<p>Better immersion into the classes would be the goal.</p>
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My kids had this along with a class in woodworking in middle school. That seems to me a good time to learn this stuff. I think students should be educated broadly enough that they understand bad statistics, know enough economic theory to have opinions about the right approach to the economy, know enough history that they are less likely to vote for people who will repeat the bad parts etc. Theoretically you should get this stuff in high school. </p>
<p>There are a number of colleges that are quite generous with AP credits (at least if you score high enough). My older son took one semester of expository writing (he didnât take the English AP) and one semester of World History at Carnegie Mellon. He got credit for all his other gen eds and he ended up with a very European style education - taking nothing but math, comp sci and physics courses. I actually wish heâd been forced to try a few other things.</p>
<p>BTW the School of Computer Science at CMU believes that since comp sci is an applied science you are required to have a minor just so you can be thinking about things to apply it to. My son minored in physics, many minor in robotics, but thereâs no requirement that the minor be a STEM field.</p>
<p>Isnât a bachelors degree without the general education just considered an associates degree? I have two bachelors degrees - and the second one only took me 2 years because all of my GEâs transferred in. </p>
<p>I strongly believe that we, as a society, should require general education for bachelors degrees. Otherwise, as someone else stated, engineers would come out of school only having contact with other engineersâŠand english majors with other english majors. Reminds me of the Divergent books, where every segment of society only had education and interests in a narrow field. </p>
<p>I want the worldâs political science majors to understand ethics and science as they make policy, and the worldâs engineers to understand the way their inventions may effect someoneâs lives, or the environment, etcâŠ</p>
<p>@jlhpsu
There are two kinds of associateâs degrees. The AA/AS focuses on GE. Students who know what they want to major in are encouraged to get started on the major, but in most states you can get the degree without that. For fields that require a boatload of courses, like music or biology, if you donât get started on the major, youâre nuts. But you cannot complete the major, because 2-year colleges generally do not offer 300-400-level classes.</p>
<p>Then there is the AAS. This is a complete certificate, with a minimum of GE (typically business English and Business math), but in technical fields, like automotive mechanics and cosmetology.</p>
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<p>Those students shouldnât be going to college. Not everyone needs a college education. More people should go to trade schools to be a programmer, accountant, administrative assistantâŠinstead of wasting their time to study things they do not care about. </p>
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I never believed those basic life skills need to be taught. Most intelligent people can read a cook book and manage to put a meal on the table. I never taught my kids how to bank online, but they all seem to manage pay/deposit/transfer money online. Who uses checkbook nowadays anyway. As far as filing taxes, we have had an account. My daughter pays the same account to file her taxes now. You have to be really stupid if you couldnât figure out how to do those basic things in life. </p>
<p>Sorry, I would pay for my kid to learn about hexagon than to waste my money on those silly courses.</p>
<p>Today, a degree is really important in getting a job. They are more likely to go to college than a trade school. Easier to get into and a more flexible environment. Youâre right, they shouldnât be wasting their time studying things they donât care about, which is why many students dread GE classes.</p>
<p>Basic life skills need to be taught. There are things people can learn by themselves and some canât. Sorry mate, I donât know what fantasy land you live in but a bunch of smarties around me canât put together a meal for their life. Cooking isnât simple as âreading a cookbook and put together a mealâ as you said. You clearly have never cooked in your life. Of course you wouldnât teach your kids how to bank online, they are the ones teaching you instead. You have to be really stupid if you think solving a hexagon is more important than those things.</p>
<p>I would pay for my kids to learn about those âsilly coursesâ which would benefit them later on instead of solving a hexagon which they have no interest in.</p>
<p>I find it silly to think about learning cooking in college, or banking, etc. Those things are part of life not the classroom.</p>
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I donât know what world you live in. Of course you could cook by reading a cookbook. Better yet, you can check out this <a href=âhttps://www.plated.com/â>https://www.plated.com/</a>. I am very tech savvy. My kids call me when their electronics do not work properly. I have never taken a CS course in my life, but I make a living by managing large team of technologist. I wonder how I was able to move from finance to programming to Big Data to management. I wonder if it was due to all of those non relevant liberal arts courses I took in college. </p>
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<p>I donât know. In my extended family and among many older generation Americans I know, a kid who needs a full fledged course to learn such skills wouldnât be considered a âsmartieâ or worse yetâŠbe intelligent enough to attend college. </p>
<p>You could just learn how to cook from a young age when learning all the other things kids should do to contribute to a household, such as cleaning, washing and folding laundry, weed pulling, digging up the septic tank cover, etc., like I do. To me those things are is second nature. Didnât realize that they were such rare skills. </p>
<p>When I was visiting a state uni on a tour, the guide said there was a poll of incoming freshmen and that 90% of them had never cleaned a toilet. 90%!!! What else havenât those 90% done, I wonder? </p>
<p>This is off topic a bit, but I am hearing from some people here is that unless you are specifically taught how to do something, you wouldnât be able to figure out how to do it yourself. It is what a well rounded liberal arts education is supposed to teach you. This article <a href=âThe Value of a Liberal Arts Education in Today's Global Marketplace | HuffPost Collegeâ>HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost; is a good write up.
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<p>With our global economy, even if you are a programmer or scientist, you may need to travel abroad or interact with people in other culture. If you have never taken world history, you would never know why there is a certain tension between Japanese and Chinese, and you may say some inappropriate things at a meeting or dinner. People are very narrow minded and short sighted if they think they only need to study what they need for their next job.</p>
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<p>Worse, many people who attended vocationally oriented trade schools or majors with really narrow specializations like Pharmacy have found it is nearly/completely impossible to change careers without extensive expensive retraining when they find itâs not for them or worse, the industry implodes. </p>
<p>âI wonder if it was due to all of those non relevant liberal arts courses I took in college.â</p>
<p>Pretty sure it wasnât. No, you donât simply learn how to cook by reading a cookbook. Iâm not buying your story with this insane troll logic</p>
<p>"a kid who needs a full fledged course to learn such skills wouldnât be considered a âsmartieâ or worse yetâŠbe intelligent enough to attend college. "</p>
<p>Yet a bunch of engineering majors around me, as smart as they are, canât do them. They donât even remember a single thing from any of those GE classes that were shoved down their throat.</p>
<p>"People are very narrow minded and short sighted if they think they only need to study what they need for their next job. "</p>
<p>Itâs a matter of choice and what they like to do. A doctor can take foreign language classes simply because he has an interest in another language. Now if he is forced to take a music or child development class, he would just dread it to the end. The reality is, you hope that GE classes will benefit students and force them to take those classes. But they donât. Itâs just not how things work. They should be there to offer students a variety of choice, not force them down their throats. Time and money arenât infinite. If those GE classes helped you in anyway, then good for you. But the others wonât get much out of them, and shouldnât be forced to take them.</p>
<p>If one really wants to learn to cook in college, you could move to a student run house in which you can either cook your own meals or share duties with other students as a co-op. You could probably learn quite a bit from some of the others and then get great practice and feedback on a regular basis. I was only on a university meal plan my first year. I really looked forward to meal preparation as a way to decompress from classes and studying. It also makes it very easy to invite friends for dinner. Turns out that girls are very appreciative of and impressed with having a guy cook for them. :-)</p>
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<p>You really donât know too many doctors/medical professionals, do you? </p>
<p>Heck, most med students or afterwardsâŠinterns/residents donât have much time to do more with their free time than sleep considering the long hours and crappy schedules which can be switched around them by more senior doctors or according to hospital needs. I had 3 medical interns/residents as roommates some years back. I only saw them one week out of the month because our schedules were so out of sync that Iâd hardly see them in the apartment unless theyâre sleeping in their rooms. </p>
<p>This lack of free time and all-consuming aspects of their profession is one reason why itâs better for such professionals to take GEsâŠespecially foreign languages and master them before going off to med school and becoming doctors. That isâŠunless theyâre in the top 5% or less of folks who successfully survive premed and med school to become medical doctors. </p>
<p>Iâve only personally known one such person like thatâŠHarvard undergrad, Harvard Med schoolâŠand had enough free time due to his brilliance that he took some art classes at Mass School of Art and started learning Japanese during his med school years. However, even heâll admit heâs an extreme outlier. Heâs currently a cardiology fellow in one of Bostonâs top hospitals. </p>
<p>Most doctors Iâve known from being roommates with a few and meeting their colleagues are always either spending long hours working without many breaks or spending most of their free time catching up on needed sleep. </p>
<p>I know enough from my social interaction. And since they have such a busy schedule, letâs have them take even more GE classes. What a great idea. How about not forcing them down their throats to begin with?</p>
<p>Pre-med students do take a lot of GE classes.</p>
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You do have to cook after reading a cookbook. So no, you canât learn how to cook by just reading a cookbook. Itâs kind of like a chemistry lab. I</p>
<p>Most of the doctors I know, once they get past their residency actually have pretty reasonable hours and find time for whatever interests them.</p>
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<p>Prroof please. Almost every doctor we know is an accomplished musician tooâŠand many actually played in ensembles and took music classes in college.,</p>
<p>Our daughter is likely to pursue a career in medicine. She took private lessons, played in the orchestra, and took a number of other music classes in collegeâŠall four years. And she actually LOVED them because they were a relaxing break for her from the sciences and math she was studyingâŠas an engineering major.</p>
<p>Her college had a strong core curriculum. My kid looked forward to the variety of courses this offered her as part of her schooling.</p>
<p>Yes, this is a great idea under one condition - k - 12 should actually teach instead of engaging kids in busy boring stuff and baby sitting. Then, there is no need to have the same material repeated in college. As of now college is engaged in filling the gap and yes, more so in math / scinece related classes, that not taught properly in k - 12 at all, not even close. And there is no guessing game how it should be done and what will work or not. Just check what is done abroad in most developed and underdeveloped countries that do not have great univerisities that fill in the gap.</p>