Open curriculum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to Brown. You have to fulfill the requirements of your major, but the open curriculum means it is much easier to double major. Most students do take classes in a range of subjects. The fact that there are no general requirements means that everyone in the class wants to be there, which is great

+1

Same for rochester (not quite as open). It fosters "learning because you love it" not just taking classes to check boxes.

[Anonymous]

Disappointed intended choices are C’s on that list. Knew they wouldn’t be an F, but was at least hoping for a D. Big fan of open.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This website is useful as a first pass to get a quick sense of distribution requirements. The higher the letter grade, the more requirements. It’s not trying to comment on the quality of those classes. It’s not always right, but in the spot checks I’ve done, it usually is.

https://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/

That website is run by ACTA, the American Council of Trustee’s and Alumni. Per wiki:

“ACTA is a member of the advisory board of Project 2025,a collection of conservative and right-wing policy proposals from the Heritage Foundation to reshape the United States federal government and consolidate executive power should the Republican nominee win the 2024 presidential election.”

That explains A LOT about their scoring system.

Here’s what they say about their evaluation criteria.

http://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/rating-criteria#:~:text=and%20scientific%20systems.-,What%20Will%20They%20Learn%3F,%2C%20Mathematics%2C%20and%20Natural%20Science.

Apparently ACTA has been around since 1995. Just because authors of some misguided policies wanted ACTA’s input on one thing doesn’t mean the info they gathered on some other thing can’t be of value. Hyper polarization to the extent that an attempt to measure distribution requirements is demonized seems short sighted to me. Some very liberal schools get high scores (by their standards), some low, but the idea is to use it as a measure of the breadth of requirements in the groups of schools interested in. Maybe low scores is what you want if preferring fewer requirements.

I find it useless. Makes no distinction between a school where kids can use AP credits to satisfy the distribution requirements and those where they cannot. The first kind of school is effectively an open curriculum school for my kid, and (I expect) for many others from the DMV.

“Useless” seems like a pretty strong dismissal. Even some of the most rigorous schools in the country allow APs to place out of certain requirements, like foreign language. I think it’s a mistake to take the letter grades as a measure of overall quality. They only attempt to measure distribution breadth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Disappointed intended choices are C’s on that list. Knew they wouldn’t be an F, but was at least hoping for a D. Big fan of open.

A C is high on that site for a school with an open curriculum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This website is useful as a first pass to get a quick sense of distribution requirements. The higher the letter grade, the more requirements. It’s not trying to comment on the quality of those classes. It’s not always right, but in the spot checks I’ve done, it usually is.

https://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/

I looked up my undergrad and it got a D. But when I attended, the distribution requirements matched every criteria. And I had that education.

Only twist I see is that I didn't have American history. Had other histories.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
This website is useful as a first pass to get a quick sense of distribution requirements. The higher the letter grade, the more requirements. It’s not trying to comment on the quality of those classes. It’s not always right, but in the spot checks I’ve done, it usually is.

https://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/

I looked up my undergrad and it got a D. But when I attended, the distribution requirements matched every criteria. And I had that education.

Only twist I see is that I didn't have American history. Had other histories.

OK, I took another look. My university has all the criteria, they are just not giving it credit because it's possible to take a theoretically easier class than the site rater wants. For example, you could take Symbolic Logic in the Philosophy department instead of Calculus in the Math department. And the school has to require American History. But most of us get that in huge quantities in K-12.

I'd say this scale is evaluating the rigor of a curriculum more than openness. Unless we're supposed to be seeking out the "F" schools as the most "anything goes" schools.