Reply to Are SLACS losing their luster?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think it's silly to think that the most valuable thing in the job market is going to be any subject that can be taught in a semester or two at college.  A engineer's knowledge has a half life of what, 4 years maybe?  You need to learn to learn skills-- writing, working with people, creative thinking, analysis.  [/quote]

Instead of those STEM courses that become obsolete so soon, Wesleyan offers "unforgettable" courses like “The Biology of Sex” (the textbook is a sex manual), “Key Issues in Black Feminism,” and “Queer Literature and Studies.”

Most people defending SLACS have no idea how much they have changed. [/quote]

You say it like these are the only types of courses offered at Wesleyan. We all know that's not true.

And anyway, what's so bad about taking 1-2 of these courses during four years in which you will take a total of 32 semesters' worth of courses? There is plenty of time to also take programming 100 through programming 450 and also Physics 100 through Physics 475 if you want. [/quote]

Plenty of time for those courses at Wesleyan since Shakespeare is optional for English majors, as is study of the American founding and Civil War for history majors.  That might be considered rigorous compared to Amherst, which no longer maintains a core curriculum or even distribution requirements. Apart from completing a major, students need only take a First-Year Seminar on a topic such as “Reading Gender,” or “Eros and Insight.” Everything else—including math, science, foreign languages, American history, and all of Western civ—is optional. English majors can skip the history of the language, Shakespeare, even all of British or American literature—instead mastering film, creative writing, or cultural and gender studies

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This is a typical right wing rant, as if you and you alone (and your ilk) know what each student should be taking.  A student studying German intellectual history does not need the history of the US founding (which everyone gets in high school, right?).  Ditto a student studying the history of science, east Asian history.  You get my point.  Why Shakespeare and not the romantics?  Or Washington Irving?  There is no objectively determined cannon.  Decisions are made.  If you want them made for you, go to a school with that kind of structure.  If you don't, don't.  Everyone will be just fine even with such choices out there.[/quote]

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