Gen-ed requirements: part of a well-rounded liberal arts education or high school 2.0?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The way the elite schools do it is best: they have requirements for classes across disciplines, but they can be taken anytime in the 4 yrs, they are typically seminar style that dive deep into an area, many times there are upper level courses that count toward it. They are much harder than AP across the board, as are 90% of courses at top schools, which is why no AP credit is given for most APs at these schools (AP or testing is used for placing into higher levels of calculus and sometimes sciences and foreign language).
The students do not have to complete them before starting courses toward their major(s) or concentration. Ivies, Hopkins, stanford, top SLACs, William and Mary, Wake, Duke, WashU and dozens more do it this way.
Only the large publics have it such that the first 2 yrs are predominantly gen-ed and there is high overlap with AP.

That's not just "elite schools" that is actually how many schools do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming out of high school, I mostly looked at colleges with strong general education programs. I wanted a well rounded education at a higher level, not just courses in my major, and I wanted to surround myself with people who wanted the same thing.

I ended up at Chicago where my experience was definitely not high school 2.0. It was focused and disciplined, and it contributed a lot to the way that college formed who I am. I've got a college friend I see once a week, and we end up mentioning someone we read as part of the core pretty often.

A well implemented program can offer a lot, but a lot of places don't have that.

Fair, Chicago is an elite school with a rigorous education. We have one kid at a similarly ranked top private. The other is at a large public ranked in the top 60. Most intro classes, ie the ones that could count toward gen ed requirements, were easier than his private high school by a mile. Multiple choice tests, easy grading, rote memorization of the homework, no challenge or analysis problems. His high school was harder, truly. The other kid got much better grades in the same top curriculum in high school and ended at an elite akin to how you describe Chicago: the distribution requirements and/or intro courses were very difficult, nothing at all like High school 2.0.
DCUM acts like all colleges are the same. They are not. Parents need to talk to people who have experienced above average versus elite. The difference is vast.

Just name the school you are talking about because none of my kids schools have required high school 2.0.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not talking about elite institutions like Yale or Columbia where the breadth requirements are part of a curated humanistic curriculum.

But it seems at say, UMCP or Penn State, a lot of time is spent on these requirements, more than a third of the degree in the arts and sciences. I can see the merit, but in practice it seems to lean to a lot of undisciplined and unfocused learning. In a lot of ways it's like high school again - take your English, take your math, take your foreign language, take your gym etc. In fact the gen-ed requirements are often more extensive than the major to which students are only devoting about 30% of the degree to.

Maybe this is why in a lot of countries the bachelor's degree is 3 years because gen-ed is mainly an American thing.

Many kids can't write so classes with writing are good education.

In other words, remedial education. Why isn't this learned in high school?

Lucy Calkins and her "Writers Workshop" crap. Her "Readers Workshop" is why John and Jane do not read well.

The whole "workshop" approach to teaching -- common in elementary schools across the country until recently - is pedagogically unsound. Most students are unable to learn effectively with that approach.

George Bush and Common Core, which I believe was founded by a friend of his.

Profit

CC is not your answer. Almost no states adopted that; and also it was extremely rigorous and in some of the places that adopted it, very well done. It was deemed "too hard" by a lot of states.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought I knew what I wanted to do when I went to college. It wasn’t until I took a gen ed course in a completely different discipline that I realized what I really wanted to do.

+1

Well-chosen gen-ed classes are a lifesaver for students who discover they’ve started in the wrong major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought I knew what I wanted to do when I went to college. It wasn’t until I took a gen ed course in a completely different discipline that I realized what I really wanted to do.

Me too! I changed my major to something completely different after being intrigued by a gen ed course.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The way the elite schools do it is best: they have requirements for classes across disciplines, but they can be taken anytime in the 4 yrs, they are typically seminar style that dive deep into an area, many times there are upper level courses that count toward it. They are much harder than AP across the board, as are 90% of courses at top schools, which is why no AP credit is given for most APs at these schools (AP or testing is used for placing into higher levels of calculus and sometimes sciences and foreign language).
The students do not have to complete them before starting courses toward their major(s) or concentration. Ivies, Hopkins, stanford, top SLACs, William and Mary, Wake, Duke, WashU and dozens more do it this way.
Only the large publics have it such that the first 2 yrs are predominantly gen-ed and there is high overlap with AP.

That's not just "elite schools" that is actually how many schools do it.

Right? I actually laughed out loud when reading the OP. It's the usual anti-large publics troll who doesn't have a clue.

[Anonymous]

My large public fully admitted that the GE classes were basically high school level and the main point was to make money off tuition. Still, there was wide variety in the quality of the classes. Some were just multiple choice regurgitating of answers with detached instructors, but some had small class sizes with inspiring professors, discussions, and good feedback on writing, etc.

I really hate paying tuition and just jumping through hoops to get a degree. I wanted to learn that stuff and engage with the material. Maybe 65-75 percent tops of the GE classes were actually worthwhile.

[Anonymous]

They did? What was the reaction to this revelation?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Coming out of high school, I mostly looked at colleges with strong general education programs. I wanted a well rounded education at a higher level, not just courses in my major, and I wanted to surround myself with people who wanted the same thing.

I ended up at Chicago where my experience was definitely not high school 2.0. It was focused and disciplined, and it contributed a lot to the way that college formed who I am. I've got a college friend I see once a week, and we end up mentioning someone we read as part of the core pretty often.

A well implemented program can offer a lot, but a lot of places don't have that.

How would somewhere like Brown have prevented you from getting that same well rounded education?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming out of high school, I mostly looked at colleges with strong general education programs. I wanted a well rounded education at a higher level, not just courses in my major, and I wanted to surround myself with people who wanted the same thing.

I ended up at Chicago where my experience was definitely not high school 2.0. It was focused and disciplined, and it contributed a lot to the way that college formed who I am. I've got a college friend I see once a week, and we end up mentioning someone we read as part of the core pretty often.

A well implemented program can offer a lot, but a lot of places don't have that.

Fair, Chicago is an elite school with a rigorous education. We have one kid at a similarly ranked top private. The other is at a large public ranked in the top 60. Most intro classes, ie the ones that could count toward gen ed requirements, were easier than his private high school by a mile. Multiple choice tests, easy grading, rote memorization of the homework, no challenge or analysis problems. His high school was harder, truly. The other kid got much better grades in the same top curriculum in high school and ended at an elite akin to how you describe Chicago: the distribution requirements and/or intro courses were very difficult, nothing at all like High school 2.0.
DCUM acts like all colleges are the same. They are not. Parents need to talk to people who have experienced above average versus elite. The difference is vast.

Why don't you start by naming the school and the easy classes in question?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I took my first upper division elective in the 2nd semester of my freshman year.

How did you meet the prerequisites

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DC likes it personally because he has broad interests academically. But many of his friends hate it.

I find it highly unlikely that if the school had an open curriculum they would have chosen the exact same intro-level-heavy course selection instead of going deeper into multiple interdisciplinary topics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:While GE requirements are rhetorically presented as intellectual exploration and being well-rounded, in practice they're really about dealing with the unevenness of secondary education in the US. Big state flagships get students of quite varying levels of preparation and the functional purpose in reality is to establish some sort of common baseline.

Then why not allow well-prepared students to test out of the required courses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought I knew what I wanted to do when I went to college. It wasn’t until I took a gen ed course in a completely different discipline that I realized what I really wanted to do.

+1

Well-chosen gen-ed classes are a lifesaver for students who discover they’ve started in the wrong major.

These gen ed classes are almost never in fields where an undergrad degree is employable. An introductory programming course, for example, would be a far more valuab lifesaver than, say, a philosophy course that seduces students into a poorly-paid career (or lack thereof), yet the former is far rarer as a gen ed than the latter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My large public fully admitted that the GE classes were basically high school level and the main point was to make money off tuition. Still, there was wide variety in the quality of the classes. Some were just multiple choice regurgitating of answers with detached instructors, but some had small class sizes with inspiring professors, discussions, and good feedback on writing, etc.

I really hate paying tuition and just jumping through hoops to get a degree. I wanted to learn that stuff and engage with the material. Maybe 65-75 percent tops of the GE classes were actually worthwhile.

In what way did they admit it? Is here a webpage on their site where I can read such an admission?