[Split Thread] College/University course requirements in subjects other than major [Archive]

volatile

17th June 2010, 05:25 AM

When I was a graduate student, I supervised the lab for a third-year chemistry course geared towards non-chemists (people who needed a high-level science option for their arts/education/whatever degree). Some students were fairly good, others were not.

OT: Why do American universities do that? That guy would have been much better off spending his time studying the topics of his major; the topics he was interested in and capable at. Why make the poor bloke do higher level chemistry for years, even though he doesn't need or want or is even able to do it?

I understand and appreciate the value of a rounded education (I'm an academic in the UK, for the record). But that just seems like "rounding" for the sake of it; for bureaucratic reasons. It doesn't help the student in question, it makes the educators and administrators lives more difficult, and probably adversely impedes the others in the class who do want or [practically, not bureaucratically] need to be there.

ZirconBlue

17th June 2010, 06:23 AM

OT: Why do American universities do that? That guy would have been much better off spending his time studying the topics of his major; the topics he was interested in and capable at. Why make the poor bloke do higher level chemistry for years, even though he doesn't need or want or is even able to do it?

I understand and appreciate the value of a rounded education (I'm an academic in the UK, for the record). But that just seems like "rounding" for the sake of it; for bureaucratic reasons. It doesn't help the student in question, it makes the educators and administrators lives more difficult, and probably adversely impedes the others in the class who do want or [practically, not bureaucratically] need to be there.

Universities in the UK don't require you to take classes outside your major?

malbui

17th June 2010, 06:45 AM

Universities in the UK don't require you to take classes outside your major?

It's a long time since I was a student in the UK but in my day we didn't even have the concept of a "major". You read for a degree in whatever subject and had a number of core courses and then usually a choice of specific options, all related to the general subject. Certainly there was no idea of needing a number of science credits in an arts degree or anything like that.

Damien Evans

17th June 2010, 07:00 AM

It's a long time since I was a student in the UK but in my day we didn't even have the concept of a "major". You read for a degree in whatever subject and had a number of core courses and then usually a choice of specific options, all related to the general subject. Certainly there was no idea of needing a number of science credits in an arts degree or anything like that.

It's still like that down here.

volatile

17th June 2010, 09:01 AM

Universities in the UK don't require you to take classes outside your major?

Quite the contrary... though it is possible to take modules outside of one's subject speciality, it's pretty rare. Even when students do take modules from other departments, they are rarely if ever so far beyond their topic of interest, and rarely beyond first year. Kids in my department (art history) might take the odd history, philosophy, fine art, literature, religious studies, archaeology, classics, politics or even economics and business elective, but I don't think I can remember a single one who'd taken physics, chemistry or maths.

I'd bet that fewer than 1% of humanities students take science modules as part of their degrees.

Seriously, what good is it doing "W" to be taking a third-year chemistry class? He should be studying for his subject, not wasting time fretting about bromine! And why are your academics having to waste time, energy and patience having to supervise students like him? The whole thing seems to counter-productive.

I have American friends who all tell similar stories - most of whom are in the UK because they wanted to devote themselves to their subjects rather than take electives just to fulfil a bureaucratic requirement. Is this simply just a cultural thing? Or is there a pedagogic rationale at work?

Madalch

17th June 2010, 09:11 AM

Seriously, what good is it doing "W" to be taking a third-year chemistry class? He should be studying for his subject, not wasting time fretting about bromine! And why are your academics having to waste time, energy and patience having to supervise students like him?

This wasn't an American university- it was a Canadian one.

W wasn't a chemist, and I don't recall what he was taking. He may have been trying to get into medicine or dentistry, and anyone who tries to be a doctor without understanding chemistry has no business being allowed to try. He may have been getting a degree in education, and the world already has far too many teachers who have studied education without learning any subject material.

slingblade

17th June 2010, 02:26 PM

I once read that the answer to "Why do they...?" is almost always "money."

It's referred to as "a well-rounded education," and for many students, it's a good thing they do have to take 25 to 30 credit hours of General Education. At my school, they had to add some fifty 090 level English and Math classes, because the students coming in had insufficient English or Math skills. 090 is high school level, you understand, not even college level writing or mathematics. Freshman college classes start at the 100 level.

Aside from that, however, all degrees are required to start with English Composition, English Literature, Art, Science (including a lab), History, and Social Sciences. [ETA: and a year of another language.] Then, after two years of that, you get to start your degree work, in your Junior year. If it wasn't done that way, a Bachelor's degree could be earned in two years, and the school wouldn't get that extra two years' tuition and fees. Can we all say ka-ching?

But I liked it and I support the idea. As I said, many of the students are woefully under-prepared for college level work, and learning subjects aside from your degree concentration often aids your degree work. Cross-curricular, you see.

Rat

17th June 2010, 02:55 PM

I can see the benefit of that sort of approach, although I'm not sure the execution is ideal. I'm pretty sure it used to be the case in this country as well, and I'm not sure when it changed. On the one hand I agree that if you go to study a degree in a given subject, then you should be studying that subject. On the other, I've met far too many university graduates who can barely string a sentence together, couldn't tell you what country Paris is in, have not the first clue of current affairs, and so on. I'm reminded of the editor of the Listener crossword who, responding to complaints that it's too difficult these days, pointed out that some decades ago it was perfectly possible to expect one's readers to have a working knowledge of Greek and Latin.

On the course I'm currently doing (OU, which I realize won't count as a 'proper' degree to some people), it turns out I have to get 330 credits from a prescribed list of modules, and 30 points from any other degree-level course. This just seems weird to me. The fact that I can complete a degree in computing with a module in the history of art in Siena, Florence and Padua doesn't strike me as a useful approach.

slingblade

17th June 2010, 03:09 PM

I hate that I can't think of a better reason, or articulate this reason any better than I do, but I don't see the point of a college education that only covers your area of interest and no more. That's what trade schools are for. Besides, there's so much out there to learn! I like the idea that a college grad has some deeper background in history, the arts, languages, and so forth.

I mean, as an English major, what business did I really have in learning algebra?
Yet now, I do understand the concepts. I didn't get any algebra in my childhood education. Isn't it good that I learned it, anyway? I dunno. I think well-rounded is better, but that's just my opinion. :D

Mr. Skinny

17th June 2010, 03:34 PM

Interesting off-topic subject.

I have a mechanical engineering degree, but had to take a few basic level industrial engineering courses, a few electrical engineering courses, took some safety (industrial) and environmental (chemistry) courses in addition to basic chemistry.

Had your basic sociology, philosophy, psychology, stats, etc. also.

Since I would basically describe my job as an engineering generalist, I've found that having a few basic skills outside of my major (mechanical) was well worth it. And yes, it did translate to = money.

ZirconBlue

17th June 2010, 07:59 PM

I think this whole line of discussion would make for it's own interesting thread. In "Education", perhaps.

I think the point of the requirements in US Universities is to provide a well-rounded education to all students. Additionally, I think that in the US, most employers aren't looking at a degree as training in a topic, but, rather, as an indication that you are ready and able to learn.

Cuddles

18th June 2010, 04:10 AM

Quite the contrary... though it is possible to take modules outside of one's subject speciality, it's pretty rare. Even when students do take modules from other departments, they are rarely if ever so far beyond their topic of interest, and rarely beyond first year.

I don't know if it's a national thing or not, but in many universities they now have a "module outside your main discipline" scheme, where every first year student has to take one module that's not part of their main degree. Of course, since it's only in your first year it's completely meaningless, since that doesn't actually contribute to your final degree. And since it's managed in such a bizarre way (all departments have one or two MOMD options, and you can pick any one, including from your own department), most people actually take one that's related to their degree anyway. I did a physics degree, and the MOMD option I took was on cosmology.

That said, there are some places that do things a bit differently. Oxford and Cambridge, as well as a few other universities, do natural sciences instead of individual sciences, and anyone wanting to study one science has to study other areas as well for at least the first couple of years. And Oxbridge medical degrees include a year in the middle where you get your actual BA in something that is often only very tenuously related to medicine.

But yeah, in general you pick your degree and stick with it.

I don't see the point of a college education that only covers your area of interest and no more.

The point is that university is there as a place for people to learn specialist knowledge. It's not an extended school with the idea of producing nice rounded jacks of all trades. It's for the subset of people who want to learn more about something, so they can later get a job involving it or go on to do further research.

The idea of university as something other than a place of learning specialist knowledge is precisely why we now have so many people wasting their time and money on useless "degrees" like media studies and crap like that, who often actually end up with worse employment prospects than if they hadn't bothered. University is not somewhere everyone should go to produce rounded people, it's somewhere a minority of people who actually want to learn advanced knowledge should go. Apprenticeships, vocational training, and various other forms of higher education exist specifically because university is not appropriate for everyone.

Besides, there's so much out there to learn!

That's exactly the problem. There's so much out there to learn, and there's no way for anyone to learn more than a small fraction of it. I spent four years at university exclusively studying physics (well, physics, alcohol and women), yet there's still a huge amount of physics I know very little about, including quite a bit of stuff related to my current job. If I'd spent half my time learning about something completely unrelated, I'd know even less of the relevant stuff.

I like the idea that a college grad has some deeper background in history, the arts, languages, and so forth.

But why? What would be the use of me being able to quote Shakespeare if it meant that I wasn't actually competent in my job?

As for languages, I'll agree that education in the UK is extremely bad in that respect. But it's not an area that universities should be forced to waste time on. In most European countries, children are reasonably fluent in at least two or three languages before they ever get to university. Given how much we know about younger brains being much better at learning languages, that's really the only sensible way to do it.

I mean, as an English major, what business did I really have in learning algebra? Yet now, I do understand the concepts. I didn't get any algebra in my childhood education. Isn't it good that I learned it, anyway?

You had business learning algebra because it's extremely useful in day-to-day life. In fact, it's so useful that it's usually taught early in high school, if not sooner. If you were never taught algebra until university, that just means that your schools sucked incredibly badly, and are forcing your higher education institutes to waste their, and their students', valuable time teaching basic things that everyone should already know.

ZirconBlue

18th June 2010, 06:15 AM

That's exactly the problem. There's so much out there to learn, and there's no way for anyone to learn more than a small fraction of it. I spent four years at university exclusively studying physics (well, physics, alcohol and women), yet there's still a huge amount of physics I know very little about, including quite a bit of stuff related to my current job. If I'd spent half my time learning about something completely unrelated, I'd know even less of the relevant stuff.

Well, "half" your time would be an exaggeration.

But why? What would be the use of me being able to quote Shakespeare if it meant that I wasn't actually competent in my job?

Unless one is going into a very highly technical or specialized field (such as pure research or R&D-type settings), it's my experience that few jobs actually require such specialization of knowledge. And too narrow a focus can actually detrimental. I suspect that people who get degrees in Physics either need to be very knowledgeable in that field or face limited employment potential. But, there are many, many "Engineering" jobs, for example, that require that you demonstrate the overall technical abilities needed to get an Engineering degree, but also require other skills that you won't learn sticking to a pure Engineering curriculum.

I suspect the big difference is that if you want to be an "expert" or pursue highly specialized knowledge in the US, you would probably go on to a Masters or PhD program in the field. Those graduate programs are much more focused.

drkitten

18th June 2010, 12:34 PM

The point is that university is there as a place for people to learn specialist knowledge. It's not an extended school with the idea of producing nice rounded jacks of all trades. It's for the subset of people who want to learn more about something, so they can later get a job involving it or go on to do further research.

Er, no. That's exactly what it isn't, and that's what distinguishes a "university" (n.b. the word has the same root as the word "universe" or "universal") from a trade or vocational school. Of which there are also zillions and zillions in the USA.

If you just want to learn enough biology to be a lab tech, there are better (faster and cheaper) places to go; the point of a "university" education is that you get the specialist knowledge and the broader education to help you contextualize it.

That's exactly the problem. There's so much out there to learn, and there's no way for anyone to learn more than a small fraction of it. I spent four years at university exclusively studying physics (well, physics, alcohol and women), yet there's still a huge amount of physics I know very little about, including quite a bit of stuff related to my current job. If I'd spent half my time learning about something completely unrelated, I'd know even less of the relevant stuff.

But why? What would be the use of me being able to quote Shakespeare if it meant that I wasn't actually competent in my job?

Actually, being too narrowly educated is one of the main reasons that "foreign" degrees have difficulty getting employment in the United States. This is particular true at the Ph.D. level -- it's almost impossible to get a faculty position in the States with a UK degree, even a "good" one from a school like Oxbridge or Imperial. The reason is quite simple -- most faculty are expected to be able to cover a wide variety of topics because teaching staff are quite limited and need to be flexible. If your training in particle physics is sufficiently narrow that you can't teach introductory cosmology or biophysics, then we won't hire you -- because the introductory courses still need to be taught, and we can't afford to hire three specialists instead of one generalist.

But the same effect happens at lower levels; a typical secondary school teacher, for example, will be hired to teach "science" -- which can include courses in biology, chemistry, physics, geology, math, and computing. If you can't teach all of those disciplines, we'd rather hire someone who can. And, frankly, we'd like to hire someone who can also teach composition at the same time -- because even biology students need to be able to write grammatically correct sentences.

And you see the same thing out in the business world as well. Corporations want to hire people with broad skill sets, because they want to make sure that you can not only do your current job, but you can also do any other job that comes up. Yes, we hired you as a test engineer -- but we may need to send you out on sales trips, and you better be able to write documentation. Can't do all three? Well, we'll look for someone who can....

quixotecoyote

19th June 2010, 01:35 AM

Er, no. That's exactly what it isn't, and that's what distinguishes a "university" (n.b. the word has the same root as the word "universe" or "universal") from a trade or vocational school. Of which there are also zillions and zillions in the USA.

If you just want to learn enough biology to be a lab tech, there are better (faster and cheaper) places to go; the point of a "university" education is that you get the specialist knowledge and the broader education to help you contextualize it.

Actually, being too narrowly educated is one of the main reasons that "foreign" degrees have difficulty getting employment in the United States. This is particular true at the Ph.D. level -- it's almost impossible to get a faculty position in the States with a UK degree, even a "good" one from a school like Oxbridge or Imperial. The reason is quite simple -- most faculty are expected to be able to cover a wide variety of topics because teaching staff are quite limited and need to be flexible. If your training in particle physics is sufficiently narrow that you can't teach introductory cosmology or biophysics, then we won't hire you -- because the introductory courses still need to be taught, and we can't afford to hire three specialists instead of one generalist.

But the same effect happens at lower levels; a typical secondary school teacher, for example, will be hired to teach "science" -- which can include courses in biology, chemistry, physics, geology, math, and computing. If you can't teach all of those disciplines, we'd rather hire someone who can. And, frankly, we'd like to hire someone who can also teach composition at the same time -- because even biology students need to be able to write grammatically correct sentences.

And you see the same thing out in the business world as well. Corporations want to hire people with broad skill sets, because they want to make sure that you can not only do your current job, but you can also do any other job that comes up. Yes, we hired you as a test engineer -- but we may need to send you out on sales trips, and you better be able to write documentation. Can't do all three? Well, we'll look for someone who can....

I don't think you've made your argument. Let's say I don't want to be a lab tech, I want to be a top notch particle physics researcher. Now, yes, context is important, but it needs to be relevant context to the field of study. Something like cosmology or biophysics would touch on context relevant to the broader field of physics, as would many areas of mathematics, basic language/writing skills, and possibly some focused civics courses.

However, other subjects are decidedly not relevant and would not add any valuable context. Most lit classes, most X Studies classes, many history classes, many comp sci classes, most musics classes, most art classes, most communication classes, and many media studies classes would all have a lack of valuable relevance.

You might find a few that have some marginal arguable impact, but I think that if you want to focus on excelling in a given field, you should have the option to take a course of study that only requires courses outside that field if it can make a solid argument that your mastery of your chosen field would benefit from the contents of the course.

Accidental Martyr

19th June 2010, 01:47 AM

volatile

19th June 2010, 02:06 AM

I understand the arguments about needing knowledge outside your major, etc. However, I know a guy majoring in Film/Art who just had to drop out of school because he has failed algebra six times. He's incredibly talented but he just cannot do math. His brain doesn't work when it comes to math.
Another thing I found rather odd was the fact I couldn't major and minor in the same college. I wanted to major in Television and Film and minor in Journalism but I couldn't. I ended up getting a minor in American Studies instead.

Depressing story and I've heard it before - principally from Americans who've come to the UK to study. A good friend of mine is American; she's an incredible opera singer with a place at one of the top conservatoires in the UK. She dropped out of her US course for the same reason - the course didn't allow her to concentrate on singing, ad she found herself spending an inordinate amount of time on things she couldn't, did not want and did not need to do.

volatile

19th June 2010, 02:09 AM

The fact that I can complete a degree in computing with a module in the history of art in Siena, Florence and Padua doesn't strike me as a useful approach.

Hey, a friend of mine wrote that module! Don't knock it! :-D

shadron

19th June 2010, 02:22 AM

The undergrad school I went to happened to be a Jesuit college. The school had a number of general requirements for all bachelor-seeking students: 21 semester hours in philosophy or theology (they are a catholic college, after all), 6 hours in science, 12 hours in English, 12 hours in a language and so on. I took a course in Engineering Physics, which had even more requirements: 6 hours in business, sociology, psych and so on, as well as about 30 hours in math and the same in physics, 8 hours in chemistry. I graduated with 138 semester hours, not to speak of having to walk there in the snow, carrying my brother...

I took classes in every department on campus (including drama and music) except for, I'm sorry to say, biology. The Jesuits have a thing about well-rounded educations.

shadron

19th June 2010, 02:26 AM

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Robert Heinlein, Time Enough for Love

Rat

19th June 2010, 03:27 AM

Hey, a friend of mine wrote that module! Don't knock it! :-D
No knocking intended. I didn't pick it at random, but because my better half took it a few years ago as part of her BA in history, and I remember reading through her TMAs and stuff.

MattC

19th June 2010, 08:41 AM

Modified

19th June 2010, 09:09 AM

Well, "half" your time would be an exaggeration.

For me it was 36 credits out of 185, or about 20%. That was three one-trimester courses in each of : English, Humanities, and Social Science. Natural Science requirements were waived for Engineering majors, and Math would be required for your degree anyway. I could have (should have) taken tech writing for at least one English course, which would have been directly useful.

KoihimeNakamura

19th June 2010, 01:59 PM

I am slowly taking (actually, I'm out of college right now because my schedule is very anti me taking the tests I need to get in this semester but..) a associates of science transfer degree.

Most of the courses aren't science based at all, ironically. (Don't mind too much, I mean, I'm looking forward to taking intro to Sociology.)

drkitten

21st June 2010, 06:30 AM

I don't think you've made your argument. Let's say I don't want to be a lab tech, I want to be a top notch particle physics researcher. Now, yes, context is important, but it needs to be relevant context to the field of study. Something like cosmology or biophysics would touch on context relevant to the broader field of physics, as would many areas of mathematics, basic language/writing skills, and possibly some focused civics courses.

Sorry about the delay in response; AFK for a few days.

There are several problems with this. The first is simply that we don't know what "top notch" researchers need to know. The genuinely top notch researchers tend to know everything (and that's one of the reasons that they're top notch). The anecdotal stories are too numerous to mention, but there's also some harder evidence. One of the best predictors of success in the graduate mathematics program at Berkeley (according to a study done a while back that I have unfortunately lost) is the score on the [i]verbal section on the GRE. Not the math or logic section.

That sounds absolutely counterintuitive, doesn't it? It actually makes a hell of a lot of sense. To even think about applying to Berkeley math -- or to be accepted -- requires that you be a brilliant mathematician. So we're looking at ceiling effects in the math and logic scores; the difference between any two students in scores is mostly noise instead of measurement. But the difference in verbal scores is measurement, and it correlates strongly to their ability as researchers and scholars at one of the best programs in the world (i.e. to their ability to become "top notch" researchers). So if you are serious about becoming a top notch researcher, you better become a polymath....

A more fundamental problem, though, is that although you may want to become a top notch particle physics researcher,.... well, as the famous philosopher Mick Jagger put it, "you can't always get what you want." You're looking at the wrong end. A typical physics professor at Berkeley probably sees two hundred students over the course of a year -- and fifty physics majors, at least. There are something like 2000 new physics graduate students a year in the United States alone. Every year there are 1000 or so new physics Ph.D.'s, and there are less than 1000 physics faculty in the US. At most three physicists a year go on to become Nobel laureates.

The odds of any random physics graduate student being able to secure a faculty position are something like 50:1 against. The odds against any random graduate student being able to score a Nobel prize are something like 1000:1 against. And the odds of any random physics undergraduate student being able to score those positions are lower yet.

So colleges can't really plan their curriculum around the needs of the "top notch." Aside from the fact that we don't know what top notch researchers will need to know (otherwise, we'd just learn it ourselves and become top notch researchers), that would be unfair to 99.9% of the students in the program, who are destined never to reach those lofty heights.

And to be fair, most don't even want to, even if they say they do. The dropout rate even at the Ph.D. level is 50%; the dropout rate at the undergraduate level is comparable, even without taking into account people who switch majors but still graduate[i]. When an eighteen year old comes into my office and tells me his --- it's almost always "his" -- grandiose plans about life after graduation, my initial response it to pat him on the head and say "that's nice, dear." I figure there's about one chance in four that he will actually complete the program here, and maybe one chance in twenty that he will head off to graduate school in my discipline. (Those are informal figures; perhaps I should run the actual numbers, but that would be really depressing....) So what I need to do -- regardless of what he says he "wants" right now -- is to give him the best [i]general education that I can, so that when he decides that he doesn't really want to be a CIA spy or a hedge fund manager or a rocket scientist for NASA or a historian of Apache drama, he can still have other skills that will let him put bread on the table. Even if he can't be a rocket scientist for NASA, he can at least make phone calls for a local insurance company or manage their database or something.

And in fact, ideally he can do both, which gives him an edge in the job market over the nerd that can manage the database but can't talk to customers.....

fuelair

21st June 2010, 06:57 AM

Er, no. That's exactly what it isn't, and that's what distinguishes a "university" (n.b. the word has the same root as the word "universe" or "universal") from a trade or vocational school. Of which there are also zillions and zillions in the USA.

If you just want to learn enough biology to be a lab tech, there are better (faster and cheaper) places to go; the point of a "university" education is that you get the specialist knowledge and the broader education to help you contextualize it.

Actually, being too narrowly educated is one of the main reasons that "foreign" degrees have difficulty getting employment in the United States. This is particular true at the Ph.D. level -- it's almost impossible to get a faculty position in the States with a UK degree, even a "good" one from a school like Oxbridge or Imperial. The reason is quite simple -- most faculty are expected to be able to cover a wide variety of topics because teaching staff are quite limited and need to be flexible. If your training in particle physics is sufficiently narrow that you can't teach introductory cosmology or biophysics, then we won't hire you -- because the introductory courses still need to be taught, and we can't afford to hire three specialists instead of one generalist.

But the same effect happens at lower levels; a typical secondary school teacher, for example, will be hired to teach "science" -- which can include courses in biology, chemistry, physics, geology, math, and computing. If you can't teach all of those disciplines, we'd rather hire someone who can. And, frankly, we'd like to hire someone who can also teach composition at the same time -- because even biology students need to be able to write grammatically correct sentences.

....That may be true as a goal, but in the 5 locations (all but one fairly large city locations with a good number of schools/teachers) I have taught, the number of people certified in even two sciences could be counted on one hand - and on a badly damaged hand if one needed to be bio and the other Phys. or Chem. We are, at High School level, nicely rare. I am certified in those three + Media and Gen.Sci. Only by careful management of records have I been able to NOT be certified in LA/Eng. and Math - nowadays those are hell places due to the NCLB thing and the paperwork involved with it/accountability silliness, same.

BTW, unless you get a sciences AND math cert. teacher, how can you use them to teach both areas (?) - I ask because , as FL tells it to us, you have to be well-qualified and certified to teach a subject more than one emergency year and FL says that is NCLB fault/required (I don't know because, frankly, as done, I find NCLB a perfect Bush idiocy - not the idea, just the execution).

fuelair

21st June 2010, 07:12 AM

I understand the arguments about needing knowledge outside your major, etc. However, I know a guy majoring in Film/Art who just had to drop out of school because he has failed algebra six times. He's incredibly talented but he just cannot do math. His brain doesn't work when it comes to math.
Another thing I found rather odd was the fact I couldn't major and minor in the same college. I wanted to major in Television and Film and minor in Journalism but I couldn't. I ended up getting a minor in American Studies instead.Depending on American Studies branch, that COULD be great. I am interested in/have taught media production, but, I used my knowledge of American history and culture - especially Black History/Culture in America to explain and contextualize developments in the film and television industries. In all fairness, I did not take any functional couses in these areas - I do autodidact a lot - too many interests, too little time, too few courses available with decent/needed areas for me to take courses.

drkitten

21st June 2010, 08:00 AM

That may be true as a goal, but in the 5 locations (all but one fairly large city locations with a good number of schools/teachers) I have taught, the number of people certified in even two sciences could be counted on one hand

To some extent, you've answered your own question -- you're teaching in large cities with a good enough funding base and a large enough student base that your schools can afford to hire specialists. I also suspect that you're teaching in "good" districts or at least "good" schools so that recruitment and retention are not problematic.

Things change when you move to the provinces. To put it bluntly.

BTW, unless you get a sciences AND math cert. teacher, how can you use them to teach both areas (?) - I ask because , as FL tells it to us, you have to be well-qualified and certified to teach a subject more than one emergency year and FL says that is NCLB fault/required (I don't know because, frankly, as done, I find NCLB a perfect Bush idiocy - not the idea, just the execution).

Again, I think you've answered your own question; the states and districts where this is an issue will "carefully manage" the records either to maintain the necessary waivers because of "emergency" candidate shortages, or to get the teachers the necessary qualifications.

fuelair

21st June 2010, 09:34 AM

To some extent, you've answered your own question -- you're teaching in large cities with a good enough funding base and a large enough student base that your schools can afford to hire specialists. I also suspect that you're teaching in "good" districts or at least "good" schools so that recruitment and retention are not problematic.

Things change when you move to the provinces. To put it bluntly.

Again, I think you've answered your own question; the states and districts where this is an issue will "carefully manage" the records either to maintain the necessary waivers because of "emergency" candidate shortages, or to get the teachers the necessary qualifications.

Actually, based on free and reduced lunch and other indicators, only one of the eight schools I have taught at in the last 27 years qualifies as a "good" school- three middle schools, four high, poverty/low income for over half the students and money squeezes - more recently, last three years terrible. The problem with maintaining the waivers (and, in Florida people have lost their positions because FL takes the rules seriously - and seems to be under pressure to do so) is here it's just about impossible to do that. Can't speak to other states, though.

MarkCorrigan

21st June 2010, 03:12 PM

Er, no. That's exactly what it isn't, and that's what distinguishes a "university" (n.b. the word has the same root as the word "universe" or "universal")

Um... no, no it isn't. It's from a Latin term meaning "A community of teachers and scholars".

quadraginta

21st June 2010, 04:13 PM

Madalch

21st June 2010, 04:42 PM

Another thing I found rather odd was the fact I couldn't major and minor in the same college. I wanted to major in Television and Film and minor in Journalism but I couldn't. I ended up getting a minor in American Studies instead. That's something that I've never gotten- the whole major/minor thing. I got a B.Sc. in chemistry. I didn't "major" in chemistry, I got a chemistry degree. I didn't "minor" in anything, and don't know that anyone I went to university with did, either.

volatile

22nd June 2010, 03:36 AM

There are several problems with this. The first is simply that we don't know what "top notch" researchers need to know. The genuinely top notch researchers tend to know everything (and that's one of the reasons that they're top notch...

Just to come back to [what became] my OP, I wasn't really so concerned about the "top-notch"... The guy Madalch was talking about probably wasn't a top researcher, just an average student being hampered (in terms of work and in terms of grades) by being forced to do a subject he couldn't and didn't want to do.

Forcing people to take classes outside of their subject specialisms seems (to me) to be detrimental to those middle-ability students, who'd doubtless improve their work in their principal subject if they didn't have to spend time fretting about a minor. After all, I imagine poor W would spend a good chunk of time fretting about and preparing for a chemistry class and the associated project work and exams; time which would in my opinion be better used in the service of his actual skill-set and interests. The system seems extraordinarily counter-productive.

ZirconBlue

22nd June 2010, 05:45 AM

That's something that I've never gotten- the whole major/minor thing. I got a B.Sc. in chemistry. I didn't "major" in chemistry, I got a chemistry degree. I didn't "minor" in anything, and don't know that anyone I went to university with did, either.

A "major" is your principle field of study. I have a BSEE. My "major" was Electrical Engineering. A minor is not required. It demonstrates some secondary specialization. Each degree program will lay out the requirements to earn that secondary certification. At my University, a minor in mathematics, for example, required 18 course hours in (specific) mathematics courses.

Some people will choose to "double-major", that is they will choose courses in such a way as to earn two BS (or BA) degrees at the same time. The general education requirements will apply toward both degrees, and negotiations between the respective departments will often allow some additional requirements to be waived*. Thus, people who would ordinarily be able to earn a single degree in 4 years, might be able to earn 2 in 5 years.

*Note that degree requirements aren't always 100% set in stone. If you've got a student that has met all the other requirements for a degree, but simply cannot pass one particular course, he or she can probably get some alternative accomodation by speaking with their faculty advisor, and/or the Dean of the college.

drkitten

22nd June 2010, 08:29 AM

Just to come back to [what became] my OP, I wasn't really so concerned about the "top-notch"... The guy Madalch was talking about probably wasn't a top researcher, just an average student being hampered (in terms of work and in terms of grades) by being forced to do a subject he couldn't and didn't want to do.

Forcing people to take classes outside of their subject specialisms seems (to me) to be detrimental to those middle-ability students, who'd doubtless improve their work in their principal subject if they didn't have to spend time fretting about a minor.

They'd improve their work in their principal subject. But given the very high probability (especially in the US) that they will not complete a degree in their principal subject (most US students change majors at least once), and that they will work in an area largely unrelated to their principal subject after graduation, I think it's very likely that they will be negatively affected overall.

For example, most insurance companies prefer their salesmen to be college-educated. It's one of the fastest growing fields in the United States (according to the Labor Department). You can't, however, get a degree in insurance sales. Those insurance salesmen will need to come from somewhere, and the middle-ability students are the ones most likely to become them. (A middle-ability physicist is less likely to progress to graduate school than one of the stars, but also still likely to be quite bright and well-educated enough to compete for a job in insurance sales against a college dropout.)

Madalch

22nd June 2010, 09:29 AM

drkitten

22nd June 2010, 10:09 AM

Nobody was forcing him to take chemistry- he needed a science option, and had chosen this particular one. Possibly because he had learned that he could get high marks in chemistry by (as I've mentioned) memorizing the method of solving various kinds of problems (without understanding the material).

And, FWIW, most US schools that have distribution requirements also have designated classes designed to fulfil those requirements without causing the (ahem) "second-tier" students to crash and burn. A lot of times, those are referred to pejoratively by names like "Rocks for Jocks" (catalog title: introduction to geology for non-majors) or "Physics for Poets," or even "Nuts and Sluts" (introduction to psychology). But the idea is that you can get your three-credit science option without having to take calculus-based physics and go head to head against the people who took their pocket calculators apart and reprogrammed them to play World of Warcraft in high school.

So either W was a lot dumber than he thought he was (in which case, he should have been struggling to complete his degree), or he was taking the wrong set of classes and should have used RfJ as his science option. We see a lot of the "dumber than they think they are" students, too. There are a lot of students who move from the "accelerated" or "honors" track in high school mathematics into remedial classes here. I blame the high schools. We have a fairly objective method of sorting students (you take a standardized test during orientation week), and if you get 80%+, you go into Ravenclaw, and so forth. A lot of the high schools seem not to cover the material we expect to the depth we expect, even in "honors" classes, which means a lot of students end up in Hufflepuff. Just because your course was titled "Honors Algebra II" doesn't mean that you learned to factor polynomials, or even what a polynomial is....

Madalch

22nd June 2010, 10:39 AM

And, FWIW, most US schools that have distribution requirements also have designated classes designed to fulfil those requirements without causing the (ahem) "second-tier" students to crash and burn. A lot of times, those are referred to pejoratively by names like "Rocks for Jocks" (catalog title: introduction to geology for non-majors)

I actually took that class as a fourth-year chemistry student- I needed one more non-chemistry science option, I was allowed one more first-year course, and I didn't want anything that would distract me from quantum chemistry and my research project.

jasonpatterson

22nd June 2010, 04:13 PM

volatile

23rd June 2010, 04:09 AM

drkitten

23rd June 2010, 05:48 AM

The bolded part is what I meant by "forced to do a subject he didn't want to do".

And Dr. K - if people are taking "Rocks for Jocks" just to fill a quota on their transcript, that kinda proves my point, doesn't it? Those classes aren't serving any useful educational purpose - they're just makework exercises driven by well-meaning intentions which seem often to be a detriment to the student's experience and education rather than addition.

Interesting that you should be making that argument on the JREF; usually people here are complaining that the creationists and consumers of snake oil don't know enough basic science -- and now you want to keep it that way, apparently.

The science requirement teaches students the fundamentals of scientific practice -- empiricism, the role of evidence, the difference between a conjecture and a full-fledged theory, the role of falsifiability, and so forth. All the things that are supposed to help people reject Young Earth Creationism when Parson Brown spouts nonsense in the op-ed pages about "teach the controversy."

The literature requirement teaches students the fundamentals of communication -- basic grammar and rhetoric, the elements of narrative, and some of the basic tools for constructing a compelling or persuasive story.

The foreign language requirement teaches students the fundamentals of cultural variability -- different countries really are different and view the world differently.

The math requirement teaches students the fundamentals of logical reasoning and proof.

It doesn't matter where you pick up those fundamentals; you get the same reasoning skills in a properly taught logic class, calculus class, or baby stats class. You get exposure to a different culture regardless of whether you take French, German, Spanish, or Chinese. And you learn about empirical evidence in chemistry, physics, or geology. We don't actually teach courses on the abstract "fundamentals" of science, but we do insist that you need to learn those fundamentals.

And the obvious observation to make from modern American society is that students don't know these things and should. I'd like to be able to say "but they should have learned this stuff in high school!" -- and of course, they should,.... but I haven't got control of their high school education, and I have control of their college curriculum. I'm not going to allow anyone to graduate on my watch who doesn't know the difference between a result supported by objective evidence and an unfalsifiable just-so story.

I've taught in both systems (England/UK and USA), and the basic problem is much worse in the UK. A colleague of mine declares, with pride, that she's never taken a mathematics class since she was twelve -- and then she complains that she doesn't understand how her computer works or how to set up a rule-based spam filter on her gmail account. Well, yeah. The spam filter is based on rules, which are based on (Boolean) logic, which she never learned because she dropped out of math class before she learned how to solve 2x+7=21.

I don't care if she can solve that particular equation. But I do care -- and she cares -- if she can understand the difference between "if X then Y" and "if Y then X." She just doesn't realize that that's what she cares about. (See Dunning-Krueger effect.)

volatile

23rd June 2010, 06:14 AM

It seems this is a fundamental disagreement (see Cuddle's post earlier, which I am essentially re-iterating here) about what universities are for. I agree with you - all those things you mention should be taught in high school. That's what schools are for - for general, broad but fairly shallow teaching.

It seems like you're teaching things to 18-21 year olds that are being taught to 14-16 year olds in the UK, and you're doing it at a detriment (see, again, W) to their higher-level learning. Critical thinking is now embedded in the 11-16 curriculum too, as is science. Foreign languages were removed from the compulsory list of subjects some time ago, and I agree (as a language graduate myself) that's a problem. I think the new government are looking to make foreign langauge study compulsory again. (And, as an aside, it's impossible for your colleague not to have taken a maths class since she was 12 in the UK. Maths is compulsory to GCSE at 16, and a pass grade A-C is basically a requirement for entry to A-Levels and university courses).

I appreciate your comments and experience, but I think really this comes down (as I suspected all along) to a vastly different social and cultural perspective. Are you aware of any empircal comparisons between the outcomes of US vs European systems in terms of breadth of knowledge, skill-sets etc.?

I teach art history, and I don't want my students fretting over a stats or geology class they can't do instead of spending time working on the subject they love and are in my department to learn.

Mark6

23rd June 2010, 12:30 PM

I hate that I can't think of a better reason, or articulate this reason any better than I do, but I don't see the point of a college education that only covers your area of interest and no more. That's what trade schools are for. :D
Unfortunately (in US at least) there are no trade schools for engineers. Or pharmacists. Or architects.

In above and many other equally specialized fields, there are many practicioners who would have been quite happy to save time and money, and just spend 2-3 years learning what they actually do, rather than 4-6 years on "college education". I understand Slingblade's point, but not everyone feels the way she does. And people who do not feel that way should not be forced into studying (and paying to study) what they are not interested in.

But the only way (again, in US -- do not know about elsewhere) to become an accredited engineer is to get an engineering degree. Not to put too fine point on it, it's a racket.

Complexity

23rd June 2010, 05:01 PM

I used to teach at a school that was utterly greedy when it came to separating students from their money. It had an aviation program in the same 'college' as the computer science department. I was often asked by aviation majors why they needed to take the same intro to computer programming course that CSci majors took.

I found out the answer. The college (created for and run by the evil twerp that founded the aviation program) got more money for each required course offered by its other departments. That was the only reason. Money.

I also served on the General Education committee for that university. It made me think a lot about what education and schooling are.

I've long believed in the desirability of a well-rounded education.

I'm not convinced, however, that educational institutions should presume to be parental when it comes to trying to ensure that students get a well-rounded education. That's the students' job, and it is one that will take a lifetime if they rise to the challenge. All that a school can do is provide the resources and an environment conducive to learning. If the school offers degrees, they should be awarded for knowledge exhibited, not for courses taken. To pretend that by forcing students to take introductory courses in a variety of areas gives them a well-rounded education is wrong and offensive.

I'm inclined to think that the student-directed reading for exams approach is more effective and honest than the 'edjucation-R-us' approach of most US schools.

ZirconBlue

23rd June 2010, 06:09 PM

It's nice for academics to only study in their area of specialization. But, for most of us not working in academia, having more generalized degrees is a benefit. If "art history" students only study art history, then their education is of limited value in the non-art-history world. But, in the US, their degree will still have some usefulness outside that specialized area, because employers know that they have a general college education as part of that degree program.

I have a BSEE, but do not work as an "Electrical Engineer". If my education had been exclusively confined to EE courses, then most employers would not be interested in me to fill other, non-electrical-engineering roles. And, I would still be out of work.

Or flipping burgers with the Art History majors.

drkitten

24th June 2010, 07:27 AM

It seems this is a fundamental disagreement (see Cuddle's post earlier, which I am essentially re-iterating here) about what universities are for. I agree with you - all those things you mention should be taught in high school. That's what schools are for - for general, broad but fairly shallow teaching.

Well, that's nice. Given that they aren't, we're faced with the issue of what to do.

It seems like you're teaching things to 18-21 year olds that are being taught to 14-16 year olds in the UK

No, they're being taught to some 14-16 year olds.

and you're doing it at a detriment (see, again, W) to their higher-level learning.

I've not seen any evidence that W is being injured by being forced to learn science. If the science class he eventually passes will keep him from being killed by using homeopathic medicine instead of the Real Stuff, then I think the university has done its long-term job better than allowing him to take another class in the major.

(And, as an aside, it's impossible for your colleague not to have taken a maths class since she was 12 in the UK. Maths is compulsory to GCSE at 16, and a pass grade A-C is basically a requirement for entry to A-Levels and university courses).

The GCSE started in 1986; I have colleagues who predate O-levels.

I teach art history, and I don't want my students fretting over a stats or geology class they can't do instead of spending time working on the subject they love and are in my department to learn.

How many of your students are going to be able to earn a living as art historians? I'd suggest many of your students would prefer doing art history as a hobby while working as a management consultant to starving in a garret. Heck, I'd suggest most of your students would prefer that.

drkitten

24th June 2010, 07:37 AM

I've long believed in the desirability of a well-rounded education.

I'm not convinced, however, that educational institutions should presume to be parental when it comes to trying to ensure that students get a well-rounded education. That's the students' job, and it is one that will take a lifetime if they rise to the challenge. All that a school can do is provide the resources and an environment conducive to learning.

This, of course, is untrue. For a counterexample, look at how the military runs its classes, both at the academies and in the actual service training. Do you think that Parris Island simply offers would-be Marines "the resources and an environment conducive to learning"?

Of course not. Even university athletic programs recognize that, left to their own devices, students by definition don't know what they need to do to succeed. That's why they're students. Every (decent) football team has a conditioning coach whose job it is to make sure that the student-athletes do the exercises that they haven't been doing, either because they don't want to or because they simply don't know how to train the whatsit muscle group effectively. Hell, the professional teams have these coaches as well.

It's the Dunning-Kroeger effect, or if you like, it's Rumsfeld's "unknown unknowns." The students don't know what skills they will need -- and they also don't even know whether or not they will be able to succeed in their chosen field at all. Do scientists need to know how to write persuasively? Many high school students would say "no" -- writing is the job of the English department, not the chemistry department. This will last until the first time they get a paper bounced from a journal -- or a grant proposal bounced -- because the reader wasn't convinced, or worse, didn't understand. Do English majors need to understand statistics? Yes; how else are they going to analyze the carefully constructed propaganda pieces put out by the companies they're investigating in their newspaper jobs.

The greybeards running the department know this. Even if they don't know this, their advisory boards do.

If the school offers degrees, they should be awarded for knowledge exhibited, not for courses taken.

If you can separate "courses taken" from "knowledge exhibited," then your college is doing something wrong. At least in theory, you have to exhibit knowledge of the course material to pass the class.

The difference is that in the US system you have to exhibit knowledge of stuff that will help you succeed in life even if you don't get a job as an art historian.....

jillianbean

25th June 2010, 01:53 PM

[QUOTE=volatile;6043218]

I have American friends who all tell similar stories - most of whom are in the UK because they wanted to devote themselves to their subjects rather than take electives just to fulfil a bureaucratic requirement.[\QUOTE]

This is the EXACT reason why I am looking at doing my Graduate work (post-graduate, it's called in England) overseas. I'm taking an Archaeological Science class right now, and 3/4 of the class are people who simply needed a lab science course and thought this one would be easier than taking Biology, Chemistry, etc. My last semester before graduating will be nothing but upper level electives, that will probably have nothing to do with my major or minor, because I'll be done with my degree-required course work this coming semester, but will be short on the required elective credit hours.

MarkCorrigan

26th June 2010, 03:12 AM

GrandMasterFox

26th June 2010, 04:20 AM

Put me also as someone who does not understand the broad education thing.

In my country, you have 10 years of mandatory school attendence. The final 2 are optional. And those who wish to graduate high school have to take several mandatory classes including literature, history, math, english, civics etc. If I recall correctly (been a while), you need at least 27 points and 21 are mandatory. You could have more of course if you wish.

But still, you have plenty of time to learn and be given the broad education that you should have. This doesn't even include the 10 years that came before.

Then when you go for your degree, you only learn the field you wished to learn. Most establishments will allow you to dibble a bit in other faculties but that's optional not mandatory.

I mean, seriously, the notion that "students may not know what's good for them" is just plain stupid. We are talking about people who are old enough to vote for the future of the country and yet you think they cannot decide what is best for their own future?

And for those people who wish to have a little of each, there's a program for a "general BA". If someone wants to give himself a broader education that's fine. But forcing people into it is just plain stupid.

Jeff Corey

26th June 2010, 04:28 AM

Then fix your schools...
Thank you so very much for such valuable advice. I'll get right on it.
But in the meantime, there are two separate issues here. One is the lack of preparation for college study in US high schools, both in terms of content and effective study habits, leading to the need for remedial courses in college. The other is a disagreement over the value of exposure to a wide range of college courses outside of the major. That is a value judgment. We disagree. I'm glad that, in addition to the science courses required for a B.S. in Psychology, I got to take other courses like French Literature, Logic, and Physical Anthropology.
I'll also second Dr. K's point about students changing majors. Sometimes they really don't know what a field is about until until they take a survey course. Students who major in Psychology because they, "Wanna help people" drop out of Intro Psych when they are asked to learn the function of various neurotransmitters or the differences between classical and operant conditioning.

drkitten

26th June 2010, 06:43 AM

Then fix your schools.

I can't.

As I said, I have little control over the contents of the local high schools; the way the US school system is set up, even professional educators have little control over the contents of the high schools one town over.

So I fix what I can control, which are the graduation requirements from the school where I can influence things.

The problem here isn't that our universities are wrong or that yours are, it's that your school system is broken. Ours isn't exactly wonderful and happy birdsong, especially with the introduction of those vile "faith schools" that don't have to stick to the National Curriculum, but I find the idea that it's considered a good thing for students looking for a degree to have refresher courses on fairly basic maths and science to be a totally insane one.

It might help if you learned more about the system you're dissing.

The students who don't need the refresher courses don't need to take them. Remember the mathematics placement exam I mentioned earlier? The students who score highly enough on it -- i.e. who have genuinely mastered enough mathematical material -- fulfill their breadth requirements by sitting and passing their placement exam. I had a good high school and didn't have to take any "breadth" courses when I got to university -- not even a foreign language, because my high school preparation was good enough.

I find it even more disturbing that this is done because so many of them genuinely don't grasp these concepts.

You're not the only one being disturbed by this. But it seems odd that you should be criticizing one of the groups doing something to fix this problem. "Goodness, our high schools are churning out illiterates! Damn those university breadth requirements for addressing this! How dare they insist that students master high school material before giving them a university degree? What crust!"

I'm happy with the way our education system works. To me, University is a place to become specialised with an advanced level of work, not learn about calculus for the first time.

So which would you prefer? Learning about calculus for the first time in university, or never learning about calculus at all? Because learning about calculus in high school is not an option. (Actually, learning about calculus in high school isn't even mandatory in the UK -- Calc is not part of the GCSE requirements, although trig is. And passing GCSE math is not necessarily a requirement to get into the university; you can get into Bristol UWE, for example, on the strength of three GCSEs, but there is no requirement that any of them be in any particular subject. And this is typical.)

drkitten

26th June 2010, 06:47 AM

I mean, seriously, the notion that "students may not know what's good for them" is just plain stupid. We are talking about people who are old enough to vote for the future of the country and yet you think they cannot decide what is best for their own future?

That's right. They get to vote, but not to decide. 18 year olds have input, but not authority. And there's a very good reason for that.

And it's the same in the American university system. The students have input -- they have, for example, more or less complete freedom to choose their major and to change it at will. Most majors have a laundry list of free electives from which they can choose -- a mathematician might opt to take graph theory instead of transfinite set theory; a historian might opt to focus on Latin American instead of Sub-Saharan Africa. But the basics are structured to make sure that they don't graduate with great stonking holes in their knowledge because they didn't realize how crucial it was to learn about manuscript traditions.....

Complexity

26th June 2010, 07:09 AM

drkitten - I disagree.

If we didn't do such a crap job of teaching students through high school, and if the students didn't do such a crap job of learning, and if their parents didn't do such a crap job of parenting, we wouldn't have so many students starting college without skills and knowledge that they should have picked up in junior high and high school.

If college students need hand-holding while going through school, so be it, but many of them don't.

Unfortunately, far too many students are attending college who aren't ready for it and who won't benefit much from it.

Colleges in some other countries have figured out how to make this work.

Publishing expectations, providing mentors/tutors, and setting challenging exams can work well.

tuoni

26th June 2010, 07:12 AM

For the following, I must point out I have very recently managed to escape from the UK University system (I got awarded my BSc. (Hons.) in Computer Science a couple of weeks ago - my formal graduation is in a couple of weeks)

Then fix your schools. The problem here isn't that our universities are wrong or that yours are, it's that your school system is broken. Ours isn't exactly wonderful and happy birdsong, especially with the introduction of those vile "faith schools" that don't have to stick to the National Curriculum, but I find the idea that it's considered a good thing for students looking for a degree to have refresher courses on fairly basic maths and science to be a totally insane one. I find it even more disturbing that this is done because so many of them genuinely don't grasp these concepts.Our school system IS fundamentally broken. I was lucky enough to get into a grammar school, but I have a younger sibling who went through a comprehensive (dressed as a school with a "grammar stream"... basically, the "grammar stream" was the same teaching but you were allowed to take the tier of exams I had no choice in taking at GCSE) and frankly our education was miles apart. My school (the one I left 5 years ago) last year was officially the best school in the country - if that's the best this country has to offer I'm, frankly, disgusted.

Passing exams now (whether they be GCSE, 'A'-level or undergrad) are all about spoon-feeding the students to chase targets and to make money.

I'm happy with the way our education system works. To me, University is a place to become specialised with an advanced level of work, not learn about calculus for the first time.I have spent 3 years going through a CS degree where people have had to (metaphorically... I assume, anyway) have their hands held through the basics all of the way. I left sixth form (year 13, 18 year-old) and went straight into full-time work as a programmer. When I originally signed up for this degree, the course involved writing our own basic Operating Systems, our own compilers etc. By the time I got to the course I'd signed up for and deferred, that had all been scrapped because it was "too difficult" and I was stuck with people in my final year who have but the most basic grasp of English (and yes, that's their first language in the most part - the foreign students actually outclass most of the natives) and people who after two solid years of coding in various C based languages still have difficulty with where to put a semi-colon. And no, I honestly don't exaggerate.

And may I point out, I'm also not going to an ex-poly.

The English education system is broken. Fundamentally broken.

ingoa

26th June 2010, 11:28 AM

The English education system is broken. Fundamentally broken.

I claim that (almost) all education systems are broken.

The curricula did not really take into account the changes of the last decades. You still have to learn languages, history, arts, sports, sciences... But the the amount to be learned increased by orders of magnitude. So everything gets compressed. I see university students not being able to write (yes pencil!) notes of their experiments in a coherent way. They cannot identify half of the vegetables in the supermarket without help of a label.

How can we deal with that? To be honest I have no clue. My impression is that students need a basic set of abilities (maybe 19th century knowledge). Of course I might be wrong.

It is my strong conviction that we need to define a canon of fundamental knowledge that should be known to every college student. The issue is: concepts. Learn about concepts.

Maybe I am just an old fart rumbling about that each consecutive generation is heading down.

(Non English native speaker; no spell check; give me some mercy ;))

fuelair

26th June 2010, 12:27 PM

I claim that (almost) all education systems are broken.

The curricula did not really take into account the changes of the last decades. You still have to learn languages, history, arts, sports, sciences... But the the amount to be learned increased by orders of magnitude. So everything gets compressed. I see university students not being able to write (yes pencil!) notes of their experiments in a coherent way. They cannot identify half of the vegetables in the supermarket without help of a label.

How can we deal with that? To be honest I have no clue. My impression is that students need a basic set of abilities (maybe 19th century knowledge). Of course I might be wrong.

It is my strong conviction that we need to define a canon of fundamental knowledge that should be known to every college student. The issue is: concepts. Learn about concepts.

Maybe I am just an old fart rumbling about that each consecutive generation is heading down.

(Non English native speaker; no spell check; give me some mercy ;))

The vegetables thing I can actually understand. In the US in the 50s and 60s, the number of types of vegetables normally available in a grocery store (fresh, frozen or canned) was much smaller as was the number of types of each. Cheese and other dairy products, the same. Now, when you include non-dairy "dairy products" the number is also vastly wider. No wonder it is harder to keep track of the products.

No argument on the concepts thing though! Scaffolding is very useful - and we are hearing it a lot in education again recently (In the PLC/RTI movement - if you are in education in the US and not aware of those letters, you will be).

Trakar

26th June 2010, 02:12 PM

Originally Posted by drkitten
Er, no. That's exactly what it isn't, and that's what distinguishes a "university" (n.b. the word has the same root as the word "universe" or "universal")
Originally Posted by MarkCorrigan
Um... no, no it isn't. It's from a Latin term meaning "A community of teachers and scholars".

:popcorn1

hate to see good popping corn wasted!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe

...The word Universe derives from the Old French word Univers, which in turn derives from the Latin word universum... De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) — which connects un, uni (the combining form of unus', or "one") with vorsum, versum (a noun made from the perfect passive participle of vertere, meaning "something rotated, rolled, changed").[8] Lucretius used the word in the sense "everything rolled into one, everything combined into one".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University

The original Latin word "universitas" was used at the time of emergence of urban town life and medieval guilds, to describe specialized "associations of students and teachers with collective legal rights usually guaranteed by charters issued by princes, prelates, or the towns in which they were located."

http://www.latinwordlist.com/latin-words/universum-32881249.htm

http://www.latinwordlist.com/latin-words/universitas-32873207.htm

It is entirely possible that we are equating two seperate types of institutions and training despite using the same word for the disparate institutions. Many of the European Universities may actually be more adequately qualified as advanced, highly specialized, trade/votech schools, whereas American Universities seem to be more educational extensions of earlier general education foundations offering specialized training in addition to a more complete and broad-based general education.

quadraginta

26th June 2010, 03:27 PM

hate to see good popping corn wasted!

<snip>

It is entirely possible that we are equating two seperate types of institutions and training despite using the same word for the disparate institutions. Many of the European Universities may actually be more adequately qualified as advanced, highly specialized, trade/votech schools, whereas American Universities seem to be more educational extensions of earlier general education foundations offering specialized training in addition to a more complete and broad-based general education.

Excellent. My thoughts as well. The phrase "separated by a common language" has come to mind since early in this thread.

Having said that, my instinct is to come down on the side of encouraging at least some diversity in exposure at the level of instruction encountered in early college education. I'm not talking about remedial instruction either. The comparative shortcomings of various secondary schools aren't germane. The level of exposure to ideas, facilities, and expertise is necessarily superior at the college level, and it is to be expected that concepts and viewpoints not uncovered in high school will be in college. This is as it should be. As time passes the students themselves will have more discretion in directing their own path towards specialization, and as they do they will have more information to base that direction on. Hopefully.

drkitten was quite right in pointing out the common roots of the words, and looking deeper into the references provided in the Wiki article you quote it seems that MarkCorrigan's definition was a specialised one, itself.

This cite (http://books.google.com/books?id=5vgGE8_CGOEC&pg=PA748&lpg=PA748&dq=community+of+teachers+and+scholars+universitas+ magistrorum+et+scholarium&source=web&ots=Q-K88OdXyH&sig=YqFluZHNcSWstv1oApgs34cMUdQ#v=onepage&q=community%20of%20teachers%20and%20scholars%20uni versitas%20magistrorum%20et%20scholarium&f=false) pointed out that the early medieval meaning of universitas was "any community or corporation regarded under its collective aspect", and the more specific one in the context we are discussing was "universitas magistrorum et scholarium". In short, a teachers and students union, in the most modern sense of being a legal collective bargaining entity. The only real implication of academic specialization was in the sense of 'specializing in academics', as opposed to, say, weaving or masonry.

-------------------

Another theme recurring in this thread has reminded me of a question I have contemplated often in the past.

Has there ever been a generation which didn't feel that the upcoming youngsters weren't being taught as well, or as thoroughly as they themselves had been in their youth? Who didn't feel that the new youngsters were neglecting important classics, and failing to assimilate the "appropriate" basics? Who didn't believe that the "modern" institutions had become less rigorous and demanding?

I suspect that deploring the state of modern education is a very ancient tradition.

I have to go now. There are some kids I need to chase off my yard.

MarkCorrigan

27th June 2010, 04:13 AM

I can't.

As I said, I have little control over the contents of the local high schools; the way the US school system is set up, even professional educators have little control over the contents of the high schools one town over.

So I fix what I can control, which are the graduation requirements from the school where I can influence things.

It might help if you learned more about the system you're dissing.

The students who don't need the refresher courses don't need to take them. Remember the mathematics placement exam I mentioned earlier? The students who score highly enough on it -- i.e. who have genuinely mastered enough mathematical material -- fulfill their breadth requirements by sitting and passing their placement exam. I had a good high school and didn't have to take any "breadth" courses when I got to university -- not even a foreign language, because my high school preparation was good enough.

I know, my girlfriend did them, but I also know that this isn't the vast majority of students. If you need to do fairly basic maths at university you shouldn't be at university.

You're not the only one being disturbed by this. But it seems odd that you should be criticizing one of the groups doing something to fix this problem. "Goodness, our high schools are churning out illiterates! Damn those university breadth requirements for addressing this! How dare they insist that students master high school material before giving them a university degree? What crust!"

I suppose it is better than not having them learn it at all, and I realise that teachers and other experts have little say in American education because of the utterly moronic idea of elected school boards (seriously, who thought that was a good idea?) but surely you can campaign to fix these things a bit at a time?

So which would you prefer? Learning about calculus for the first time in university, or never learning about calculus at all? Because learning about calculus in high school is not an option. (Actually, learning about calculus in high school isn't even mandatory in the UK -- Calc is not part of the GCSE requirements, although trig is. And passing GCSE math is not necessarily a requirement to get into the university; you can get into Bristol UWE, for example, on the strength of three GCSEs, but there is no requirement that any of them be in any particular subject. And this is typical.)

That's typical? I beg to differ. Unless things have seriously gone downhill in 5 years you need A-levels, usually at least 3, to get onto virtually any University course that isn't an A-Level refresher, and to get into A-Levels you need at least 5 A*-C GCSE's.

I'd love to know what course you managed to cherry pick that requires only 3 GCSE's but I imagine it's a really pointless one that doesn't mean anything, like David Beckham studies.

For comparison, I applied to two universities that accepted me. One of them required 280 UCAS points (accumulated with AS and A levels only. GCSE's don't count) and the other required 280 out of 3 A-levels only. I didn't make it in 3 so I went to Aberystwyth (which it turns out is one of the best in the world for my course). All of the Universities I looked at, let alone applied for, required at least 3 A-Levels of some kind. None of them required GCSE's or even mentioned them. Our teachers repeatedly told us our GCSE's didn't matter anymore, because we needed A-Levels.

So do tell, what courses do you see that only require GCSE's, and are these even close to half of the available courses at half of the Uni's in the UK?

Ian Osborne

27th June 2010, 06:56 AM

The GCSE started in 1986; I have colleagues who predate O-levels.

Maths (and indeed English) were also compulsory to age 16 during the O-level era.

MarkCorrigan

27th June 2010, 02:52 PM

Maths (and indeed English) were also compulsory to age 16 during the O-level era.

She says they predate O-levels, which would mean they were aged 16 before the O-Level came in, some time in the 1950's. This would mean her colleagues are, if we're generous and assume it was 1959 that O-Levels were brought in, at least 68 years old.

Ian Osborne

27th June 2010, 03:03 PM

She says they predate O-levels, which would mean they were aged 16 before the O-Level came in, some time in the 1950's. This would mean her colleagues are, if we're generous and assume it was 1959 that O-Levels were brought in, at least 68 years old.

In response to Volatile protesting that GCSE maths is compulsory up to age 16, she pointed out that GCSEs only came into being in 1986. I wanted to make it clear that compulsory maths up to 16 certainly wasn't new in 1986, even if the exam was.

I've no idea what the score was before O-levels. Does anyone know if you could drop maths at 12 back then?

MarkCorrigan

1st July 2010, 09:24 AM

Bumping for drkitten.

MarkCorrigan

9th July 2010, 06:53 PM

One more try.

pipelineaudio

10th July 2010, 11:12 PM

I wish i could find my devry schedule. I checked all sorts of colleges at the time for EET and the most focused I could find was devry.

But even devry had ridiculous extraneous noise classes. Third trimester had only one electronics related class, but included psychology, english, economics, creative writing and some other nonsense. My electronics education took a major hit from wasting all that time and money on the other crap. Luckily I was able to learn on the job far more than I ever could at school, and quite a bit faster.

Rat

11th July 2010, 05:52 PM

In response to Volatile protesting that GCSE maths is compulsory up to age 16, she pointed out that GCSEs only came into being in 1986. I wanted to make it clear that compulsory maths up to 16 certainly wasn't new in 1986, even if the exam was.

I've no idea what the score was before O-levels. Does anyone know if you could drop maths at 12 back then?
Certainly I knew people who dropped maths, but they weren't people who were going on to A levels, let alone uni. When I did GCSEs (1989/90) maths was compulsory along with English Language (English Lit was optional) no matter what combination of subjects you chose. I recall it was something like Maths, Eng Lang, and two or three sciences and two or three humanities. People who were going on to science A levels could do three sciences. Numpties could do some sort of combined science GCSE.

MarkCorrigan

13th July 2010, 08:31 AM

Certainly I knew people who dropped maths, but they weren't people who were going on to A levels, let alone uni. When I did GCSEs (1989/90) maths was compulsory along with English Language (English Lit was optional) no matter what combination of subjects you chose. I recall it was something like Maths, Eng Lang, and two or three sciences and two or three humanities. People who were going on to science A levels could do three sciences. Numpties could do some sort of combined science GCSE.

Interestingly enough, when it was my turn back in....2003, the Combined Science course (2 GCSE's over 3 subjects) was the only one offered in my area, English Lang and Lit were compulsory, as was a foreign language, a Design/Technology course (unless you took two foreign languages) Religious Education, and then two choices that you picked at the beginning of the previous year.

I still want Dr Kitten to come back and inform me about those people who were in education before O-Levels.

ETA: Especially since O-Levels were introduced in 1951, meaning her colleagues are in their mid 70's.

MarkCorrigan

31st August 2010, 09:17 AM

You know, I'm going to be a total jackass and bump this thread again.

drkitten

31st August 2010, 09:28 AM

I still want Dr Kitten to come back and inform me about those people who were in education before O-Levels.

Shrug. Okay, you've been informed.

ETA: Especially since O-Levels were introduced in 1951, meaning her colleagues are in their mid 70's.

Yeah? And? Naturally, no one in their mid 70s would actually be a senior and respected professional.....

Part of the issue is exactly that these are senior and respected professionals; they're the people serving as members of nationals steering committees, delivering keynote presentations that outline research structures for the next ten years, and so forth.

MarkCorrigan

31st August 2010, 09:32 AM

Shrug. Okay, you've been informed.

Yeah? And? Naturally, no one in their mid 70s would actually be a senior and respected professional.....

Part of the issue is exactly that these are senior and respected professionals; they're the people serving as members of nationals steering committees, delivering keynote presentations that outline research structures for the next ten years, and so forth.

Oh, I wasn't stating that you were lying at all, I just wondered if they really were of that age. I can certainly understand teaching professionals being of that age, although I suspect it is rare. Not attacking you I swear. :)

Now, since you've been polite and responded to that, care to reply to my post #60?

drkitten

31st August 2010, 02:26 PM

Oh, I wasn't stating that you were lying at all, I just wondered if they really were of that age. I can certainly understand teaching professionals being of that age, although I suspect it is rare. Not attacking you I swear. :)

Now, since you've been polite and responded to that, care to reply to my post #60?

Sure. I stand by what I wrote. I notice your attempt to play the No True Scotsman fallacy.... any course without rigorous enough admission standards to get your respect must be "a really pointless one that doesn't mean anything, like David Beckham studies."

The problem is that those courses are in many cases extremely popular. The most recent data I have dates to 2006 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/6071026.stm),... but even then, the second most popular degree was "design studies" and the fastest growing degree was "complementary medicine."

... and, of course, it's the popular and/or lightweight degrees that need the breadth requirements the most. The lightweight degrees because you're not going to learn useful skills in "David Beckham studies," the popular degrees because you're not going to get a job in music composition, and so you're going to have to support yourself with your extra-major skillset.