I'd support keeping some kind of writing requirement (because a lot of kids aren't getting what they need in high school, although I think they should be) and some sort of math requirement. The history-lover in me is screaming to include history in that list because it gives people the ability to better understand what's going on in the world today, but much as it guts me to say it I think we could probably get rid of specific history requirements. Ditto with science, except science was the only subject I ever hated with a passion so saying it isn't such a wrench. ;)
I didn't have too much to do in the way of gen ed requirements because my high school was an AP haven and I was technically considered a second-semester junior in my first semester as a freshman, but I know my friends had to do a lot. And the gen ed requirements I did have to take were wastes of time; my high school also had a science magnet that let non-magnet students into a lot of their classes, so I took a lot of science in high school and yet I got stuck fulfilling my biology requirement with the equivalent of Biology 101, all of which I'd had before. If you can barely make yourself get out of bed even on your good days, then which classes are you going to choose to go to, the ones that you're passionately interested in or the ones you're only taking because the administration is making you?
But at least I'm not just seeing this through my own bitter experiences, since the gen ed requirements (plus the fact that I was clinically depressed when I took them and didn't know it) are what pulled my GPA down to the point where a couple of the grad schools I've been looking at will reject me based on my GPA alone. But that's a whine for another day, and for another journal (mine).
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-09-01 09:11 pm (UTC)I didn't have too much to do in the way of gen ed requirements because my high school was an AP haven and I was technically considered a second-semester junior in my first semester as a freshman, but I know my friends had to do a lot. And the gen ed requirements I did have to take were wastes of time; my high school also had a science magnet that let non-magnet students into a lot of their classes, so I took a lot of science in high school and yet I got stuck fulfilling my biology requirement with the equivalent of Biology 101, all of which I'd had before. If you can barely make yourself get out of bed even on your good days, then which classes are you going to choose to go to, the ones that you're passionately interested in or the ones you're only taking because the administration is making you?
But at least I'm not just seeing this through my own bitter experiences, since the gen ed requirements (plus the fact that I was clinically depressed when I took them and didn't know it) are what pulled my GPA down to the point where a couple of the grad schools I've been looking at will reject me based on my GPA alone. But that's a whine for another day, and for another journal (mine).