Now that I’m narrowing down my college decision, I’m starting to take a deeper dive into the granular details of each school. I’ve found that UA’s Gen Ed requirement seems rather excessive. UA requires roughly 54 general education credits as opposed to the roughly 36 found at most other schools. This equates to 6 fewer major-related courses. In fact, UA has just voted to revise their requirements to be more in line with other schools, but this will not take effect until the Class of '25 matriculates.
Does anyone see this as an issue or am I overthinking things?
You did some prudent research. My older D is struggling with a GE math class and she will likely have to take it again in the summer in order to graduate. If you have more classes that are not as interesting to you, that is also not good.
My kid was an engineering major at a college where there was a significant core course requirement. She really liked those core courses a lot because they broke up the math, science and other engineering related courses. She felt these courses gave her the significant chance to take things outside of her major…and she liked that.
It’s an interested general point while selecting a school. My child picked a school with approx 42 credit core requirement plus fluency in a foreign language. The requirements are across a broad range of subjects. Since my kid doesn’t know yet what she wants to major in she thinks it’s great that she has two years to explore and then decide a major.
Do you have APs? My son is in engineering. Very structured. No issue completing all and getting in electives. He’s doing a minor and could have done a second major. But he came in with a lot of APs.
Looking back it should have been consideration although I’m not sure my kids would have changed because of it - my daughter complains about hers (different school) - so it’s fair to balance with other things such as cost and fit - ie no matter the academic requirements you still want to go to a place that feels ‘right.’ You can find GEs you love. And of course no matter where you are, you might find some you don’t (for my daughter it’s math and science).
In looking over my own D23’s college choices, I actually went the OTHER way - colleges that seek to minimize the general education curriculum, to me, belong on the bottom of the list.
No AP’s for me. Engineering has its own set of GE’s which are minimal compared to non-Engineering. I’ve switched my major to Finance. I originally chose engineering (civil) for all the wrong reasons.
While taking interesting classes may be fun and make me more worldly (they may also suck :), I’m investing four years of time, effort and money into readying myself for a specific career. At UA, almost 50% of my college classes would make me better at Jeopardy, but may not really prepare me for my career.
Just have to figure out what makes the most sense for me.
Agreed but engineering has 60+ if I counted right.
Best of luck whatever you decide. Just realize most schools you’ll need to take many GE and with no APs you’ll need four years short of some schools that have 3 year degrees thanks to maymester, summer and winter etc
Manderson is a solid b school with fine outcomes. Great internship success. Take advantage (if you stay) and you’ll get through like the others that do.
If you haven’t already, look at the curriculum flow for your specific major. For example, with the exception of the 18credits of humanities/ social sciences for engineering all the other core requirements are covered by engineering classes. This may be the same for your major.
Alabama is very generous with their CLEP credits. This is an easy and free way to get some of these core classes out of the way. Use MODERN STATES to prep and get a free voucher. Google Univ Alabama Transfer Equivalency to see how easy it is to plug these classes in. Best of luck.