College Education

[JohnStOnge]

I don't know if it needs to be free but I do think there is a need to change the paradigm with respect to post secondary education with an eye towards asking what''s really necessary. The reason is that the cost is getting totally out of hand and...as everybody who ever went to college knows...degree programs typically involve taking a bunch of courses that one really doesn't need to take in order to function in their degree field.

College fees have gone up way faster than inflation. I paid about $175 in tuition for my first semester of college in 1975. That's about $700 in 2010 money. Obviously, the cost of an education has increased way faster than the rate of inflation. I was able to work and put myself to college without putting myself in debt. If something isn't done the next generation will not be able to afford college whether they go into debt or not.

If somebody wants to be an Engineer, for example, they don't really need to take three semesters of foreign language, etc. They could probably get the knowledge they need to be a good engineer with about 30 hours. I think people need to start thnking about things like that and start saying, "For degree X, what does the candidate really NEED to know."

Plus you could then let students take maybe one or two courses per semester so they could focus a lot more on what they were studying. Really learn it instead of having to cram everything in.

[GannonFan]

I don't know if it needs to be free but I do think there is a need to change the paradigm with respect to post secondary education with an eye towards asking what''s really necessary. The reason is that the cost is getting totally out of hand and...as everybody who ever went to college knows...degree programs typically involve taking a bunch of courses that one really doesn't need to take in order to function in their degree field.

College fees have gone up way faster than inflation. I paid about $175 in tuition for my first semester of college in 1975. That's about $700 in 2010 money. Obviously, the cost of an education has increased way faster than the rate of inflation. I was able to work and put myself to college without putting myself in debt. If something isn't done the next generation will not be able to afford college whether they go into debt or not.

If somebody wants to be an Engineer, for example, they don't really need to take three semesters of foreign language, etc. They could probably get the knowledge they need to be a good engineer with about 30 hours. I think people need to start thnking about things like that and start saying, "For degree X, what does the candidate really NEED to know."

Plus you could then let students take maybe one or two courses per semester so they could focus a lot more on what they were studying. Really learn it instead of having to cram everything in.

I was an chemical engineering major, actually 15 some years ago, and I had nary a foreign language requirement at all - not a single credit.

Your point is right, though, in that I'm sure some of the 130 total credits I took weren't especially necessary. But it was probably a least half if not more of that when you get down to real, honest to goodness chemistry, math, and engineering courses.

I think you're attacking it the wrong way though - in response to rising costs you don't just cut back the courses you are taking. The real question is why are the costs skyrocketing like they are. It's only been over the past decade or so where costs have exploded, so what changed recently to make this happen. Certainly one factor is the Baby Boom Echo going through right now - there are clearly more people wanting to go to college than before so the demand has pushed this up.

But there's no denying that unconstrained government backing of student loans (along with questionable decisions by students to take on these loans) has been exploited by colleges that understand there is a lot of money to go after and they are not shy about jacking up costs to get their share.

Fix that and the issue goes away without having to gut educational programs just to speed students to graduation.

[Pwns]

That's a good point, JSO. Sadly, more often than vice versa there's talk of requiring fewer upper-level classes and requiring more non-major credits, usually accompanied by the chorus of "colleges are turning into vocational schools!" and "what about a well-rounded education and learning for learning's sake?". Kind of ironic when usually (unless you go to a good liberal arts college) courses for non-majors are usually just memorization of textbook definitions of basic jargon in any one particular field. And I 've been a student at both UGA and GSU, just so no one will make any smart remarks. The upper-level courses are the ones where you really have a chance to develop analytical thinking skills, so if anything we need more of them and fewer multicultural rainforest anthropology 101 courses that require twenty minutes of work outside of class a week to get a B in. But of course the purists won't allow that.

[D1B]

That's a good point, JSO. Sadly, more often than vice versa there's talk of requiring fewer upper-level classes and requiring more non-major credits, usually accompanied by the chorus of "colleges are turning into vocational schools!" and "what about a well-rounded education and learning for learning's sake?". Kind of ironic when usually (unless you go to a good liberal arts college) courses for non-majors are usually just memorization of textbook definitions of basic jargon in any one particular field. And I 've been a student at both UGA and GSU, just so no one will make any smart remarks. The upper-level courses are the ones where you really have a chance to develop analytical thinking skills, so if anything we need more of them and fewer multicultural rainforest anthropology 101 courses that require twenty minutes of work outside of class a week to get a B in. But of course the purists won't allow that.

Good point my ass. JSO and Gannonfan are complete fucking dorks and misanthropes. If those two fuck heads were allowed to only take chemistry or engineering classes, they'd be certifiably retarded.

All students need humanities. It's what makes the difference between being John St. Wrong and some cool fucker like me, Cleets, or Grizo.

[Pwns]

That's a good point, JSO. Sadly, more often than vice versa there's talk of requiring fewer upper-level classes and requiring more non-major credits, usually accompanied by the chorus of "colleges are turning into vocational schools!" and "what about a well-rounded education and learning for learning's sake?". Kind of ironic when usually (unless you go to a good liberal arts college) courses for non-majors are usually just memorization of textbook definitions of basic jargon in any one particular field. And I 've been a student at both UGA and GSU, just so no one will make any smart remarks. The upper-level courses are the ones where you really have a chance to develop analytical thinking skills, so if anything we need more of them and fewer multicultural rainforest anthropology 101 courses that require twenty minutes of work outside of class a week to get a B in. But of course the purists won't allow that.

Good point my ass. JSO and Gannonfan are complete **** dorks and misanthropes. If those two **** heads were allowed to only take chemistry or engineering classes, they'd be certifiably retarded.

All students need humanities. It's what makes the difference between being John St. Wrong and some cool **** like me, Cleets, or Grizo.

We don't need no Goddam lib'ral arts!

[Cap'n Cat]

The importance of a college degree or any post-secondary education is a thing I deal with every day. My company is hiring forty or fifty people and the applications I look through are positively pitiful. I'll bet 50% of the apps I look at are from those who dropped out of high school, some have GEDs (which I think are worthless), some are "working on" a GED (they won't finish) and the others are people laid off from stupid shit like nail salons and fast food restaurants. Lots of laid off truck drivers, too. No skills. You just wanna be Holden Caulfield and catch them in that field of rye before they run off the cliff, turn them around and tell them to go back to school.

There is a big problem with unmotivated youth in our country. The ones we do hire have few needs (cell phone with texting, cheap cigarettes, reliable transportation, alcohol/drugs and pussy/cock). Yeah, the world needs ditch diggers, too, and I am glad I won't be around in forty years when they're digging ditches for their Chinese and Russian masters.

If you know a high schooler who is failing, sep in and help that person by pointing them to college or some value-added, higher order training.

My two cents.

[JohnStOnge]

Good point my ass. JSO and Gannonfan are complete **** dorks and misanthropes. If those two **** heads were allowed to only take chemistry or engineering classes, they'd be certifiably retarded.

All students need humanities. It's what makes the difference between being John St. Wrong and some cool **** like me, Cleets, or Grizo.

D, I don't know about Gannonfan but (of course) I got my degree under the current paradigm. While getting a biologiy degree I TOOK stuff like English Literature and Foreign Languages in order to fill out what I needed to do to get a degree. When you're talking about biology all you really need is biology courses, a writing course, and some basic math and statistics. I don't think I really needed to take physics or calculus either. Calculus is needed for statistics theory but you don't need to do stat theory to be a biologist. You need to know statistical experimental design then you can use software to analyze the data.

Another post made me think about it and, yeah, probably more than 30 hours are needed. But certainly not 120 or whatever it is nowdays to get a degree.

Anyway, whatever you may think of my outlooks, they aren't the result of having been denied exposure to the hunanities. Oh, I took a philosophy course too. Had me shaking my head 90% of the time. The distinct impression I got taking that course is that there are a lot of delusional people into philosophy as a field. Like the thing about reality being a matter of perception. Ridiculous. If a tree falls in the forest it fell in the forest whether anybody was there to see it or not. And reality will continue to unfold long after human beings are extinct.

[JohnStOnge]

I was an chemical engineering major, actually 15 some years ago, and I had nary a foreign language requirement at all - not a single credit.

When I was pursuiing my biology degree, I was required to take two semesters of foreign language. My son is at LSU and every student, regardless of degree, has to take three semesters of foreign language. I think that is totally unecessary. My son took three semesters of Latin. But say he'd taken Spanish. Very unlikely that would ever do him any good. Even if he someday found himself with a job requiring him to speak Spanish he probably would've forgotten most of it. He could just as well learn the language through some other means when he needs to then actually become reasonably proficient in it through routine use.

Also, to me, if something is an elective that means you really didn't need to take it. Right off the top requirements for electives should be eliminated. After that one could look at other things that might be eliminated. Like me taking calculus and physics as a biology major.

[Col Hogan]

That's a good point, JSO. Sadly, more often than vice versa there's talk of requiring fewer upper-level classes and requiring more non-major credits, usually accompanied by the chorus of "colleges are turning into vocational schools!" and "what about a well-rounded education and learning for learning's sake?". Kind of ironic when usually (unless you go to a good liberal arts college) courses for non-majors are usually just memorization of textbook definitions of basic jargon in any one particular field. And I 've been a student at both UGA and GSU, just so no one will make any smart remarks. The upper-level courses are the ones where you really have a chance to develop analytical thinking skills, so if anything we need more of them and fewer multicultural rainforest anthropology 101 courses that require twenty minutes of work outside of class a week to get a B in. But of course the purists won't allow that.

Good point my ass. JSO and Gannonfan are complete **** dorks and misanthropes. If those two **** heads were allowed to only take chemistry or engineering classes, they'd be certifiably retarded.

All students need humanities. It's what makes the difference between being John St. Wrong and some cool **** like me, Cleets, or Grizo.

While being typically crude and insulting, I agree with the point that D1B makes...

The world needs engineers and scientists who are exposed to a well rounded education to include the humanities...just as those taking liberal arts need to be exposed to the sciences to be well rounded...

[Pwns]

Good point my ass. JSO and Gannonfan are complete **** dorks and misanthropes. If those two **** heads were allowed to only take chemistry or engineering classes, they'd be certifiably retarded.

All students need humanities. It's what makes the difference between being John St. Wrong and some cool **** like me, Cleets, or Grizo.

While being typically crude and insulting, I agree with the point that D1B makes...

The world needs engineers and scientists who are exposed to a well rounded education to include the humanities...just as those taking liberal arts need to be exposed to the sciences to be well rounded...

Yeah, but there's no reason why those things need to take up a third of one's college credits require for graduation.

[D1B]

The importance of a college degree or any post-secondary education is a thing I deal with every day. My company is hiring forty or fifty people and the applications I look through are positively pitiful. I'll bet 50% of the apps I look at are from those who dropped out of high school, some have GEDs (which I think are worthless), some are "working on" a GED (they won't finish) and the others are people laid off from stupid shit like nail salons and fast food restaurants. Lots of laid off truck drivers, too. No skills. You just wanna be Holden Caulfield and catch them in that field of rye before they run off the cliff, turn them around and tell them to go back to school.

There is a big problem with unmotivated youth in our country. The ones we do hire have few needs (cell phone with texting, cheap cigarettes, reliable transportation, alcohol/drugs and pussy/cock). Yeah, the world needs ditch diggers, too, and I am glad I won't be around in forty years when they're digging ditches for their Chinese and Russian masters.

If you know a high schooler who is failing, sep in and help that person by pointing them to college or some value-added, higher order training.

My two cents.

You don't know what the fuck you are talkin bout.

[D1B]

While being typically crude and insulting, I agree with the point that D1B makes...

The world needs engineers and scientists who are exposed to a well rounded education to include the humanities...just as those taking liberal arts need to be exposed to the sciences to be well rounded...

Yeah, but there's no reason why those things need to take up a third of one's college credits require for graduation.

The goal of college, ultimately is to create decent citizens not necessarily propellar heads. That being the case, a third is reasonable or perhaps not enough.

[Col Hogan]

While being typically crude and insulting, I agree with the point that D1B makes...

The world needs engineers and scientists who are exposed to a well rounded education to include the humanities...just as those taking liberal arts need to be exposed to the sciences to be well rounded...

Yeah, but there's no reason why those things need to take up a third of one's college credits require for graduation.

Respectfully disagree...if you want just a technical certificate, go to a tech school...

For a college degree, one third on humanities and/or other non-major electives for a B.S. is about right...IMHO...

Just as for a B.A., one third on sciences and/or other non-major electives is about right...

[JohnStOnge]

While being typically crude and insulting, I agree with the point that D1B makes...

The world needs engineers and scientists who are exposed to a well rounded education to include the humanities...just as those taking liberal arts need to be exposed to the sciences to be well rounded...

Yes, I've heard the argument about the need to be "well rounded" many times. I just don't agree with it. According to what I just looked up (http://www.answers.com/topic/liberal-arts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), "liberal arts" includes mathematics and science, so I would not say that an engineer needs to have taken any "liberal arts" courses at all. But an engineer could do just fine without having taken any philosophy, hsitory, foreign language, or literature courses (I know the "history" exclusion might raise eyebrows, but an engineer really doesn't need college level courses in history).

I think that, on the overwhelming majority of occasions, people decide to pursue an engineering degree because they want to be an engineer. They shouldn't be forced to spend a whole bunch of time and money taking courses that don't contribute to that goal in order to present themselves to potential employers as qualified. To be qualified to be an engineer they should be required to take courses that are reasonably deemed necessary to allow them to function as an engineer and that's it.

The society doesn't "need" for them to have taken philosophy, foreign languages, and literature courses. If we're going to say that it's just ESSENTIAL for people to have passed college courses in all of the "liberal arts" in order to function as members of the society we're saying most of the people in this country can't function as members of the society.

[JohnStOnge]

Respectfully disagree...if you want just a technical certificate, go to a tech school......

Well, I would go for that if you could, for example, get a certification as qualified to be an engineer by going to some kind of technical school IF having that certification as opposed to having a college degree doesn't put you at a competetive disadvantaged. Or if you could get a certification indicating that you have the necessary training to go to Medical School. That sort of thing. I don't care what they call it. I just think they ought to change the paradigm so that people don't have to spend time on money on courses that do not really contribute to preparing them to function in the vocations they've chosen to pursue.

Then if some people still want to get a college degree so they can stick their noses in the air and say they took a "well rounded liberal arts" curriculum when it really doesn't mean anything, fine.

[D1B]

While being typically crude and insulting, I agree with the point that D1B makes...

The world needs engineers and scientists who are exposed to a well rounded education to include the humanities...just as those taking liberal arts need to be exposed to the sciences to be well rounded...

Yes, I've heard the argument about the need to be "well rounded" many times. I just don't agree with it. According to what I just looked up (http://www.answers.com/topic/liberal-arts" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;), "liberal arts" includes mathematics and science, so I would not say that an engineer needs to have taken any "liberal arts" courses at all. But an engineer could do just fine without having taken any philosophy, hsitory, foreign language, or literature courses (I know the "history" exclusion might raise eyebrows, but an engineer really doesn't need college level courses in history).

I think that, on the overwhelming majority of occasions, people decide to pursue an engineering degree because they want to be an engineer. They shouldn't be forced to spend a whole bunch of time and money taking courses that don't contribute to that goal in order to present themselves to potential employers as qualified. To be qualified to be an engineer they should be required to take courses that are reasonably deemed necessary to allow them to function as an engineer and that's it.

The society doesn't "need" for them to have taken philosophy, foreign languages, and literature courses. If we're going to say that it's just ESSENTIAL for people to have passed college courses in all of the "liberal arts" in order to function as members of the society we're saying most of the people in this country can't function as members of the society.

Society DOES need them to take humanities John. I don't want a world full of engineers, nuclear physicists, chemical engineers who don't have well developed social and cultural perspectives and ethical and critical thinking skills that come from the humanities or social and liberal studies.

Your world John, would be brutal.

[JMU DJ]

Society DOES need them to take humanities John. I don't want a world full of engineers, nuclear physicists, chemical engineers who don't have well developed social and cultural perspectives and ethical and critical thinking skills that come from the humanities or social and liberal studies.

I had to tell an English major who Chanticleer was today. You humanities types aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.

[Pwns]

Universities require so many non-major credits because that helps them sustain departments that would otherwise be a drain on the university budget. And of course that in turn helps them bring in students who want to be majors in that department and help them bring in more money. Meanwhile the poor can't afford the tuition and the states can't afford to help them out. Yet another example of millennials getting f%^&ed over by modern America.

[D1B]

Universities require so many non-major credits because that helps them sustain departments that would otherwise be a drain on the university budget. And of course that in turn helps them bring in students who want to be majors in that department and help them bring in more money. Meanwhile the poor can't afford the tuition and the states can't afford to help them out. Yet another example of millennials getting f%^&ed over by modern America.

Understand your point. It has merit but the cons (young adults without critical or ethical thinking skills) kill it, IMO.

Our University system is fine. Best in the world.

[D1B]

Society DOES need them to take humanities John. I don't want a world full of engineers, nuclear physicists, chemical engineers who don't have well developed social and cultural perspectives and ethical and critical thinking skills that come from the humanities or social and liberal studies.

I had to tell an English major who Chanticleer was today. You humanities types aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.

Yeah, that just about casts a pall over the entire concept of an English degree.

[travelinman67]

While being typically crude and insulting, I agree with the point that D1B makes...

The world needs engineers and scientists who are exposed to a well rounded education to include the humanities...just as those taking liberal arts need to be exposed to the sciences to be well rounded...

Ditto

[Chizzang]

While being typically crude and insulting, I agree with the point that D1B makes...

The world needs engineers and scientists who are exposed to a well rounded education to include the humanities...just as those taking liberal arts need to be exposed to the sciences to be well rounded...

Ditto

Ditto DItto

Go to tech school if you want a high speed avenue to a career... focus and be done with it
University is about becoming a human being

[Ibanez]

Dawg's got it right - it's a tough world out there, better get used to it.

The world is a cruel, bitch mother.

[Ibanez]

Society DOES need them to take humanities John. I don't want a world full of engineers, nuclear physicists, chemical engineers who don't have well developed social and cultural perspectives and ethical and critical thinking skills that come from the humanities or social and liberal studies.

I had to tell an English major what a Chanticleer was today. You humanities types aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.

I bet he wasn't a Coastal Carolina Univ. Grad.

Btw, I corrected your grammar. No need to thank me, just pay it forward.

[Grizo406]

I had to tell an English major what a Chanticleer was today. You humanities types aren't the sharpest tools in the shed.

I bet he wasn't a Coastal Carolina Univ. Grad.

Btw, I corrected your grammar. No need to thank me, just pay it forward.

What does "just pay it forward" mean?