<p>I really just wanted Distressed to make a case instead of venting his frustration by insulting me… for no reason. I’m also a little irritated that MiamiDAP keeps arguing about irrelevant things and not sticking to the main points. Regardless, yeah it was probably wrong to do that.</p>
<p>I’ll try and sum up my ideas throughout the thread. If we can all agree that global society would be a better place if people were less ignorant, then we can start there. I think that academic institutions aren’t putting enough emphasis on learning in college, and American society (I live in America so I’m not too aware of other countries in that regard) is beginning to see a college education as another hoop to jump through in order to get a job. I find that detrimental to society because people are no longer willing to view education as a way to grow, mature, and increase the breadth of their knowledge. The last bit is especially important because a society with ignorant people can lead to huge problems. In fact, we can already see examples of these ‘problems’ in our society today; take the (somewhat generalized) comments of Brooklynborndad about people being anti-Islamist, accusing leaders of socialist views, and all sorts of things like that. If nothing else, increasing the breadth of knowledge for the people of society will help to lessen these problems (and I think by a very significant amount).</p>
<p>Certainly college is not the only way to go, but I think that it’s a huge part. That’s not to say that the experience you get from the ‘real world’ is not beneficial; a well-educated, well-informed and moral person will have a mix of everything and a person can certainly educate themselves without going to college. However, without an education I think that people would be heavily impaired. Specifically I find that the humanities classes are the ones that offer the ‘big picture’ sort of learning that I mean. That includes history, philosophy, literature, and other related things. There is also something about being in an intellectual and [somewhat] diverse environment that helps a person mature and see the world and its people with new perspective. Now obviously not every institution is like this, which is why I make the comments about universities needing to review their priorities, as well as my comments on why society ought to change its attitude on education (to make it about learning, not just ‘getting that degree’).</p>
<p>That takes me to your next question about academic requirements. In my earlier posts towards the end of the thread (at this point) I think I addressed this. I agree completely with the general requirements system and I think that given the other changes I described above it is sufficient. I also included reasons above, but the major reason is because it gives a cursory look at everything so that everyone has a bit of background in everything. When you have no idea how an economy works, you’re more susceptible to listening to ignorant politicians calling each other socialists (which is absurd)… just as an example.</p>
<p>A bit about myself: I’m a college student majoring in physics and mathematics, planning on getting a Ph.D in mathematical physics. I hate taking humanities classes, but I realize their usefulness so I try not to complain too much, in case you were surprised about my support of humanities classes.</p>