<p>"The goal of education is to genuinely enrich people, not to make them merely appear enriched. By trying to manufacture Frankenstudents, we are distorting and cheapening a process that should allow people to experiment, question, take risks, stumble, and occasionally fail. We need to give people permission to spend time doing things that are not quantifiable and don’t show up on a r</p>
<p>I see this all the time in high school and it annoys me greatly. Appeasing anxious parents has become a part of our school district (an upper middle class suburb), which I believe has led to grade inflation simply due to the amount of students in weighted honors and AP classes. Additionally, the PSAT prep classes are pretty popular here. I really wonder how many students in prep classes actually made it to the NMSF level. It makes me wonder if actually learning even matters in high school anymore or if high school has just become prep for college. I’m certainly leaning towards the latter.</p>
<p>“I really wonder how many students in prep classes actually made it to the NMSF level.”</p>
<p>Few of the people I know who took the prep classes were shooting to make NMSF. They just wanted to have scores good enough to go to an in-state flagship, which is not on the list of schools that most CC members would consider first tier.</p>
<p>I don’t see anything wrong with high school being “just” a prep for college if that preparation is thorough, broad and at an appropriate level intellectually (meaning: few mics.)</p>
<p>“Few of the people I know who took the prep classes were shooting to make NMSF. They just wanted to have scores good enough to go to an in-state flagship, which is not on the list of schools that most CC members would consider first tier.”</p>
<p>Are you talking about SAT or PSAT prep classes? I was referring to the latter. I’m not sure what the motivation for PSAT prep classes was over here, and I don’t really know how well the students who took them scored. I find them to be a waste of money (and I got nowhere near the NMSF cut-off for my state) and that money could be better spent on SAT prep classes.</p>
<p>“I don’t see anything wrong with high school being “just” a prep for college if that preparation is thorough, broad and at an appropriate level intellectually (meaning: few mics.)”</p>
<p>I do think college prep should play a part of the high school curriculum, especially in places where most students go to college. The problem is that often getting an actual education is sacrificed for the sake of looking good for colleges. Memorizing something one day and forgetting it the next does not help students very much.</p>
<p>“Memorizing something one day and forgetting it the next does not help students very much.” </p>
<p>– That can be said of college education as well. </p>
<p>Compared to many industrialized countries, the high school scene in the US is actually quite sane, and there is less emphasis here on route memorization, and more on character development and on being a well-rounded person.</p>
<p>Nobody is forced to participate in a college prep curriculum. Nobody is forced to apply to college,but if you want to, it would be wise to have an understanding of the criteria colleges use to conduct admissions. Practicing for a PSAT can lead to higher scores. Some state universities use these scores to determine scholarship elligibility.</p>
<p>If parents are aware of these facts, why would anyone condemn them for sharing the information with their college bound children?</p>
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<p>And therein lies the problem… are you going to be the first one to say, “skip that community service and lay in the grass and look at the sky to daydream the day away”?
I agree with the premise completely. I also see the dichotomy.</p>
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<p>In college, therein lies the problem. In a knowledge economy, we need specialists. College is geared towards training generalists that are mediocre at everything but good at nothing. Stop focusing on “well-rounded” and start focusing on “specialization”. Average salaries will go up because specialists are less replaceable, more jobs will be created because the employees are specialists (and can’t realistically be cross-utilized), and we’ll all be better off.</p>
<p>As far as not taking classes we know nothing about goes, please, spare me. That will never happen until GPA is no longer used as a metric for law/med/grad school admissions or for jobs. If I know I’m good at something I’ll take that class. Every time I took a class that I knew nothing about, it ended badly. Path of least resistance.</p>
<p>I think you’re naive to think that specialists are less replaceable. I work for a large Fortune 250 company that’s gotten even larger thanks to getting rid of specialists and replacing them with cheaper overseas labor with H1B visas. After 3 years, they replace the replacements with a new batch of still-cheaper H1B visa holders. Meantime I, a lowly generalist with a humanities degree, am still here. Yes, it’s ironic. </p>
<p>Also, most analysts predict that in the future people will be changing not just jobs – but careers. Which is an excellent argument for a broad undergraduate education.</p>
<p>I have a friend who won’t let her son read Harry Potter because it’s “pop literature.” He’s only allowed to read the classics. I feel sorry for him.</p>
<p>An economy of specialists can be very harmful if that economy is evolving constantly. Structural unemployment is a necessary part of economic growth, after all.</p>
<p>But I do think the focus on liberal arts education is overstated. My engineering friends are no less well rounded compared to my arts & science friends.</p>
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<p>Now that’s pathetic.</p>
<p>Katliamom-that’s my point. This country’s universities do a pretty **** poor job of producing specialists. In Europe, Asia and just about everywhere else, you don’t apply to go to college. You also have to choose what you want to specialize in. You’re already a specialist coming out of college. Compare this with an American college grad who only takes 40 credits for their major. In terms of knowledge, foreign college grads have the equivalent of an MA in their major. No wonder American specialists are getting laid off :rolleyes:</p>
<p>The whole “liberal arts” education schtick is completely overrated. Everyone specializes anyways (they choose 2 or 3 specialties-too bad majors only scratch the surface). Except in America we waste a year or more ****ing around killing brain cells “learning” crap we won’t remember past the end of the final exam anyway.</p>
<p>I think frankly the core curriculum is a) revenue protection for universities, and b) an excuse not to fire well-connected professors in unpopular departments and/or incompetent professors. If you’ve ever been to a general education class these days, you’ll notice that it’s a complete joke. The students that want to learn the material are getting held back by the majority of the rest, who simply don’t care and aren’t interested. Why not get rid of the core curriculum (which is a total joke and completely useless anyway) and let students only take classes they’re interested in? They’ll all be better off.</p>
<p>“In terms of knowledge, foreign college grads have the equivalent of an MA in their major”</p>
<p>– sorry, not true</p>
<p>“No wonder American specialists are getting laid off” – as are foreign specialists. See my post #10 </p>
<p>If you think you’re “wasting” time in college with “overrated” general requirements classes – you either don’t belong in college, or are attending the wrong one.</p>
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<p>That’s what everyone with a philosophy degree says, because they can’t get jobs outside of academia. For 99% of the students out there gen ed is a joke and a complete waste of time. Most people already have a good idea what they want to study, and won’t change their minds because of some class that was crammed down their throat. You have random knowledge crammed down your throat, only to regurgitate it during your final exam and then you never remember it after that. Please tell me how reading the works of some dead white guy who is supposedly “relevant” in the literary world is going to help me become a better corporate lawyer? And don’t give me that “it helps you become a better person” crap. It’s getting old. When I hear it, frankly I think “ok so you must not have an answer.”</p>
<p>How bout giving everyone a choice? After all, this country is about the freedom to do what you want without interference. Or supposed to be. Let people who want a specialized education specialize, while letting people who want to do the whole “liberal arts” schtick do that too. Frankly I think the core curriculum should be abolished. As I’ve said, it only serves as revenue protection for universities. And by skipping it we get to save a year’s tuition.</p>
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<p>So you’re saying that colleges should discount everyone a year’s tuition? What are, you some kind of communist?</p>
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<p>No. A child of middle class parents and a part of ANOTHER generation of students the education-industrial complex has failed. And someone who need, you know, a real job at the end of college/law school to pay for the basic necessities of life.</p>
<p>And btw, I’m graduating in three years precisely because I feel that a fourth year in college will be a waste of time. Better off putting that towards law school where I might possibly learn some relevant skills to my career in corporate law (chances are slim, but some schools do have strong clinical programs where student actually learn to, you know, practice law, under the close supervision of you know, lawyers-or clinical professors).</p>
<p>There is no way in hell a college education is worth $200k. I should have bit the bullet, gone to a lesser school, and become an accounting major. For some reason, I have an affinity to that subject.</p>
<p>I don’t understand your beef. There are plenty schools for people who want to study specific fields without the “waste of time” of general requirements. </p>
<p>They’re called vocational schools. They’re nationwide, convenient and they don’t cost $200K</p>
<p>Vocational schools don’t confer BAs which is required to get into law schools that confer JDs which is required to sit for the bar exam which I’m required to pass to acquire a license to practice law.</p>
<p>Vocational schools also don’t lead to white collar jobs.</p>
<p>My beef is that colleges cost $200k and the gen ed is basically full of hot air, and $50k of it goes towards wasting time learning to blow smoke. My beef is that my parents worked their asses off to pay $50k’s worth of tuition on a core curriculum that put my acquisition of specialized knowledge on hold. My beef is with the core curriculum. Many students smart enough to get into college can design their own tailored curriculum. Students who want a specialized curriculum right away is free to do so. Students who want a broad-based curriculum is also free to do so. Currently, most colleges don’t offer that choice-I guess that’s in line with the whole liberal “we know what’s best for you so bend over” spiel. No, you don’t know what’s best for me so leave me alone and stop cramming courses I don’t want to take down my throat.</p>
<p>Gen ed holds students who know what they want to do back, while not being particularly effective in educating the students who don’t, because the former who’s having the courses crammed down their throats don’t care. So they hold everyone back. Abolish gen ed and we’ll see what the students really want.</p>
<p>I’m ending this discussion because you are illogical and underinformed. Probably lack of those pesky general ed requirements 
If you make it to law school, expect to find yourself in a world of hurt.</p>