californiaa, your problem is obviously a lot broader than that. I’m genuinely curious - do you think all study of minority literatures, or gender/race/class/sexuality in literature constitutes political indoctrination?</p>
<p>Well, FWIW, my social science gen ed (sociology) verged on the border of humanities, just as my current linguistic “science” gen ed verges on the border of math. </p>
<p>In sociology, my prof studied women along with sexual intercourse, and she used to tell us all about her research and explain how it impacts society. </p>
<p>It made me feel a bit uncomfortable, but in the end, it was my choice. I could’ve chosen econ as a safer social science. </p>
<p>Ultimately, everyone’s got a choice, and while some courses might be more humanities-focused, you can always pick one that won’t be.</p>
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<p>There’s a curious empirical claim embedded in this statement–the claim that students don’t “respect” humanities and social science classes. This just seems flatly false to me. There are minimal social science and humanities requirements at most schools, just as there are minimal math and science requirements. A few STEM-oriented students may dislike their required humanities and social science classes, just as a few social science and humanities-oriented students may dislike their required math and science classes. </p>
<p>But no one forces any student to major in any social science or humanities discipline, yet at most colleges and universities, social sciences like Economics and Political Science and humanities like History and English are perennially among the most popular majors. </p>
<p>Or take a pure case like Brown, which has an “open curriculum”: students are free to study computer science and other STEM disciplines without ever setting foot in a social science or humanities class if they prefer. (Their faculty advisers will tell them this is a bad idea because they are blowing the opportunity to get a much broader and richer education, but no one will deter them if they’re determined). Yet 25% of Brown students major in social sciences (excluding psychology); another 4% major in psychology; 5% in area, ethnic, and gender studies. Another 6% major in visual and performing arts; 6% in English; 4% in history; 2% in philosophy. Only 29% of Brown students major in all STEM fields combined; the other 71% pursue non-STEM majors. Again, no one’s holding a gun to their heads; they’re free to study whatever they want, and at Brown they choose social sciences and humanities by an overwhelming margin. </p>
<p>Similar pattern at Harvard: 35% major in social sciences (excluding psychology), another 6% in psychology; only 29% of Harvard undergrads major in STEM fields. At Yale only 24% pursue STEM fields. Princeton’s a little more STEM-my, though STEM majors are still a distinct minority; 37% pursue stem majors. Stanford is even more STEM-oriented, but even there, only a minority (44%) of students pursue STEM majors.</p>
<p>I find it implausible that humanities and social science professors and their subject matter are held in such disdain as californiaaa suggests, given that so many students elect not only to take a few classes, but to make humanities and/or social sciences their major field of study.</p>
<p>No, I suspect that what’s going on here is that californiaaa is so virulently anti-feminist that she is prepared to flush away a good 2/3 of human intellectual endeavor along with her hatred for feminism. Study of the humanities is as old as the idea of the university itself; older, in fact, because the philosophical and literary writings of the ancients and scholarship on religious texts were handed down through monastic and scholastic traditions, through Islamic scholarship, and in a separate tradition by the Mandarin elites in China for centuries before the first universities emerged in medieval Europe. And most of its is distinctly non-ideological, as it always has been. </p>
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<p>The analogy is bizarre and nonsensical, displaying a lack of skills in critical thinking and reasoned argument. No, I don’t think there’s a “fallacy.” Critical thinking is something that most people don’t do well if left entirely to their own devices. But critical thinking skills can be developed though practice, modeling, and critical feedback. I think the only reason someone would avoid that is intellectual insecurity–perhaps coupled with the fear that critical thinking might lead one to abandon beliefs that are cherished on religious or cultural grounds. And I don’t think critical thinking itself has an ideological tilt; some of the people whose critical thinking skills I most admire are people with whom I disagree most strongly on matters that could be deemed “ideological,” e.g., religion, philosophy, politics, economics. And some of the professors I learned the most from back in my own student days were also people I disagreed with; jousting with them didn’t cause me to convert to their way of thinking, but it forced me to sharpen my own analyses and arguments, and to find the hidden assumptions and weak points in theirs.</p>
<p>BTW, “to be or not to be” is not a contemplation of suicide, IMHO. Your nun may have an interesting point of view.</p>
<p>"Can you study Shakespeare <em>only if</em> you do not touch on his treatment of class (Twelfth Night is a quick example), his treatment of religion (Measure for Measure, or Merchant of Venice), of women (Taming of the Shrew), of homosexuality (his sonnets, some of which are written to a man, some to a woman)? "</p>
<p>Can you see something else in Shakespeare than class / gender / race / anti-Semitism / homosexuality? Any other themes? Also students are never engaged in honest discussion, if they are graded and grades are calculated into GPA.</p>
<p>In my D.'s HS all literature is analyzed through the prism of class / gender / race / sexuality. At least, it is free of charge. I am not planning to pay $60,000 per year for college education to continue this madness.</p>
<p>bclintonk ,</p>
<p>There are many students that want to major in Humanities and Social Sciences. I am happy for them. It looks like Humanities and Social Science Profs claim that they don’t have enough students. ("Some 45 percent of the faculty members in Stanford’s main undergraduate division are clustered in the humanities — but only 15 percent of the students. ")</p>
<p>However, some</p>
<p>Some students don’t want to study Humanities and Social Sciences. Yet, colleges push this subjects on them in a form of requirement.</p>
<p>What is wrong with it? Everything. </p>
<p>Why do I feel that it is wrong?
" I think the only reason someone would avoid that is intellectual insecurity–perhaps coupled with the fear that critical thinking might lead one to abandon beliefs that are cherished on religious or cultural grounds. "
No, this is not a reason.</p>
<p>I’ll suggest you to discuss this issue with Russians from the Soviet Union. The were pushed to learn Marxism in college the same way as American kids are pushed to learn Humanities and Social Science required classes.</p>
<p>Gender / race / class / sexuality - are very important and interesting issues to discuss. Unfortunately, most students just learn Profs. views, follow them, and get good grades for it. I think students learn conformity, not critical thinking.</p>
<p>I’m curious: what’s your opinion on students being required to take some sort of math/STEM field course? </p>
<p>Personally, I’ll most likely never use calculus as a French/Writing major, and even though I don’t mind having to take it, I know a lot of my peers feel that they shouldn’t have to, either. Yet we do, as do STEM majors take our kinds of classes.</p>
<p>“Critical thinking is something that most people don’t do well if left entirely to their own devices.”</p>
<p>It may surprise you, but Profs. in Math are better in critical thinking skills than Profs. in English. </p>
<p>I would not mind learning critical thinking in the lab, for example. Why can’t students learn critical thinking in Biology or Physics class?</p>