<p>I am a bit confused with your first point. You are saying that a large core would still leave room for a major. Ya, that’s what I’m arguing for; as I said, the first two years would be liberal arts, then the last two would be specialization. This would leave room for liberal arts majors, but not for preproffesional programs (like engineering, which I think is a 5 year program USUALLY devoid of much, if not all, liberal arts reqs). </p>
<p>I don’t think your data proves anything. First, I was talking about data in determining if the marginal cost to attending a low-cost college program for 4 years before doing preprofessional studies would deter a significant portion of students from applying to college at all. The data you supplied is taken from an environment with a different set of incentives. Second, preprofessional degrees are sought not necessarily to maximize money, but to find a suitable balance for job security and wealth (I think most people are risk-aversive, so someone may prefer a lower paying job with a 90% employment rate to a slightly higher paying job with a 70% employment rate). Also, I am not saying students aren’t fully interested in the preprofessional subjects they are taking. What I am saying is that sometimes what a person chooses isn’t what will self-actualize him the most; he may prefer to remain in his comfort zone. As we know, many people tend to be “stuck in their ways,” unwilling to examine other sides of an argument and they tend to make political decisions based on unexamined premises or emotions. Forcing a liberal arts undergraduate studies would expose them to various fields. </p>
<p>I agree with your criticism of lawyers. However, as I said in an early post, my attack isn’t against preprofessionalism per se, but on specialization. Many of these lawyers do one of two things: they select one or two majors and specialize in them (e.g. only being knowledgable in polisci and psych, while not knowing anything about Platonic Justice) or they engage in the “chinese menu program,” choosing classes on a whim without a focus on understanding the context of the Whole. A core would resolve that. What we need to do is examine data from lawyers who gained their degrees from heavy-core undergraduate institutions. Here is some anecdotal evidence for my point from someone thinking about what would have happened if he didn’t attend his heavy liberal arts-core unversity: “I have often wondered what my life might have been like. I suspect I would be wealthier. but reading the books I did, and continue to do throughout my life, has made it all but impossible to concentrate on moneymaking in the way necessary to acquire vast wealth…who knows, I might have been happier, if only because less introspective - who said the life of examination is filled with laughs.” (this point isn’t really serious. I know it could likely be an exception. It’s more of for rhetoric really). </p>
<p>Also, you didn’t really answer my question about creating an elite. What would the solution be to getting everyone to understand the issues?</p>
<p>A typical bachelor’s degree program in engineering is a nominally four year program with about:</p>
<p>40-50% engineering courses
25% math and science <- liberal arts
20-25% humanities and social studies breadth <- liberal arts
0-15% free electives <- could be liberal arts</p>
<p>In other words, it is 45-60% liberal arts courses.</p>
<p>Note that MIT has a large core requirement (probably about half of the classes that one takes there), but it does not prevent students from completing majors like engineering or business, as well as others like math, history, linguistics, etc…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Many students choose overtly pre-professional majors, or choose liberal arts majors with pre-professional motivations, despite the low pay and poor employment rates for graduates in those majors. I.e. it is because that is what they want to do, not because it pays well or guarantees a job (art practice, theater, and music are well known examples).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, the motivations of many pre-law students in their course choices often come down to trying to find “easy A” courses, since GPA is a very important part of law school admissions, especially now that good lawyer job opportunities are highly correlated to the selectivity ranking of one’s law school.</p>
<p>First point: oh, you were referring to engineering programs. I think that system is good for liberal arts majors, but not preprofessional majors. Liberal arts majors are still concerned about the “why,” so it is good that they receive a heavy interdisciplinary core, then delve into understanding the theory of their specialization. For preprofessional degrees, people only largely learn practical skills (in their program-specific classes), which is an output-focused training, not a cultivation-focused training. As I said, if you want to be an engineer, major in physics or math. (as a sidenote, your description of typical engineering programs is inspirational. In other countries, people pretty much only take classes in their program. My sister goes to school in Canada for Math, and she only takes math classes. Good to know that America somewhat retains its liberal arts tradition even in preprofessional programs).</p>
<p>Second point: I disagree. I think most, if not all, preprofessional degrees (I don’t consider degrees in art as preprofessional) have more stable futures. At the very least, they have perceived stability (like how MBAs and Law degrees don’t necessarily have good employment stats, but are still perceived to be stable choices, unlike history). </p>
<p>Third point: ya, I agree with that motivation. Anyway, that point supports mine. If there was a designed core, students wouldn’t have the freedom to pick “easy As.” Designed cores generally are seens as tough (as I gathered from Columbia and Chicago students). Also, this point touches on another problem: grade inflation. Grade inflation is largely only present in American universities. Many foreign, and some US ones as I mentioned before, distribute grades in portions (e.g. the largest group gets Cs, because Cs are after all, “average.”). This is how it should be, and I think if that were corrected for in the humanities, they wouldn’t be seen as wish-washy classes (in fact, I read in a poll that one of the hardest classes at NYU is an advance philosophy class in epistomology, showing that humanities courses can be complex if they are designed correctly).</p>
<p>Engineering and other students in overtly pre-professional majors must learn the why as the basis of the how. Engineering (for example) also involves discovering the why in order to design a better how. Also, liberal arts students must learn the how as it relates to their majors – such as how to prove theorems in math, how to construct a well designed and controlled study in psychology or microeconomics, how to interpret macroeconomic data and historical events, how to analyze and interpret literature, art, and music.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Art practice is definitely pre-professional, in that it teaches people to become artists. Something similar goes for music and theater performance. This does not mean that job and career prospects for artists, musicians, and theater performers are good. Other overtly pre-professional majors include kinesiology (sports coach or PE teacher), education or [subject]-with-teaching emphasis (teacher), architecture, communications, agriculture, etc… These do not necessarily have good job and career prospects, but presumably the students want to do these things despite that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Unless the core includes the entire curriculum, then students trying to game the law school admissions process would still look for “easy A” courses among their electives. Actually, one can see something similar among pre-meds – medical schools require a “core” of pre-med courses, but are otherwise indifferent to major and course selection. So many pre-meds’ course and major selection strategy revolves around finding “easy A” courses (this includes the pre-med courses, where they may take calculus, chemistry, and physics for biology majors, instead of the more rigorous ones for math, chemistry, and physics majors respectively).</p>
<p>Also, pre-law and pre-med students may be influenced in their choice of college by core or breadth requirements and how much grade inflation there is. So if some colleges have a heavy core like MIT does, then they may not be seen as being as attractive compared to other colleges with fewer requirements, like Brown.</p>
<p>C is not necessarily supposed to be average. C is supposed to be a solid passing grade; if the material is taught properly to reasonably prepared and motivated students, most of them should get C or higher grades.</p>
<p>The how of methodology is included in the why. As for what you said about psych and econ experiment design, that is done in grad school (or by undergrads who take grad classes). Engineering is more focused on application rather than theory. Perhaps I shouldn’t have used the words how and why; they are confusing due to multiple interpretations. What I mean is that engineering is more concerned with application, while liberal arts are more concerned with theory. </p>
<p>I don’t consider art a preprofessional degree because art is about self-expression. From all the artists I know, and I know a lot, they care more about their self-expression than their job prospects. Engineers and MBAs generally care more about their jobs. Not that they aren’t interested in those fields, but that they may be sacrificing something they like better (e.g. someone who loves physics may choose to be an engineer instead). </p>
<p>I don’t know why you argued for attractiveness in universities. I’m not arguing that there should be special universities with large cores and no grade inflation; I’m arguing that all universities should be like this, so there isn’t really a choice in going to an “easier” one. As for picking easy As, a heavy core reduces their opportunity to find easy As, since 2 years of their studies will be in rigorous cores; they would have only very few electives (which isn’t that bad since the “trying new stuff” phase of the education would be satisfied by the Core, which will force them to try new stuff). </p>
<p>I think the grading system is meant to serve as a measure of comparison, not competence. Therefore, if more people are capable of getting As, then the standard for an A should rise, thus keeping the distribution the same.</p>
<p>There is plenty of theory in engineering, because you need sound theory in order to apply it to design problems.</p>
<p>And many liberal arts have obvious applications. For example, economics can be applied to economic policy decisions (e.g. in government or central banks), political science can be applied to analyzing political events and making political strategies, math and statistics can be applied to finance and actuarial work, etc…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you consider architecture a pre-professional degree? Music performance? Theater?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Perhaps you do not know that many engineers.</p>
<p>Plenty of engineers do engineering because that is what they want to do. For them, their self-expression is in designing something interesting using the principles of math and science. The decent employment prospects are a bonus.</p>
<p>(Note that an MBA is not a bachelor’s degree, so it does not fit in with this discussion of what you think a bachelor’s degree should contain.)</p>
<p>Regarding the attractiveness of a heavy core curriculum in terms of how students select which schools to attend… there are thousands of bachelor’s degree granting schools in the US, with widely varying notions of what core or breadth requirements should be required to attain a bachelor’s degree (e.g. compare Brown and MIT). Do you really think that you can convince all of them to have a heavy core curriculum with very few elective courses, especially since many students do not want such a thing?</p>