I’ve been trying to track down a news story I read online about a week or ten days ago concerning a new ranking of colleges which used as its criterion whether or not the college taught the students what a liberally educated person should know. (My alma mater received a grade of F. ) I want to call the story to the attention of some of my classmates, but I can’t seem to locate it. Can anyone help me?
You probably mean this http://www.whatwilltheylearn.com/ but I’m of the opinion it’s nonsense but then again I’m extremely biased. (Mostly because of the hell that was the foreign lang requirement, or as I like to call it the undergrad torture requirement.) I mean I saw Brown got an F because supposedly instead of having a piece of paper with requirements they have advisors that give a s**t.
Hooray, I got a B!
Yeah, that list is crap. I agree with its premise - students should take a variety of multidisciplinary courses to broaden their knowledge while simultaneously focusing in on a specific major. But that website only focuses on what is required, not what is taken or even offered. My college doesn’t allow anyone to declare their major until their second year. The first year is spent with a number of requirements (Comp. & Lit., gym of all things, etc.) and to give you a time to knock out a bunch of common pre-reqs and explore other subjects you might not have been exposed to, or have the time to take once you delve into your major. I think it’s a fantastic way to conduct your education.
My alma mater received an A (only 2% received this). However my spouses received a C.
That site is complete nonsense. They are cherry picking specific requirements and making a claim that schools are deficient unless they force their students to learn those particular subjects.
Let’s take Mathematics. The lowest level math class even offered by my alma mater was a two-term Calculus 1 sequence, which covered various pre-calculus concepts as needed. Most people don’t need to learn Calculus, and those majors in which Calculus is useful do require it. There was no lower math class offered because it was an elite liberal arts school - you didn’t get in unless you had a strong well-rounded background which included mathematics. So basically they get a “no” in this area because they only admit students who either have already learned all the math they need, or are forced to take math they need.
I became convinced while looking at more and more of the site that they are penalizing the elite schools for being picky in who they admit. While they may do a good job in detailing what standard universities should require of their students, ones that already choose the cream of the crop have no reason to force their students to sit through classes they had in high school. College-level thinking about subjects may be different, but the base knowledge is acquired a high school. Teach kids how to think critically, and it in general the subject matter is irrelevant given a good high school background.
A cursory Google search only seems to find praise on the concept, but no criticisms of how it was executed. Point by point:
Composition: This I actually agree with fully, and was an important part of my alma mater’s graduation requirements.
Literature: Why is a survey of literature required, and classes geared toward specific authors not good enough? What sort of insights can you develop in literature that couldn’t be found in high school classes when you’re forced to take on very wildly diverging works? How is interpretation of literature even necessary when similar art criticism techniques can be developed in art historical classes as well?
Foreign Language: There are two justifications for this, neither of which are a general mandate. First, there is the “global village” - it’s good to be able to communicate with more people. Ok, but then why is my alma mater given credit for this when they offer classical Latin and Greek as possibilities? Second, there is the desire to show students a different culture and way of thinking. Ok, but why do you need to learn the language to do that? My alma mater at the time I went had a requirement that you take some class that dealt with some other culture and had the same reasoning behind it. So yes, foreign language requirement is a good thing, but their logic is flawed and it is hardly necessary.
US government or history. “A course in either American history or government with enough breadth to give a broad sweep of American history and institutions.” Sorry, this is high school stuff. Reasonable to be required for community colleges perhaps, but not for a four-year degree.
Economics. Basics of supply and demand and the workings of markets will not fill a college class. Knowledge of, say, how to compute GDP is not particularly useful outside of economics.
Mathematics. They require something beyond “intermediate algebra”, which is incredibly vague, but allow for computer programming or abstract logic to fulfill the requirement. This isn’t a mathematics requirement, it’s a logic requirement, something hopefully every single class they take in college will involve. I’ve looked at an abstract logic book, and it’s a mess of symbols and rules, not advanced critical thinking.
Science. “A course in biology, geology, chemistry, physics, or environmental science, preferably with a laboratory component. Overly narrow courses and courses with weak scientific content are not counted.” So environmental science and geology are not “overly narrow”. Basic biology, chemistry, and physics are useful, but geology? In addition, apparently students should be required to learn the basics of the scientific method at the introductory college level: sitting through 4+ hour labs doing the same grunt work over and over again, then analyzing the data to find that your error bounds are so wide the experiment didn’t really show much. After my first lab course, I ran, not walked, away from further lab courses. Now, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing necessarily to subject people to what’s required to get results, I’m just saying it’s sadistic. Maybe students need that though to fully appreciate what science does for them.
Yeah, I think this is mostly bull. My alma mater gets a C, in part because they have no formal composition requirement. What the list isn’t telling you is that virtually all students take a writing-intensive freshman seminar, which not only gives them at least as much writing practice and feedback as the average, generic English 101 class, but teaches them to do real, content-based writing in their major. I am sure that students there are learning to be better writers than they are at the college where I currently teach (which gets a B, mostly because it’s got a fairly rigid, conventional checklist of gen-ed requirements).
By and large, this list seems to penalize institutions that do anything unconventional or innovative with their core curriculum. Interesting concept, poor execution.
Yeah, this ranking makes no sense.
Why should some student from China, who wants to get a degree in Electrical Engineering and go back to China, be required to take a course in U.S. History?
I agree that it is BS. My school got an F, which makes it look like they just don’t require anything at all. In reality they have a very comprehensive system of GE requirements that allow people to get a pretty solid basic education while still adhering to their focuses. For example, I was a film major and I was able to take physics classes about light to fulfill my quantitative requirement.
Composition is a sure requirement, but again the ratings fail to account for hybrid “writing-about-a-specific-subject” courses, which seems even better than a general composition course. The lit criteria seems silly- my state spends junior and senior year on survey literature courses. Why should we have to read “The Scarlet Letter” for the third time?
While I agree that every adult should be able to speak a foreign language, requiring it in university is not the answer. We need to start laying these foundations in high school. Three semesters is a huge and expensive chunk of time to expect someone to devote to classes they can do much cheaper elsewhere. I can take a perfectly good semester long language class at a private school for $300. A cheap 10 week intensive overseas course can teach you lightyears more than you’d every learn in a traditional classroom setting- I came out of one able to speak French nearly fluently and another able to get around fine in Mandarin. Why would I want to spend my precious college time and thousands of dollars doing it in university, especially since I probably wouldn’t come out of these classes able to function in said languages?
US history or gov. is ridiculous to require of international students. If I studied environmental education in Costa Rica, it’d be silly for me to have to learn the ins and outs of the Costa Rican political system. Same goes for people coming to America to study. In any case, we do both US history and government in high school.
Economics seems like a reasonable requirement, and one my school notably didn’t have. Math and science are givens, but once again the stated requirements are too narrow. They somehow didn’t count my school even though we were required to take at least one physical and one natural science.
Notably absent is any sort of arts requirement. In my experience, a single art appreciation class has a huge potential to enrich a person’s life and increase their understanding of the world. One semester is all it takes to turn many people from museum-skippers to museum goers- and that’s an appreciation that will keep giving for the rest of your life no matter what you are doing. Most people I know who have taken an intro to film class have said it changed the way the understand movies forever. I think it’s just as important to expose the futre computer programmers to this world as it is to expose the future artists to quantitative thinking.
People have differing opinions on what the purpose of college should be. If you think it should be to provide a broad liberal education, then at least some minimal instruction in history is appropriate (and if you’re going to school in the US, why not the history of the place you’re in?) On the other hand, if you think the purpose of college should be training for a particular profession, then interests outside that narrow area wouldn’t really seem relevant.
Oh, come on, people! Everyone knows that students from Arizona State University (“B”) come out more smarterer than students at Harvard (“F”)! And those 30% of students who done graduated at Midwestern State University of Wichita Falls, TX (“A”) what done more book learning than those idjits at UC Berkeley (“F”)!
Get a brain! Morans
How many spouses do you have, and who graded them?
My school recieved a D, but I don’t care. I had the time of my life; studied 2 foreign languages, took upper division writing courses, took classes in art, philosophy, history, did a study abroad program in Beijing, got a degree in Biology and left school with a deeper and broader understanding of the world and how I fit in it.
My alma mater, according to the site, does not require composition, but like your alma mater we have a year-long freshman writing intensive taken by 100% of students (unless you place out with an AP score of 5).
The site also claims my alma mater required neither math nor science, but they actually require both. Were the creators of the website looking for a required course named “Science,” for pete’s sake?
Thus I am very skeptical where this web site got the information it used to grade schools.
Damn… C, I want my money back.
The California State Universities vary in score, and the UCs are even more all over the place. I was pretty sure that they have similar curricula as far as what they cover, even if the material is different (e.g. at CSU you have to go through a liberal artsish program the first two years). Is this not the case?
It’s not so much that I believe it should be training for a particular profession, as that a program of education should be tailored to the needs and interests of the particular student. I went to college to study what I was interested in.
Of course, what I know? I went to a technical college, and the website says:
“Technical institutions that do not have a liberal arts mission are not included in this survey.”
So mine isn’t even listed.
The University of Chicago gets no credit for Foreign Language or History. :rolleyes:
I remember taking a year and a quarter, with mandatory attendance, and separate fifth-hour class time. And I can tell you it wasn’t my idea!
Right, because it’s more well-rounded to learn about the history of America, rather than the entirety of Western Thought.
I’ve done some research, and I would take this website’s findings with a very large dose of salt. The website is the product of the American College of Trustees and Alumnae, a conservative group that was founded by Lynn Cheney and Joe Leiberman. The group seems to have very strong and definite ideas–OK, a bias–as to what should and shouldn’t be required by US colleges and universities. I’m not saying all their ideas are mistaken, just that this is not an objective evaluation of colleges and universities on a broad range of unbiased criteria. Think of it along the same lines as if Fox News put together such rankings, or The Huffington Post.
It may be fun to check out what kind of grade your own college or university received, but it’s pretty meaningless.
Interesting. Williams, Amherst, and Swarthmore all get Fs. Harvard a D, Princeton a C*, and Yale an F. Those are USNews’ top three liberal arts colleges and universities, although I question the value of those rankings as well.
*Maybe the Princeton folks I knew were sucking in chemistry grad school because they were too busy taking Spanish or something in undergrad.
I went to the same undergrad as even sven and I agree with her assessment. I majored in anthropology and still took astronomy, physics, music, and psychology (among others) to fulfill requirements. I feel confident that I was exposed to a wide variety of disciplines. So I didn’t take economics - is that really the end of the world?
The commuter college near my parents’ house gets a B. And yet I’m fairly sure that UC > CSU.
My graduate institution gets a D. Oh no.
Missed the edit window.
BTW, for my undergrad, the website says that science and math aren’t required. I was confused because I distinctly recall that I had to take two science courses and a “quantitative” course as well. But they say that the science requirement isn’t enough because a lot of math classes will fulfill them, and the math requirement isn’t enough because a lot of science classes will fulfill them.
So you have to take three math and/or science classes, but that comes out as ZERO math and/or science classes by their tally. What?