<p>The CoE does not allow students to take language classes (i.e., French, Spanish, Italian, Klingon) to fulfill the humanities and social sciences requirement. According to one of the course counselors, it's because "you can learn it on your own." What kind of argument is that?? I could go out and buy a book and learn the contents of any other class on my own.</p>
<p>If anything, I think that foreign language classes should be the most encouraged - an engineer is quite likely to work with people who were not brought up in an English-speaking country, and even a basic knowledge of and respect for a foreign language is probably more useful than, say, theater.</p>
<p>I know that they give credit for language courses, but credit really isn't too useful when it doesn't count towards the course requirements. It is possible to take the required humanities/SS classes plus the language classes, but personally I would like to have the language classes count as part of the requirement so I can spend my time doing other things (such as taking classes that I actually want to take, checking out clubs, etc.).</p>
<p>And yes, foreign culture/literature courses do count, but most (all?) of them are taught in English and so very little about how to speak the language and improve one's vocabulary is taught (please, please correct me if I'm wrong).</p>
<p>I bet half the engineering faculty speak a second or third language themselves; are they trying to maintain their superiority by obstructing the students??? </p>
<p>I know I'm not alone; several people want to learn and improve their foreign language skills, and the CoE makes it harder to do that.</p>