# Remedial college courses **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 9, 2001, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remedial-college-courses/64847 "2001-05-09T05:30:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2001, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remedial-college-courses/64847/21 "2001-05-11T05:29:32Z")
even sven writes: \> Every school has different strong departments (mine, even \> though it is one of middling prestige, has strong \> astrophysics, RNA microbiology, film, and the top \> lingustic program in the nation) and different “feels” \> (mine is laid back and full of hippy-intellectuals). You go to UC Santa Cruz according to your profile. It certainly doesn’t have the top program in linguistics in the country. According to this website: [http://www.jajnsn.com/vanguarduniversities/linguistics.html](http://www.jajnsn.com/vanguarduniversities/linguistics.html) it’s the tenth best one in the country. (I know the field of linguistics. If you run into Bill Ladusaw or Jim McCloskey in the Santa Cruz department, say hello to them from me. I went to grad school with them.) Of the other departments you name, astrophysics rates sixth in the country. Microbiology isn’t remotely a top program. I can’t find ratings for film. Santa Cruz isn’t the top hippy-intellectual school in the country either. My undergraduate school, New College in Sarasota, Florida, is probably both hippier and more intellectual. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2001, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remedial-college-courses/64847/22 "2001-05-11T18:22:06Z")
Hey man! I never meant to incite college wars! I consider sixth and tenth to be pretty decent rankings. We area a hot place to be if you are into RNA. We just cracked the human genome code (alright, now I gloating) In film, it certainly isn’t top ranked, but in terms of undergraduate access to production resources (in a lot of “top” film schools undergrads don’t stand a chance of getting hands on) it is an awesome place to be. I never meant to say that my school was the number one in anything, I just wanted to say that even though Santa Cruz is the “lowest” prestige UC, there are some pretty darn valid reasons to go here instead of Berkeley. Goodness, I never meant to say “My college is better than you college” or something stupid like that, but perhaps “My college might be a better choice for some people than your college”. And if we don’t have hippy-intellectuals here, would you please tell my housemate to bathe and stop talking about Hume? ---
**Author:** ![aenea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c68b51/32.png) [@aenea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aenea)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2001, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remedial-college-courses/64847/23 "2001-05-11T19:47:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by vivalostwages \* > I’ve been teaching in the community college and public university system for 10 years now, and I still cannot figure out why there are remedial courses given at the college level. I’m talking about basic math and English–subjects which students should have become reasonably proficient in by the time they graduated from high school. > \ > Even so…I think there should be some kind of transitional school or series of courses that one could take between high school and college, to “get up to snuff” before entering the world of higher education. Otherwise, what is the point of going to college and taking an extra semester or year just to get ready to manage the next few years? I can see the points you are making here. I don’t really agree, but I see them. First you assume that college is only for those that graduated from some high school. You are forgetting about the people like me out there. I did not get the chance to finish high school. Nope, not a choice there. So I finished 9th grade. When I got older, after working for several years, I managed to get my butt into a college and pursue the education that I had always wanted. Did I need remedial classes. Yes. I had never taken algebra. My reading happened to be better than that of most of the students there, but what if it was not? Transitional classes? I suppose if you were a traditional student, and just did not pay attention in class, well sure. But it was hard enough for me to take time from working full-time to go to college. Should I have taken more years just so you would not have the ‘burden’ of putting up with my remedial needs? > [@](#): > > Remedial courses in college also take space, time, resources, money, teachers, etc. away from those who are already prepared to go the distance in college. And the students who are still struggling with the basics have trouble in their academic courses. Then they need extensive tutoring–not just for a little help, but to make it all the way through each course. Now you are assuming that because I (or anyone) needed a few math classes, that I (or anyone) not prepared to “go the distance” in college. :rolleyes: Please, teacher. I paid cash for my classes. It’s more than most of those kids I went to school with did. People like me pay your salaries. Do you have a problem with teaching people who actually need help? Or do you just like to teach the easy classes? ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2001, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remedial-college-courses/64847/24 "2001-05-12T01:37:09Z")
Point taken, aenea. I must admit I wasn’t even thinking about nontraditional students when I wrote my first two posts. However, I’ve got to come down on the anti-math-requirement side. I took the accelerated algebra-trig-calculus sequence in high school, and in fact had As in most of the classes. Gues what? In the seven years since I graduated from high school, I have _never_ used any mathematics beyond simple arithmetic. Since math is pretty much a use-it-or-lose-it field, I’ve forgotten everything else. It’s a good idea to expose kids to these classes at the high school level, so that the ones who _do_ have a certain amount of mathematical ability and interest find their path in life, but I really don’t see the point in requiring _everybody_ to take college-level math. By the time students are university age, they usually know where their talents lie. The ones who aren’t mathematically inclined will suffer through these classes; most will pass them, but that doesn’t mean they’ll use or retain what they’ve learned. OTOH, I’d be up in arms if anybody made the same argument about foreign languages, so I guess it depends on what you value. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/remedial-college-courses/64847.md?page=1)