<p>I'm getting really conflicting opinions on the Chicago core curriculum.</p>
<p>How much validity does the article have in relation to your own experiences?</p>
<p>well...I think the worst part of the core is the "art" requirement...but hey that's just me!</p>
<p>Students at most schools experience a couple of courses they don't like for a variety of reasons. Unless you are a 4th year needing to fulfill core requirements, you can always drop a class. Sign up for 4 courses each semester, which gives you the option of dropping one without scrambling to find another course.</p>
<p>My translation of the article: The author signed up for a class for which he had nothing but contempt in advance because he thought it would be easy. He has no interest in some of the broad areas the faculty has deemed necessary to a liberal arts education. He felt isolated because most of the other people in the class were excited by it and happy to be there. (And do you think a drama kid might have the same experience on the first day of a Game Theory seminar?) He sounds like something of a jerk. Why not acknowledge the woman he knows? Wah-wah-wah.</p>
<p>The Core is not perfect, and given that most if not all of the students who come to Chicago have high hopes for it, some degree of disappointment is almost inevitable. Many Hum sections seem to be magical; others turn out not to be. The Core bio course for non-science types is famously awful. But the History of Theater class my kid took to fulfill the same requirement that the op-ed writer was fulfilling was an exciting, demanding class taught by a world-famous scholar.</p>
<p>I think the whole issue is why would someone that hates the core want to go to Chicago to begin with? That's the main appeal of the school: the interdisciplinary intellectual rigor. This is made known to prospective students immediately in everything Chicago does, so ignorance is not any sort of excuse. Someone is either a little too grumpy about one class (it's inevitable you'll dislike classes, even ones in your major) or they just really chose the wrong college. There are plenty of alternatives, most notably Brown, if you want ultimate freedom in your education. Chicago's core appeals to me, and I am excited for it, as any prospective student of the university who made their decision for the right reasons should be. Plenty of options for college exist, and that's the beauty of higher education: is someone isn't satisfied, they simply didn't explore their options appropriately.</p>
<p>Drama class is definitely not for everyone!</p>
<p>My impression of the article was the same as JHS's. Most kids who take drama find it a fun (and surprisingly academic!) diversion from their major and from other core classes. I decided that drama sounded too "fruity" and instead took an amazing art history class.</p>
<p>I absolutely adored Core, and found my classes, even those taught by ABD grad students, well taught and well supported. My Core classes also served as a solid stepping-stone from high school to college.... when you're a first-year in a class of first-years, it can be easier to make friends, ask for help, get support, etc. you're also reading such amazing material!</p>
<p>In Core, you are going to find a student or two who just wants it to be over with, in the major classes, that's nearly unseen. In Core, you're also going to see one or two kids who feel insecure about their intellectual standing and will probably overparticipate in class. In my major classes, students are much more focused and serious, and they are much more respectful with regards to how much they participate in class discussion and whether they are preventing somebody else from saying something. Getting a little bit older and a little bit wiser helps a lot!</p>
<p>I was really annoyed by this article when I read it. I took a drama class for one day, too, and hated it, but that's what I got for trying to take the easy way out of the art requirement. Instead I took a great art class and learned a lot.</p>
<p>This kid is kind of a moron, and the maroon in general should rarely be trusted to present a valid opinion. The core isn't about teaching you specific facts about the world, it's about teaching you how to think, and it accomplishes it better than any school in the world, probably.</p>
<p>I've posted about this before, but I think it's great. It helps make you more well-rounded. For hundreds of years, the mark of a higher education was your familiarity with classics of intellectual thought, and so being forced to encounter some of those in the core is a nice throwback. </p>
<p>The classes are all much easier than you'd expect, too. If you end up in a crappy class, either drop it or just suck it up like an adult. Not every class can be amazing. In most core classes you can do fine with minimal exertion, so getting them over with is not the endless agony some punk-ass Maroon writer makes it out to be. </p>
<p>I know this sounds dumb, but look at the core as an opportunity. If you're a math major with no interested in lit, the Hum core is going to force you to read Homer or Nabokov or whoever, and you're going to be smarter (or at least more interesting) than people who take nothing but math courses. I'm not saying you'll be like Bush in this</a> Onion article, but you won't be one of the uncultured hoi polloi either.</p>
<p>One of the sequences delivers a sort of history of the development of scientific thought, enlightening and potentially facinating for those hard science people. Yup, I'm channeling my S.</p>
<p>The Maroon's columnists tend to flame-fish not to rarely, if not write stories that are just outright dumb and mean. Take what you see with a grain of salt. As far as I know, most people here like at least most of the core, and I know of very, very few people that would want the University to do away with it or cut it down in any substantial way.</p>
<p>When I hear people vigorously question the existence of the Core, I seriously question their decision to attend the university. There are parts of the core that could use some work (Bio...), but by and large the courses are well-designed. The author's arguments against the core are, in my mind, actually arguments in favor of it. He complains that it is an overly prescribed curriculum, dictating a supposed "correct" course of education. But it's actually the opposite. It is precisely because no single approach has a monopoly on insight that it is essential to be introduced to diverse perspectives. A narrow exposure to a limited number of fields places limitations on one's ability to understand findings from all disciplines. The core forces everyone to get at least a little bit familiar with a wide range of disciplines, so that you can understand what they offer to the pursuit of knowledge.</p>
<p>And a bit of psychology demonstrates the necessity of the core to that end. While in theory taking a broad range of courses might be agreeable to many students, in practice each individual quarter would likely fill up with classes mostly from the students' area of interest. While an English major might be perfectly willing to take a math class or two among their 42 at the university, it's likely that without a requirement, most would never actually pick a math class instead of a subject in which they were more interested when selecting classes for each individual quarter.</p>