What are considered "academic subjects"?

Applying to College Common and Coalition Application
1

<p>Do they imply that the subject is required? For example, I had a teacher for debate class, and then speech class. These are electives that go towards the elective requirement that I need to graduate. Can I ask that teacher for a recommendation?</p>

2

<p>Academic subjects are generally english, science, math, history. If speech was an english class that is probably ok - if not, probably not.</p>

3

<p>That’s a wicked good question!</p>

<p>Does anyone know how a psychology course would fit into this? Technically it is a social science at my school.</p>

4

<p>My counselor told me that the academic subjects are basically any class that requires work! At our school for example, we need a fine art, computer apps, pe, health to graduate but they’re not an academic subject. </p>

<p>Don’t get this confused with core courses though: colleges usually recommend getting a recommendation from a teacher in one of these</p>

5

<p>Academic subjects are the 5 big departments in most American high schools and prep schools: English (which includes literature and public speaking classes) science, math, social sciences (which includes history, government and economics classes), and foreign languages. These are core subjects where reading and writing is essential.</p>

<p>What are NOT academic subjects are fine arts/design, technology/computer science, and physical education/health – even if classes offered in these areas are required for graduation.</p>

6

<p>My school has a huge computer science focus and they’re like the toughest courses in the school.</p>

<p>How can Computer Engineering not be an academic subject???</p>

7

<p>“academic” is often used in contrast to applied studies. Computer Engineering is applied. </p>

<p>One, however, could argue that almost any class except perhaps P.E. is academic and be within the liberal definition of “academic.”</p>

8

<p>But if you look up the definition for “academic”… </p>

<p>Oh, and out of curiousity, then would exercise science count?</p>

9

<p>The relative difficulty of the subject has nothing at all to do with the classification of academic vs. non-academic subjects.</p>

<p>The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 defines “core academic subjects” as:</p>

<pre><code>* English

  • reading or language arts
  • mathematics
  • science
  • foreign languages
  • civics and government
  • economics
  • arts
  • history
  • geography
    </code></pre>
10

<p>What is considered Academic has changed over time and over the objections of dogmatic purists. From its humble beginning as only the study of the teachings of Socrates it has grown to include many disciplines:

[List</a> of academic disciplines - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_disciplines]List”>Outline of academic disciplines - Wikipedia)</p>

<p>First Latin and ancient Greek in the “men of letters period”
Then law and clerical matters during the “gown vs. town phase”
Math and history topics were added in both of the above eras. After all you can only spend so much time reading Plato and there were many great Greek philosophers. Engineering was in the early renaissance as well as the arts, which snuck under the umbrella in the late 1500’s. With the explosion of scientific investigation in the late 1700s and early 1800 and the dawn of the industrial age, all that technical stuff offended the sensibilities of the landed gentry so the applied Science including engineering were out. This demotion spawned the derogatory uses of the term academic. The applied sciences have for the most part have been bestowed academic status once again. Now Physical and Vocational education are making the case for inclusion with solid arguments: the subject matter is taught in colleges, and the question of what’s the difference between dance class and gym class or Bio tech in the science department and computer tech in the vocational department?</p>

<p>boy was that academic or what :-)</p>