# What is the purpose of college? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 25, 2021, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-college/942914 "2021-05-25T21:15:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-college/942914/21 "2021-05-26T20:09:38Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Does your degree program include such classes as humanities, literature, foreign language in the general education requirements? If not, what type institution is this degree coming from? Yeah, I was an English Lit major, but I had to take at least one hard science class (Physics) and one soft science class (Psychology) to get my degree. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-college/942914/22 "2021-05-26T20:11:58Z")
My question was for @Tabco ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-college/942914/23 "2021-05-26T20:12:17Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > Does your degree program include such classes as humanities, literature, foreign language in the general education requirements? If not, what type institution is this degree coming from? Mine didn’t. The closest I came to humanities was a course on engineering cultures around the world and there were three of them I had to take but they designed as blow off classes. Instead of litatuture we has writing intensive course like labs where longer papers were required to be turned in. To the best of my knowledge there were no language courses offered at my college. I also didn’t get credit for my two 5s on the ap English because my school didn’t have anything comparable. This was at a top level public engineering school. My major was a top 5 in the world program. ---
**Author:** ![Tabco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tabco/32/7644_2.png) [@Tabco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tabco)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-college/942914/24 "2021-05-26T20:17:30Z")
The university has what they call a _baccalaureate core_ (bacc core) that includes the typical general education requirements (humanities, literature, etc). All students must complete it. Completing all of these might consume, say, 20% of the credit hours needed for graduation. The civil engineering degree program consumes the remaining 80%. Some degree programs don’t, so those students can take whatever they want to hit that credit requirement. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-college/942914/25 "2021-05-26T20:23:46Z")
I’ve said it on this board before, for me a four year college degree proves one thing that an employer is interested in. That you can make a commitment to finish something you started, much like completing a stint in the armed forces. It’s something you can point to for the rest of you life as an achievement and it opens doors that would otherwise be immediately closed to you. And its a good time to party and get laid while you are still young. Sure its not a golden ticket but getting a degree and learning something about yourself is of value. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-college/942914/26 "2021-05-26T20:58:14Z")
> [@Omar\_Little](#): > > My question was for @Tabco Can’t I answer it, too? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2021, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-college/942914/27 "2021-05-26T21:10:56Z")
> [@Tabco](#): > > The university has what they call a _baccalaureate core_ (bacc core) that includes the typical general education requirements (humanities, literature, etc). All students must complete it. Completing all of these might consume, say, 20% of the credit hours needed for graduation. The civil engineering degree program consumes the remaining 80%. That’s how ours worked; everyone had to take something like 12 hours of non-scientific courses, beyond the specific required courses (basic English composition, technical writing, 6 hours of history and six hours of political science), for a total of 30 hours. I recall having taken classical archaeology, Soviet History, intro psychology, and organizational psychology as my humanities electives. This was in the College of Engineering at a major land/sea/space grant state research university (Texas A&M), although I started college 30 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2021, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-college/942914/28 "2021-05-28T00:54:48Z")
> [@Tabco](#): > > The university has what they call a _baccalaureate core_ (bacc core) that includes the typical general education requirements (humanities, literature, etc). All students must complete it. Completing all of these might consume, say, 20% of the credit hours needed for graduation. The civil engineering degree program consumes the remaining 80%. > > Some degree programs don’t, so those students can take whatever they want to hit that credit requirement. I don’t know. I earned a BS in Civil Engineering and our program had a bunch of options for non-engineering electives. I suppose at the end of the day it was probably a bit of a waste taking a bunch of classes in structural engineering and soil mechanics and whatnot that I mostly never used in the real world. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-the-purpose-of-college/942914.md?page=1)