# Major Based Classes Only? (College) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 17, 2021, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025 "2021-08-17T17:36:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025/21 "2021-08-18T13:15:11Z")
If what you want from college is narrowly-focused training for a specific type of job, for some jobs that’s available without going to college for a degree. For some other jobs, the kind of well-rounded education you get from “outside the major” classes _are_ a necessary, or at least desirable, part of the preparation for that job. > [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > Another issue is that most gen ed courses are really about developing a particular intellectual skillset that educated people need to have in _some_ form or other – reading dense and complex texts, making sense of numerical and statistical information, expressing your ideas clearly, developing and testing a hypothesis, recognizing and respecting cultural values and assumptions that differ from your own, being able to respond to opposing points of view, etc. It’s possible that you COULD learn all of these skills by taking courses within a single academic field, but most disciplines are better at instilling some of them than others. Right; and I think nowadays many colleges have their “gen ed” degree requirements spelled out in much that way: A list of skills the student is expected to have, followed by lists of classes they could take to develop those skills. > [@sta3535](#): > > Now, I understand that we all need to complete certain classes outside of our major in order to graduate, but by giving students a choice, then they can graduate early, along with not accumulating any extra student loan debt as well. Are you talking about reducing the overall number of credit hours required for a degree? ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025/22 "2021-08-18T22:13:14Z")
Any student who graduates from a HS in Quebec and wants to go to a university in Quebec must first go to what is essentially a community college. A university degree then takes 3 years and if you want to stick to your major–and it offers 90 credits in that department-- you can. When I went to college I was planning to major in chemistry. But I discovered that I was not really cut out for laboratory work and I discovered how much I liked abstract algebra. That became my life. ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025/23 "2021-08-18T22:38:17Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > In California, the universities and community colleges have some kind of statewide agreement that certain gen-ed courses will be taught at all community colleges, and if students take certain well-documented selections from those, then that will automatically be accepted at ALL participating universities as fulfilling their entire lower-division gen-ed requirements. That’s definitely a good thing. Too many community college students end up shotgunning classes that they think will meet their general education requirements at a 4 year school and end up having to take more general education at the 4 year because they haven’t met a diversity requirement or a substantial writing requirement. To answer the OP, I think it is a good thing that students at American universities get a well rounded education and don’t just focus on one thing. Taking an art history class and enjoying it might mean they look for a career applying that economics degree in the arts. At the very least, they’re a bit more well rounded. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025/24 "2021-08-18T22:58:26Z")
We even had to take PE courses as late as the mid-90s. In part for “sound mind in a sound body” reasons, and partially to give all the kinesiology grad students TA positions. We also had a bunch of humanities electives and social science electives as well as core curriculum English, history and political science courses. And an 18 hour minor. ---
**Author:** ![Roderick\_Femm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/roderick_femm/32/14875_2.png) [@Roderick\_Femm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Roderick_Femm)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025/25 "2021-08-18T23:15:25Z")
Of course PE, I thought that went without saying. We had to pass a swimming test, or take and pass a swimming class (in the nude, for those folks for whom that is important). Spring semester I took fencing. I think we had semesters rather than quarters but this is a 50+ year old memory so I’m not sure. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2021, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025/26 "2021-08-18T23:27:38Z")
If I had stuck to classes I needed to graduate, I’d be a lab technician now… and miserable. And I’d never have gotten to help a Philosophy prof from England finish his book (a light-hearted approach to Logic), or take ‘A History of Furniture and Interior Design’, or meet with six other history buffs in the professor’s home (his wife would serve us cider and scones in front of their huge fireplace). I’m SO glad I got to try so many different things (also did some cartography, painting, sculpture, music theory, and journalism… it was a small liberal arts college with lots of breadth). So, I got to have a number of completely different careers (Advertising, Youth Minister, Illustrator, Road Crew, Writer, Designer, Teacher). I’d be bored to death just doing one job. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2021, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025/27 "2021-08-19T04:17:51Z")
I went to school for journalism and it was a very well-rounded degree. I took astronomy, US history, macroeconomics, anthropology, Ohio history, intro to African studies, even weight training and billiards. I took some cool English language classes too, and more. For journalism that kind of stuff is important. It helps breed curiosity and gives you a much more well-rounded background than your typical public high school student would have. Those classes could have sparked my interest in writing for any type of publication. If I just went to school to learn how to write articles, my education would have been _sorely_ lacking. I’m sure the same goes for, say, business majors, education majors, all of the communications majors, science majors, probably even social work and pre-med majors. Maybe some 4-year degrees don’t need to be well-rounded in order to get yourself a career after you graduate. Like perhaps computer science? But there’s a ton of degrees where “non-major” classes are doing as much to prepare you for your career as the “major” classes. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2021, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025/28 "2021-08-19T05:04:07Z")
It seems to me we have a fairly well-agreed upon consensus in this thread, in favor of general education and critical thinking. That is probably because the Straight Dope community is a self-selected, largely well-educated population with an obvious bias in favor of all that. But contrast that with the widespread epidemic of anti-intellectualism that is spreading in society at large. We may not have a general societal consensus here. That is scary. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2021, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025/29 "2021-08-19T05:44:10Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > But contrast that with the widespread epidemic of anti-intellectualism that is spreading in society at large. We may not have a general societal consensus here. I wonder. ISTM that a lot of the people who are very distrustful of (what they perceive as) modern academia are nonetheless at least nominally quite favorable toward the principle of general education. All those homeschooling parents teaching Latin, for example. There certainly are a lot of anti-intellectuals railing against “academics” and “educational elites” and “liberal scientists” and so on, but in many cases that seems to coexist with reverence for a very wide range of traditional fields of knowledge and a “well-rounded” education. What the anti-intellectuals mostly seem to object to is the whole phenomenon of modernity and modern institutions, not the principle of general education per se. ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2021, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025/30 "2021-08-19T06:17:33Z")
> [@digs](#): > > there is nothing worse than sitting at a bar with engineers or accountants who only know their own field. Borrrring… > > On the other hand, I recently was at a table with cool(er) friends. They were VERY well-rounded… talking about books that’d made a difference in their lives, and the bands they’d been in, and the junker cars they’re fixing up, and wilderness trails they’d hiked, I think you may have reversed the cause-and-effect: . some people are boring, some are not. And the ones who are not boring usually chose a well-rounded education. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-based-classes-only-college/949025.md?page=1)