Rethinking if college is relevant

College Confidential Community
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<p>Hello all hoping to get a little advice here. Currently I am attending a local community college, graduated high school with a 3.8 had a opportunity to go to a university but having loans and dept did not sound appealing. Unlike most of the population I am trying to get my degree in something i've been extremely passionate about for years, Electromechanical Engineering or you could say Robotics/ Mechatronics. </p>

<p>Here is where i'm at I am starting to think college is becoming irrelevant and if im just wasting my time and money. I want to learn and I am constantly teaching myself new techniques, skills, and philosophy's regarding mechanics, electronics, and other sciences. I believe a mans mind is his most powerful tool and should always be growing yet i'm not seeing college help me in that. Sure mechtronics, math, and engineering courses are awesome and teaches me new things yet I need to take things like history, art, humanity to finish my degree or transfer. </p>

<p>History, Art, humanity's, music ect. is complete crap to me, non of them carry logic or even value to me. Dont get me wrong I have a big open mind yet when I take a course like that I see flaws in how its taught and how the hell its taken so seriously and cant understand all the mind numbing busy work. Its come to a point now that I am in those courses and I just get angry and when I point out the flaws in logic and opinion its disregarded and I feel like im being injected with false ideals and logic. </p>

<p>I even asked my professor in Art class what value does art have and why does one that takes 10x less time and effort regarded as the better painting? (modern art) She did not know how to respond and told me just to embrace art and give it a chance.. Also I asked the grade A students what are they learning from this course? Their response was art is valuable to the human spirit and makes you think in different ways from anothers perspective. Sure thats fine and dandy but why is that taken so seriously?? what kind of profit do you expect to make from art? how does art contribute to society? how does it better yourself? how does it better the human race? </p>

<p>^^^ Same goes for history and music, ect. </p>

<p>Getting my degree doesn't seem worth it if I have to take irrelevant courses like this. In fact im starting to think the degree is crap compared to experience in the field, social skills, and business ethics. Sure why not have a experience, social skills, business ethics, and a degree?? Yeah I totally would but at this point these courses are making me so angry that it would not even be worth the time and effort. </p>

<p>Tell me am I being stubborn or is their a solution my problem here? </p>

<p>My ideal solution here is to not take irrelevant courses and to teach my self my degree and just take a fat hard massive exam or write a large essay to get my degree. Seems more fair and productive and fills my need to learn more</p>

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<p>You say you enjoy taking courses not related to your major, but then you trash the humanities. You are being way stubborn. Remember that this is good for your development in the long run, and everyone - even the art majors - have to take courses they don’t like. </p>

<p>I’ve had to take a few science and math courses - nothing related closely to engineering, just standard courses. I did them because I had to, at first begrudgingly. But you know what? It was important for me. Statistics helped me in the long run, and I really enjoyed biology. I actually took extra science courses because I thought forensics and anthropology looked interesting (they were)! Even the classes I hated (looking at you, calculus), I would’ve never dreamed of taking time out of the class asking questions and comments about the worthiness of the course. It’s disrespectful to the students who actually want to learn it, the teachers who are teaching it, and to the discipline itself. </p>

<p>General education requirements are to make sure every student gets a well-rounded education. Art is a vehicle for communication that is tied heavily to society and (surprise!) history. There is a reason we are still talking about Piccaso, right? His new ideas of form and image lent themselves to themes. Look at his work “Guernica”. When it was created, it shown a spotlight on that horrific bombing by the Germans/Italians/Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War which was previously under-looked by the international community (although, given that you don’t know any history, that example may be lost on you) !!</p>

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<p>It’s fine to dislike the humanities, but to claim that art/history/philosophy doesn’t contribute very much to society is quite a biased claim to make. If you want your degree, suck it up and take the humanities courses, just like humanities majors have to take science/math. If not getting a degree at all is preferable to having to take courses in a different field, then don’t get a degree. You might still be able to do well without one, depending on what you want to do. </p>

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<p>Yeah dude, just skip college. I mean… who needs degrees? You can be fine just without it. All you have to do is learn electromechanical engineering from your local library/internet. After that, the hard part is over. You’ll just have to find some sort of reputable organization to test and prove your knowledge. This will be sufficient certification to employers so they can trust you. After that, all you gotta do is build your network and find opportunities (I bet you have excellent social skills based off the OP). </p>

<p>So I agree with you, just skip college. Yeah, college opens many doors. And yeah, there will be many highly advanced, intellectually stimulating math and science classes at college that you will love. And yes, there will be an otherwise rare pool of extremely intelligent peers all in one area for you to engage with… BUT those few art/humanities classes just aren’t worth the trouble. For that reason, college is irrelevant. </p>

<p>Now use your intelligence and tell me if what I said makes any sense.</p>

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<p>

Question: do you listen to music?</p>

<p>I actually have a similar but different perspective: I think art absolutely improves people’s lives, and creating and studying art is one of the most important and satisfying things people can do with their time, but it does not make much sense to me to turn the study of art into a structured endeavor with things like “grades” and “credits” and “degrees”, which kind of seems to ruin the spirit of art. At least for people who do not plan to make a living studying it. I think it is utter BS that the ability to graduate with a degree should be used as leverage to sucker people into paying money to study art and earn credit for it in order to make them “well rounded” (whatever that means). Of course, if they are not studying it for credit, then they should still spend just as much time reading the classics, visiting museums, etc. in their free time. But that should be their choice, not the choice of a system that has a monopoly on all forms of formal education.</p>

<p>My opinion is the same regarding liberal arts majors being required to study science and math. But the difference is that art is far more accessible without faculty and facilities than science or math, since lab activities are indispensable for learning science, and so are teachers/tutors for students who struggle with mathematical concepts.</p>

<p>It is much easier to justify the cost of a college degree if you get GE classes out of the way at a community college where they cost less. Even better for high school students who take community college classes so that (a) the classes are free and (b) they kill two birds with one stone by taking care of college admission requirements and college graduation requirements simultaneously.</p>

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<p>It’s that “Why the heck am I still in college” phase. </p>

<p>A lot of those classes are needed for a well-rounded education. I agree with the above. If you really want the major, and you really love what you’re doing then you grit your teeth and get it over with. I have to take a bunch of unrelated courses to my major too, but I can say they are helpful in the long run. </p>