Quality of a VT education

[Anonymous]

Can anyone with experience at VT speak to how strong the overall education is? I’m not concerned about pre-professional programs or job placement but I do care that DC is taught how to think in general education courses. Are students engaging in thoughtful discourse at VT or are most kids just focused on their major? In other words, is this a legitimate scholarly environment?

[Anonymous]

All of VA’s top three publics (no need to debate the order here) offer a legitimate scholarly environment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of VA’s top three publics (no need to debate the order here) offer a legitimate scholarly environment.

How strong is the general education at VT? Are the engineering students taking a philosophy course and if so, are they taking it seriously?

[Anonymous]

My VT student is receiving a top-notch education at VT. The general education classes are excellent, and serve to round out one's major.
OP sounds like the usual troll. "A legitimate scholarly environment"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My VT student is receiving a top-notch education at VT. The general education classes are excellent, and serve to round out one's major.
OP sounds like the usual troll. "A legitimate scholarly environment"?

Can you provide specific examples of what makes the courses excellent and why you would consider VT to be a scholarly environment? I don’t care about student stats or job placement. I want to know what happens inside the classrooms.

[Anonymous]

There are so many classes engineering students need to take that they have an abbreviated version of gen eds. You can try to take smaller seminars but I'm guessing many try to take easy classes because engineering is already demanding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are so many classes engineering students need to take that they have an abbreviated version of gen eds. You can try to take smaller seminars but I'm guessing many try to take easy classes because engineering is already demanding.

+1. One wonders if OP/PP are familiar with engineering degrees.

VT is best known for engineering. Yes, it offers many other degrees, but engineering and agriculture and other STEM degrees drive VT's reputation.

An engineering degree almost always requires visibly more credit hours for the degree than a humanities degree does.

Separately, most engineering degrees do not have "Gen Ed" requirements similar to a humanities degree. They do have a handful of electives, but not many. Most engineering degrees require the vast majority of classes to be from a relatively fixed sequence and coursework is overwhelmingly in engineering or math or physics or chemistry...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of VA’s top three publics (no need to debate the order here) offer a legitimate scholarly environment.

How strong is the general education at VT? Are the engineering students taking a philosophy course and if so, are they taking it seriously?

Are the philosophy students at UVA, or Yale, taking a multivariable Calculus course, and, if so, are they taking it seriously?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There are so many classes engineering students need to take that they have an abbreviated version of gen eds. You can try to take smaller seminars but I'm guessing many try to take easy classes because engineering is already demanding.

This is concerning. We need engineers that understand the issues of society, not just human robots doing math equations. Is this true for other majors at VT? Pre-professional isn’t scholarly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of VA’s top three publics (no need to debate the order here) offer a legitimate scholarly environment.

How strong is the general education at VT? Are the engineering students taking a philosophy course and if so, are they taking it seriously?

Are the philosophy students at UVA, or Yale, taking a multivariable Calculus course, and, if so, are they taking it seriously?

They should be taking quantitative reasoning courses just like STEM majors need to be learning the humanities and social sciences. It’s extremely dangerous to learn STEM but neglect other areas.

[Anonymous]

Gen Eds at VT are called Pathways. Easy to look up what that entails. All students need to complete them, including the engineering students. My senior Hokie placed out of many of them due to AP credit, and some (the STEM related ones, advanced communication and a design one) have gotten satisfied via her major requirements. That left her with 1 arts class to take (she chose an online music appreciation class to help balance her schedule). She also took a global ethics class one semester as she needed 3 more credits for her scholarship that term & wanted an online course to give her flexibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of VA’s top three publics (no need to debate the order here) offer a legitimate scholarly environment.

How strong is the general education at VT? Are the engineering students taking a philosophy course and if so, are they taking it seriously?

Are the philosophy students at UVA, or Yale, taking a multivariable Calculus course, and, if so, are they taking it seriously?

No, they skip serious math classes because it is not required they take them…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of VA’s top three publics (no need to debate the order here) offer a legitimate scholarly environment.

How strong is the general education at VT? Are the engineering students taking a philosophy course and if so, are they taking it seriously?

Are the philosophy students at UVA, or Yale, taking a multivariable Calculus course, and, if so, are they taking it seriously?

No, they skip serious math classes because it is not required they take them…

Serious math isn’t needed to be a serious thinker. The math kids that don’t get a quality liberal education could be the downfall of humans.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gen Eds at VT are called Pathways. Easy to look up what that entails. All students need to complete them, including the engineering students. My senior Hokie placed out of many of them due to AP credit, and some (the STEM related ones, advanced communication and a design one) have gotten satisfied via her major requirements. That left her with 1 arts class to take (she chose an online music appreciation class to help balance her schedule). She also took a global ethics class one semester as she needed 3 more credits for her scholarship that term & wanted an online course to give her flexibility.

Yes but how strong are the courses? Do professors care and challenge the students? Do students care? Testing out isn’t impressive at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Gen Eds at VT are called Pathways. Easy to look up what that entails. All students need to complete them, including the engineering students. My senior Hokie placed out of many of them due to AP credit, and some (the STEM related ones, advanced communication and a design one) have gotten satisfied via her major requirements. That left her with 1 arts class to take (she chose an online music appreciation class to help balance her schedule). She also took a global ethics class one semester as she needed 3 more credits for her scholarship that term & wanted an online course to give her flexibility.

Online? Yikes