<p>BigApple dad, you should see the pathetic computational and mathematical skills of kids coming out of college today before you pass judgement. I just interviewed a woman from a top LAC (had her transcript in front of me... no math since HS) who asked how much travel the job was interviewing for typically required. I said, 'oh, 10-20% is typical for your first year" and she said, "oh I wouldn't want to be out of town 3 nights a week that sounds too much."</p>
<p>??? </p>
<p>We have new employees who can't fill out a time sheet, are not able to understand a bar chart which shows that sales are up by 25%, and do not understand how our 401K plan operates. (Hint- we match all employee contributions 100% up to the federal max so it's not that tough.) They don't know that a billion isn't the same as 10 million even though 10 million is admittedly a very big number. They can't convert dollars to euros and vice versa (just a rough number, these aren't treasury employees so an estimate is fine) nor do they understand that if the cost of living in Tokyo is 150% of that in Milwaukee you get a salary differential which INCREASES your pay to live in Tokyo if we're moving you from Milwaukee. They don't know gross vs. net, and they can't calculate market share unless you write out the algorithm for them. (Ok, if Los Angeles consumes 1000 bottles of soda every year and of that, 250 of them are made by us, what is our market share? We're not talking rocket science here....)</p>
<p>I'm talking college grads here and you can't make this stuff up. As far as I'm concerned, if a kid can calculate the area under the curve that's a bonus... I just need someone who can fill out their w4 correctly, i.e. can count from zero to 8.</p>
<p>missypie,
Yours is very expensive way and vast majority of people in other proffesions do not graduate from Law school. I am talking about totally abstract analytical skills that would be applicable in any setting and should be developed in teens along with memorization, which is given way too much attention in school.</p>
<p>Not sure if this has been mentioned yet, but consider the huge volume of college students who change their majors. Many change their major 3 or 4 times, and they can often be pretty dramatically different majors. So I think one benefit of a strong core curriculum (at least for the freshman year) would be exposing students to a variety of subjects and helping them realize sooner rather than later that they may be interested in a different major. You may argue that students have already had this exposure in high school, but obviously it's not enough if so many students still go on to change their major in college (My perspective on many subjects changed drastically when I had them in college).</p>
<p>Also, college curriculums vary extensively from school to school. If you really cannot imagine taking another math class, then find a school that has few or no required general education classes. There are good schools that fit this bill, namely Brown, and others as well.</p>
<p>Here's another take on it. You go to college to get an education, part of that education is learning about many impractical to you things, but things that make you well educated. You went to a Catholic school- I'll bet they forced you to take a religion or philosophy course, I'll bet your writing skills were such you didn't complain about it whereas the math major may have detested the papers. College is a choice, you choose the school that has requirements you can live with. Our public U's here have basic math and English skill requirements- they do not want to confer a degree on anyone without them, especially since they should have been mastered in HS. Some schools have higher math standards, they figure everyone getting a degree from their institution should have some knowledge of calculus. Just as your Catholic institution probaby figured everyone should have some religion knowledge. Before our time all college students learned Latin, and/or studied Greek and Latin Classics; some schools still have a core of Western knowledge they feel is necessary. Read the fine print regarding college graduation requirements and have your child choose colleges based on those she considers acceptable to her.</p>