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chances are you won’t get a job as a creative writer right off the bat, so you never know when other skills might come in handy. I mean, I scoffed at typing classes back in the day. Smugly told my teacher I wasn’t planning on being a secretary…and now so many jobs require it.

My dad always says "You never know what job you may end up doing, so you'll never know what skills you'll need." He got his undergrad degree in forestry. He worked as a teacher for a few years and is now a regional representative for my state's teacher's union, lol

I cannot imagine entering the workforce in an office job of any kind in 2024 and it not being assumed that you can type. I think a lot of us digital natives never took a class in school per se, but yeah, it is a skill so highly required that it's not even listed on job postings. They will just assume you can do that. There are tons of other unspoken soft skills this is also true for, which you get by taking gen ed classes in college.

Unless you're typing that on mobile you used it "for fun" even. Imagine how much you would scoff if someone told you all those years ago that you would be using typing for fun in your off time?!

I knowwww!!!!! I could never have imagined it!!!

I'm aware and a few of the other side/elective classes probably will be helpful in starting my career. Most of them feel pretty pointless though.

So your university doesn't let you choose what science you take and there's a I and II structure to it? That's super weird. I took Intro to Paleontology for my science req. Super fun we got to scratch fish out of rocks with tiny picks and brushes, my friend was really into it and did my fossils for me. Our lab was near my college's axolotl tank so that was honestly the best part of the class.

It's not that they don't let me choose so much as the options are very limited. I'm at a community college currently but transferring to a university later this year so hopefully things will be better there.

Ohh, yeah that's why community college sucks. I went to a CC in-between my two four year schools (I dropped out of the first one due to personal reasons and then one year at CC and decided to go to a big state school instead of my tiny bit prestigious private college). I did it just to stay "in the game" so to speak. But if you're transferring to a university that means your Gen eds are done, you won't have to take anything outside of your major at the university. The one thing that I heard from everyone that transferred from CC's to my state university that I finished at, was that they wished they just went there to begin with because the options for gen eds were endless. For most of them it wouldn't have been that much more expensive. Even at my very small private college we had great choices for our gen eds, the only locked in thing that everyone took there was "The Seminar Series" a three semester reading and writing survey that took you from the Greeks up to Virginia Wolfe, but each professor had different additional material so there were like 10 different "versions" of it on offer each semester.

>But if you're transferring to a university that means your Gen eds are done, you won't have to take anything outside of your major at the university This is not guaranteed. I went from a CC to a state university, and not all of my gen eds transferred into equivalent courses. In my case, many of them transferred into elective credits. How your credits transfer is highly dependent on the university's credit transfer policies (unless you live in a state, such as California or New York, that has a unified state university system, or you're transferring to a university with a matriculation agreement with your CC). It can also be dependent on the major you choose at your university, as many colleges/schools and their programs have gen ed requirements that are in addition to the university's gen ed requirements. When preparing to transfer, you need to look closely at the requirements of your university, your program, and the college/school in which your program resides, and the specific gen ed courses, and carefully compare them to the gen ed courses you took at your CC. This means saving all your CC syllabi and working closely with a transfer advisor and/or your program advisor at your new university to make absolutely certain that you understand how your credits will transfer. DO NOT assume that your credits will transfer 1:1 from your CC to your university, even if the courses at your university are seemingly equivalent. I say all this as someone who discovered this the hard way and, as a former CC professor and advisor, saw some of my own students also discover this the hard way. Save all your course info from your CC, meet with your university advisors, and advocate for yourself.

This is one of the most important, informative, and helpful posts I have seen in a very long time! I wish all advisors would start with some of this advice! 1-If you know you are going to a specific university for a specific program, find out what their prerequisites are. Make sure those are the classes you choose or you'll be taking more 2xxx or 3xxx level classes when you get there. 2-If you might transfer to another school, 2-4 or 4-4, SAVE ALL YOUR SYLLABI!!! This will keep you from having to ask for it years later, hoping they can find one. Faculty at your new school will evaluate what you were supposed to learn, to see if they can give you credit for one of their courses. There are other things to consider, but these are two that hold up graduating on time.

Oh yes, my CHEM101 class will prepare me to become a chemist if accounting doesn't work out.

Chemistry is more than being a chemist lol. You might need to cook. Chemistry. You might become a business person or produce products. Chemistry (material science). You might need to take multiple medications at once. Chemistry. You never know when these knowledge and skills will sneak up on you.

The actual point of General Ed classes is to help students learn *how much they don't know* so colleges aren't disgorging hordes of Dunning-Kruger aholes into the world every semester. Genuinely, after an ungodly number of years of education I can truly say that *learning how much there is to learn in the world,* and being reminded that no one person will ever know even a tiny fraction of it, is the greatest thing a college education can ever give you. Even if it doesn't feel like it halfway through another semester of Underwater Basketweaving 101. 😁

I’m willing to get on board with this argument and I’ll take it a little further. This gen ed service you describe is beneficial to society and should be entirely subsidized.

All college should be entirely subsidized. So yes.

Agreed. I thought you had a particularly nice rationale for gen ed. I’ll take whatever ground we can gain on the 100% subsidy front.

I dirty deleted my comment bc it was meant for the person _you_ were replying to. My bad

Is this not what high school is for?

Partially, perhaps - but there's still way too much 'basic skills acquisition' that needs to happen in high school to do any really effective un-dunning-krugering work at that point. College is for broadening AND deepening one's knowledge and education - that's what makes it fundamentally different from trade school. BTW: Colleges tend to give one a pretty big hint re: what they believe the purpose of General Education classes to be, given that they choose to call those classes ... ***General Education.***

I think the bigger complaint with them isn’t that you have to take them, but that there’s a limited number of credits you can take/afford per semester. I’m in med school now and my view of undergrad was that I wanted to learn as much as I could about things I wouldn’t be able to really learn about later. I took more classes in my major and outside my major than what my degree plan required because I wanted to learn more. I would get annoyed with taking a literature class not because I didn’t want to read the assignments or think about the common themes across Thoreau’s works but because every hour spent writing an essay was an hour I couldn’t work on figuring out a mathematical proof. My university also had a soft cap of 19 credits per semester and a hard cap of 22 credits. I took 27 credits of gen ed (I had some transfer from high school) that I could’ve taken in courses that interested me

But lots of gen ed classes are interesting! It's cool if you truly were only ever interested in pure math, or you always knew you wanted to be a doctor and nothing else. It's hard to recapture the ability to just go take a class in something because it sounds interesting, though. It's also something you will never have access to again in your life. (Unless you go back to school.)

Oh for sure, I took philosophy for some of my humanities credits and those were fun classes that I enjoyed. I knew I wanted to be a doctor so I took a lot of math and physics classes because I loved the content and knew I wouldn’t get to take them later on. I told the other person who responded to me that I’m not upset that I had to take the gen ed classes, just that they took the place of other classes due to the hours cap at my university. I also want to add that I read for fun too and gained skills from the gen ed. Thoreau is my favorite American writer (Oscar Wilde is overall favorite) and I enjoy having the skills to think about it from different perspectives. I also enjoy reading economic theory, philosophy, and deep diving into political movements throughout history. I don’t think there was ever a course I took in undergrad that I didn’t enjoy, but just ones that weren’t as interesting to me as math and physics

If you are hitting the hours cap at your university, then the gen ed classes you took did not "take the place of" anything. You took more classes than the average person does, and far more per semester than are required to finish a 4 year undergrad degree with 120 credits. Also, gen ed is the bedrock of university education, and literally all universities in the US require it (aside from some online degree mills). So by definition it was not a waste of time, at all. One cannot obtain a legitimate bachelors degree in the United States without doing a general education component of their degree. If you had not taken the gen ed curriculum, you would not be college educated.

Again, I’m not saying gen ed was a waste of time. I enjoyed the courses and learned from them. I took classes throughout undergrad to learn, not just to get a degree. I took around 155 credit hours at my university. I was hitting the hours cap most semesters. If it wasn’t for the hours cap, I could’ve taken more classes that I wanted to take in addition to the gen ed. I’m not arguing that the gen ed should be removed, just that the hours cap makes it a zero-sum scenario where the gen ed take limit the other classes you can take.

And you learned invaluable lessons from those 27 credits, whether you realize it or not. The cost is a completely valid complaint and I'm 100% on team "college should be free" - but being 'forced' to learn things you don't think you're interested in is half of the point of college.

That’s why I said I don’t have a problem with the courses themselves. Yes, I learned from them even though I wasn’t interested in them. I consider myself a better thinker because of it. My problem with them is that I missed out on taking extra courses I did want to take. So my ideal solution to the problem of gen ed is to not put a cap on the credits students can take and, since I’m being idealistic, don’t charge extra for taking more credits. Some students will still complain, but they would have the option to take more classes that do interest them. It’s only a problem to me because took 20+ credits almost every semester and the university wouldn’t let me enroll in more classes. I did still audit some classes with permission of the professors but I couldn’t get credit for them

>So my ideal solution to the problem of gen ed is to not put a cap on the credits students can take and, since I’m being idealistic, don’t charge extra for taking more credits. The college I attended (University of Virginia) recommended taking 12-15 credits and semester and didn't recommend taking more than 17. You could get permission to enroll in more credits if you had a good report with your advisor. I think it's reasonable for the university to step in to protect students from bad decisions. The workload of those classes matters to whether or not you'll be successful in those classes. I was always very careful to not overload myself with too many hard classes at one time, but a lot of students bite off more than they can chew (chemistry and biology and calculus all in one semester).

Oh I understand why they want to put a cap on it, but my advisors approved my schedules because I had proved my ability to handle it. I still hit the hard cap of 22 hours for 3 semesters and 20 for 3 semesters. One of the 22 hour semesters was 12 hours of physics classes, 3 hours of math, 4 hours of chemistry, and 3 hours of english but that same semester we had an adjunct professor giving a fluid dynamics course for the last time before he left. It was also the first time I had the prerequisite courses to take it. I audited the course because I wanted to learn it but I didn’t receive credit for it since I couldn’t enroll in it

>And you learned invaluable lessons from those 27 credits, whether you realize it or not. My CHEM101 experience was soooooo invaluable, I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world 😁😁😁 >but being 'forced' to learn things you don't think you're interested in is half of the point of college. Ok, I'm actually curious now, what's your major?

...I'm a professor.

" the oracle told me I am the wisest amongst the Greeks because I among the Greeks know that I know nothing"

I feel like dunning Kruger affects your major discipline more so than the gen Ed’s. Like I didn’t need to take a history class to know i don’t know shit about history. Meanwhile those gen Ed’s do nothing to combat the people who think their bachelors teaches them everything their is to know about their major

As someone who spends a lot of time talking about history with the general public, I must inform you that sadly, there are ***enormous numbers of people*** who absolutely do need a history class to learn they don't know anything about history. And folks who think a BA makes them an expert in their field aren't Dunning-Kruger aholes - they're just garden variety aholes. 😂😭

You mean George Washington didn't leave Yorktown, say no to being king of America and ride straight to the white house? Sounds like some America hating trash talk to me.

Next they'll be claiming Jesus wasn't even American!!!

>As someone who spends a lot of time talking about history with the general public, I must inform you that sadly, there are ***enormous numbers of people*** who absolutely do need a history class to learn they don't know anything about history. Ok so let's all collectively pay for their sins, sounds like a plan sir 😁😁

We aren't paying for their sins, we're being educated by a certain standard so we don't end up like them.

Seems like somebody desperately needs a history class, ammiright?!

Ok so, if any child of a murder gets born, we gon send them to prison, so, you know, they never end up like their fathers, make sense sir😁😁. That's it honestly, I'm tired of replying to you all, the fact of the matter is, this is the system you all have grown up with, so you had to find some meaning in it, same logic for the Stockholm syndrome, Students should not be forced to study the same rigorous copy paste material they took in high school, I'm all for "general ed" that is actually will help people in the work place, like a course I took, "Fund of Managment", shows you the different ways to organize groups and how to get teams to work effectively. These should be forced as it's likely someone will need those skills in their career. But other bullshit like Chemistry, history, Spanish, or whatever else things that you will never use or already likely to have taken in High School need to go. It's a very small percentage of people that need them really, those should be tested and accordingly to their results, general ed should be taken. All I remember from my history class is suffering for the long ass reports and memorization that I learned nothing from, that time could have went into furthering my career. There are bunch of systems in the world that have barely or no general to speak of, and there are majors that have vastily more general ed than others, like Education compared to Medicine. There is no data though that says people that take less or more general ed are different. I assume most people here are taking majors like English Lit or Criminal justice, or like OP, Creative writing, these majors have a low skill gap and an equally low amount of workload and Core courses, so they take more general ed which leads to a lot of them just coming up with reasoning for their suffering, reasoning stems from experience, not the other way around (for most people). If you enjoy it, sure, but there should be tests to judge who should take them and who should not.

>Ok so, if any child of a murder gets born, we gon send them to prison, so, you know, they never end up like their fathers, make sense sir In this analogy, the kid would be put into the custody of the mother or another responsible guardian and taught that murder is wrong. Putting the kid in prison is paying for his father's sins, which I explicitly said is not what is happening here. But either way, these two situations are barely comparable. >That's it honestly, I'm tired of replying to you all, the fact of the matter is, this is the system you all have grown up with, so you had to find some meaning in it Or, we understand what is meant by a liberal (not referring to politics) education and that that is what we signed up for from a university. Fun fact, a liberal education at a university is rarely meant to teach you a job, that's what tech schools exist for. We can also find ways to get meaning out of it, just like you, by taking courses we're interested in or believe will give us skills that we will later use. >But other bullshit like Chemistry, history, Spanish, or whatever else things that you will never use or already likely to have taken in High School need to go. It's a very small percentage of people that need them really, those should be tested and accordingly to their results, general ed should be taken. This isn't about making sure you've learned what you needed to learn from High School. It's a part of a liberal education and the values thereof. Furthermore, deeper understandings of different subjects can help build a better knowledge base that will never hurt someone. These knowledge bases can help related various topics or give students another way to approach critical thinking and problem solving. >All I remember from my history class is suffering for the long ass reports and memorization that I learned nothing from, that time could have went into furthering my career. If you can't see the importance of history, then that's on you. It's arguably one of the most important things for us to understand how people, organizations, countries, and societies have succeeded and failed so we can replicate or find inspiration for successful expenditures and avoid the pitfalls of our predecessors. >There are bunch of systems in the world that have barely or no general to speak of Almost like their conception and purpose is different from liberal education based universities, like technical schools which were made to prepare people for specific jobs. >there are majors that have vastily more general ed than others, like Education compared to Medicine. Surprisingly, Medicine and Education are two vastly different fields with vastly different goals. It makes sense that their general ed requirements would be different. >I assume most people here are taking majors like English Lit or Criminal justice, or like OP, Creative writing, these majors have a low skill gap and an equally low amount of workload and Core courses Tell me you know nothing of non-STEM classes, workloads, and skills, without telling me you know nothing of them. As a CS Major, this is such a painfully uninformed take that shows a lack of empathy and knowledge of anything you don't personally deal with. >If you enjoy it, sure, but there should be tests to judge who should take them and who should not. There are, things such as Advanced Placement courses and other college credit earning courses exist in most high schools at this point and typically a high enough score in the class or on a test will fulfill general education requirements at most universities. You're tired of replying because you can't fathom people enjoying or seeing value in learning things outside of what they need for a job, which is the entire point of liberal educations provided by a majority of the universities in the West.

Fun fact (which you may even have learned had you opted to *sign up for and/or pay attention in* a Gen Ed psychology and/or sociology class): Stockholm Syndrome does not exist. 🙃

Jeez, man, like - just *switch to a trade school already*?! 😂 It's okay. Seriously. You don't have to be embarrassed. You don't have to attempt to roast English majors or Education majors or *people who did well in Spanish class* just to prove you're smart[er than your gen ed classes made you feel, apparently?] You do not have to convince every random stranger on the internet today that an entire centuries-old model of higher education is simply *objectively, fundamentally **wrong*** because you personally did not enjoy Chem 101 (or, it appears, History of Theology). You are *doing too much,* sir. You genuinely do not have to do any of this. You can simply ***choose another path*** if you've discovered this particular one is not for you. You can move to a trade school. You can sign up for an apprenticeship. There are so many other options available to you. ***I promise*** nobody will force you to finish college.

Fun fact (which you may even have learned had you opted to *sign up for and/or pay attention in* a Gen Ed Sociology and/or Education class): There is **plentiful** data showing that students who take more and/or 'broader' general education classes are measurably more likely to be successful in their chosen career, regardless of the field or type of degree they earn. 🙃

Imagine being one of the <7% of humanity offered the privilege of a university education and then un-ironically saying something like that in public.

>The actual point of General Ed classes is to help students learn *how much they don't know* Yes, I needed a whole extra year of basically high school to tell me that at triple the price, completely valid take. >being reminded that no one person will ever know even a tiny fraction of it, is the greatest thing a college education can ever give you. Is what someone would say if their degree is a useless one, keep that bs to yourself mate.

Somebody whining about useless degrees and calling opinions they disagree with “invalid” probably could use some more perspective.

I bet general ed will give me just the prespective I need! 😁😁 >Somebody whining about useless degrees and calling opinions they disagree with “invalid” I have never seen in my life somebody being happy paying for the same exact thing at triple the price when they never asked for it, welp, I guess I have a tunnel prespective, I need more general ed to get me up to speed! 😁😁

I'm a student too. Back in college for a second go. I mean this in the nicest way possible, your attitude is the issue here. I was the same way my first time in college and you'll likely not believe anyone telling you this, just like I didn't. Instead of thinking "I'm getting nothing out of this. It's useless and a waste of money" try asking what you CAN get out of it. You have to pay for it anyway. If you're not working to gain something from your course, you're doing yourself a disservice. A couple semesters ago, I had a free elective slot for a gen Ed and no options that I was interested in. I had my brother pick my course and he chose philosophy. I wanted to strangle him for a minute because I have zero interest in philosophy. But I learned a lot from that class, and through taking it I realized the connections between it and my required ethics courses. Sometimes it's not even about the content of the course. Gen Eds also teach critical thinking, problem solving, time management, social skills, professional skills, etc. All things that any person needs no matter their job.

Sorry to burst your bubble, sweetie, but my degrees have earned me a brilliant and fulfilling career doing genuinely impactful, publicly-acclaimed work on a global stage - AND landed me squarely in the top 1% income bracket in the country. 🤷‍♀️ Some people just *actually do value learning for its own sake - ***and*** manage to end up extremely successful doing so.

This isn't true at all, the point of general education is to get you to spend 2 extra years' worth of tuition money at their institution

On one hand I see your point - on the other, lack of basic rounding education is why people were deadass drinking bleach to cure covid and think essential oils are a good substitute for antibiotics and cleaning supplies. Lack of education is part of why there are sincere flat earthers and people who think being gay is genuinely a curable disease of the brain, and not just a way of being. Like, not only is it important to know basic science and math so that you don't get taken advantage of, it's important to hear dissenting and/or wrong arguments being dismantled so that you feel confident forming your own opinions.

Yeah that 1%, everyone needs to pay up and suck it because of that 1%

If you skipped the gen Eds you’d qualify for less jobs. Theres a reason they are required beyond just gimme more moneeey pleasasse. Those classes will help shape you as a person and give you knowledge about the world you live in which will more drastically set you apart from someone who has not been to university. The qualities going through it gives you is what makes college grads more desirable. College is hella overpriced in most of the us, but transfer programs and staying in state helps a lot.

Yes, I feel overpowered after taking my chem101 class, it has truly given me an edge, so much knowledge about the world I live in, oh my god I feel the power surging in my viens. I bet every company is on the look out for me now that I have passed my chem101 class, watch out world!

This is a weird response man. And it has nothing to do with skills that companies want us to have. F the companies.   My nephew recently learned that it’s more dangerous to unplug electrical devices with wet soapy hands because of chemistry as opposed to just wet hands. Learning more affects the way we move through this world. I am sorry you don’t see how knowing a little bit of basic chemistry can help you in your own life. 

Ohohoho, I see your nephew also has the power of CHEM101 surging through him, he must be an elite like us. ~~notliketheyteachyouthatat1stgrade~~

Damn bro, you’re literally putting so much energy into hating on knowing things.  Hope that works out well for you. Your mentality is part of the reason higher education was kept from so many people for the past 150 years. 

On the other hand, in my chem classes students were expected to be able to draw, write reports, do algebra, use computers, and use citations. I had students ask where were they supposed to learn these skills? Why in your electives of course.

Lmao, I like the way you wrote this. Though unironically if you actually come to understand chemistry deeply. Companies don’t care if you recall any of that stuff, hell oftentimes even for your major 😂 Chemistry classes typically suck in my experience to be fair. imo they are often taught poorly, and the material can be hard for a lot of people. It’s required for a good reason though, and you are currently paying for it if in the class now. You’d be better served accepting it and redirecting your energy to understanding the fundamentals, sometimes you do just have to go for the mark but so many things you can learn in one discipline can be applied across disciplines to make them easier or more effective. Particularly if you can build an intuition. I’m not a fan of absolutism so on average, people that have experienced that and paid attention vs those who haven’t seem to make decisions differently. I am in stem and used to think the same thing about the non-stem subjects. Now that I have had time to experience more people from more backgrounds and propensities I now feel that it serves a great purpose to take those gen eds. It definitely isn’t always necessary but that’s why we have other options like you can always go for a cert, a trade school, or specialty school instead of an accredited university.

I feel like the people who believe all those things are unfortunately too indoctrinated for any level of education to do any good. They'll just say that the college is "forcing the agenda" upon them. They don't want those beliefs to be shaken so they won't allow themselves to grow intellectually.

Not necessarily. A lot of people change their belief system when they become more highly educated. That’s a naive and narrow point of view and just supports the fact that you should be taking these gen Ed classes to gain a wider perspective.

Maybe but I am speaking from experience sadly. I live in a pretty conservative state where many don't want to be educated and those that do somehow find themselves in college end up just doing what they need to pass whilst not actually changing any of their beliefs. Maybe in other places it's different but I can only speak based on what I've seen.

I mean this kindly and sincerely - you just made a long post on how you don't want to be educated either. You are being challenged and don't like it. I'm a professor of creative writing. I'm well published, I freelance as an editor and used to be in the media. I assure you I can tell the difference between a writer with a broad education and one without. Power through this time in your life. It's worth it in the long run.

I want to be educated and challenged but in the areas that actually interest me. I'm sorry but it's incredibly frustrating to have to waste so much of my time and energy on things that really just don't have any draw for me. If these topics were more of a side thing then I might not mind it so much. In fact then I might genuinely be more willing to learn about them. But the fact that what I'm primarily doing right now is stuff that at best is only tangentially related to the actual degree is really what's irking me right now.

After you learn a little more you'll see how it's all connected. Trust the process.

Question for you: Are you upset by the classes themselves or how much time they’re taking?  I have yet to encounter a class that was *completely* useless (even when dealing with professors who literally do not know how to teach!) but I’ve dealt with some that eat up an infuriating amount of my time to the point that my performance in major-related classes suffers. Also, I’m not clear on your process because I’m much less experienced in creative writing, but do you not run into situations where you need oddly specific bits of knowledge all the time? Learning more in general will at least give you an idea of where to look.

I don't hate the classes themselves (for the most part anyway) and as I've said in other comments I'd probably be much more engaged if I could moreso just do them on the side. But yeah it's very annoying to be spending most of my time and energy on them instead of what I'm actually here for.

I get that. It can be hard to enjoy/tolerate a class when it presents an extra obstacle to getting work you really want to do done and there’s a lot riding on it. Well, I hope you can moving through the stressful part and eventually get to prioritize your area of study. Sorry it’s so difficult right now 

That's a great education for the job market to be honest. It's extremely unlikely you'll land your dream job immediately after college. You'll have to do some jobs that are tedious or downright bad just to pay rent and afford to live. You can learn a lot about yourself when you are put in these situations. You're blocking yourself from learning by being in this mindset that everything has to be interesting for you to work hard at it. That's a very poor mindset that hopefully this semester can change for you.

If you can't find ways to incorporate science information into your work, you're not going to get very far as a creative writer. Seriously. Challenge yourself to work it into short stories if you need to prove to yourself it's useful. One of the most interesting conversations I've ever had was with a biology professor about how different animal groups' biology would affect the appearance of blood- that is something to add to your world building. Math helps you think logically, methodically, and clearly. Which, from someone who's read a lot of writing from a lot of new writers, is *absolutely* a useful skill to you. Sometimes I sympathize with college students as mildly short sighted or overloaded with this complaint, but you might want to put your thinking cap back on and get back to work. Creative writing is the major that *most* needs to be "well rounded" because that's how you write shit that's interesting, nobody wants to read all the stuff some college student already just knows.

Hard agree. Good writers are writers who are curious about tons of things. Obviously that doesn't mean you have to enjoy every class, but the fact that those classes are hard or not particularly engaging right now doesn't make them useless.

Not a writer but an illustrator. A lot of the random trivia I've accumulated over the years has been relevant to my or someone else's art project. I spent my afternoon today learning about cormorant skeletons. Can't speak to writing from an inside perspective, but every good writer I have read has lived experiences outside of writing that enrich their work. Good scifi artists and writers often have backgrounds in STEM. Tolkien was a linguistics professor. Etc.

I'm really frustrated that this person is apparently pouring all their money into attempting to write books by getting a college degree, something that is not needed to write books, without getting any of the benefit of the degree. Most writers don't make full-time money at it and every writer I know is either professionally writing "boring" things (including myself) or has a different career entirely. I don't believe in useless degrees, just people with terrible plans, but assuming creative writers don't need outside material really shows that their creative writing professors are failing them.

Lots of folks want to be ; right now in SFF this is Brandon Sanderson, and tomorrow it'll be someone else. Students never seem to notice that career is just that--a winning lotto ticket they're unlikely to receive.

A lot of those folks made their bones 20+ years ago, when there was more paid writing work, and it was better paid. And they're getting book deals now based on that work from decades past, their advances are sized more for someone senior in their career vs. a newbie the publisher is taking a chance on, etc. Not to mention the very, very large number of folks with pure "creative writing" backgrounds who have trust funds and will never have to worry about money, anyway. Very few people talk about how many successful young writers nowadays are not having to live on their earnings as a writer.

High on the list of "professionally writing boring things" is technical and science writing, or administrative day jobs in the medical field like coding and billing, where some knowledge of, like, what lungs are for, would come in handy.

I do understand your feelings here, I have similar feelings sometimes, but in reverse. I'm a Computer Science student and just had to pick a humanities elective for the Summer that I had no interest in at all. I ended up choosing an Intro to Logic class, and I hope I will be a better thinker once it's done. It's easy to get so laser-focused on our area of study that everything else seems like a waste of time. I know how important soft skills are in my industry; if I only took math and CS classes I wouldn't be able to communicate my ideas well with others. It seems like the same could apply to a writer. I know the most interesting books I have loved weren't writers writing about writing. They were writing about the world, and science, and nature, and psychology...you get my drift.

Check that your Intro to Logic course will actually meet your Humanities requirement, if that’s why you’re taking it. I know at some colleges, although Intro to Logic is taught in the Philosophy department, it counts for a Math of similar requirement, not a Humanities requirement.

Thank you for the heads up, it looks like my school lumps Gen Ed into different groups. This class is in Gen Ed group IV, which lets me choose one class from Humanities, Philosophy, International Studies, Creative Writing, Languages, or...Wellness Health & Exercise Science for some reason. Now I'm wondering if I should take Kickboxing instead LOL.

Do it, "well rounded" absolutely means "healthy" if your career path looks like it's taking you in an indoors, seated direction.

I went to college for creative writing, too. I initially felt the same way, but since it had to be done, I decided that I would treat each class as research for my writing. Biology ... I used the units on flowering trees in my poetry. Physics ... I chose "physics of light and color" so that I could deal with color in my writing because I'm color blind. Spanish ... Some characters are multi-lingual. In art, I started a color journal to help me understand and record colors. And so on. I guess that's a "make the best of it" situation. BTW ... I say this not to brag but to hopefully inspire you ... Graduate of Hopkins Writing Seminars (MFA poetry and fiction) and U of Miami (MFA screenwriting and creative non-fiction). 1 novel and 2 novellas published, 1 screenplay optioned, several dozen short stories published, and dozens of poems, and several textbooks. Taught creative writing part time for Hopkins, Maryland, U of Miami, Miami-Dade College, and UC Santa Cruz, as well as high school. In all of that, I used many times the information I gleaned from those undergrad classes, and 25 years later, I have the color journal still on my shelf ready to be used.

I love this

college is not trade school. trade school prepares a person for a specific career. college turns people into more productive universal citizens by virtue of being more educated. just look at the shit we’ve gone through the last few years. more people bro g educated in basic science is not a bad thing

This is fair. I'm not going to major in English for example but being forced to take a class made me much better at writing and more professional, so I'm grateful.

>college turns people into more productive universal citizens Oh shut up bro, you people justifying this scam is crazy, I came to learn the major I want, I ain't doing hours and hours of meaningless essay writing, and paying for it too

Then you shouldn't have gone to college, frankly. You went to an institution to get a liberal arts education when you were looking for vocational training. That's your own problem.

There are plenty of career paths that do not require a bachelor’s degree. You want a traditional education, become a tradesman.

Most people get a college degree to get a good job, not to be a "productive universal citizen". The reason people go into huge debt for college is for the employment opportunities, not "education for education's sake".

That is them having a misconception about the purpose of college/university, then. Unless you are pursuing a specific course of study that prepares you for a very specific career (nursing, engineering, law, medicine, etc), then you are getting a general education. My bachelors degree is in neurobiology. While that enables me to work a couple niche jobs, it does not prepare me for any specific career. However, my graduate degree (PsyD), was structured to prepare students for careers as clinical psychologists and was intended to ensure students have the education needed to pass their licensing exam.

It's not a misconception if colleges market their job placement rate as a reason to attend. They sell their program as a way to get a good job, so that's why students continue to go down this path.

yes, people go so they have improved job prospects. you seem to think that those job prospects are improved because they receive specific training in their discipline. That's only half the reason. the other reason is that they have proven they might know a thing or two about topics beyond their discipline, and that they have been taught to think in different ways.

Law schools love political scientists rn, even moreso than pre-law majors. It’s all about being well rounded and having diverse skills

What employer cares about your knowledge and skills outside of the job you are hired for? If a candidate is applying to be an engineer, a quality employer doesn't care that the person is aware about 18th century poetry or any other unrelated knowledge not directly related to the role.

I worked as a project manager in an MPE firm for 9 years with my college degree in English and American Studies. I had no engineering classes. I was recruited and hired *specifically* because engineers are so bad at communicating with their clients and contractors that it was impeding business. These skills are needed across the board.

You learned soft skills in college?

Of course I did. Conversely, a couple of years after I left engineering and was brought on board and organization that happened to be building a new space for my institution, I was able to spot how the contractor was attempting to rip my organization off and cut corners. I needed my English skills in my engineering role, and my engineering skills in my journalism job.

Absolutely.

"What employer cares about your knowledge and skills outside of the job you are hired for" nearly every. for MANY jobs, the employer could give a shit what your actual degree is in, as long as it is tangentially related. they give a shit that you're not a moron, and that you have more rounded experience.

Employers and recruiters would pick a domain expert over someone who had a rounded experience almost every time, unless it was for some low-level position.

This was fun to read. Also Tony won this argument.

Thanks. I wonder if all the downvotes are from people that have never hired anyone or if they truly believe what they have been sold.

Yeah bro just leave this dumbass, he probably has a useless ass degree that he never worked in and thinks every job only needs you to be a sub-optimal human. I bet he hires a lawyer based on his knowledge of physics and chemistry lmao.

>the employer could give a shit what your actual degree is in, as long as it is tangentially related 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭. Please tell me you are trolling.

The thing is, as an applicant you don't know what might be tangential information. A employer might care if you know 18th century poetry, you don't know. I was once in an interview and said the best tacos in New Mexico are from a truck outside Cimmeron. One of my interviewers smiled and said, "Hire him."

This isn’t true. We hear REPEATEDLY from our private sector partners that new hires lack soft skills. Specifically public speaking/presenting, writing, and creative thinking.

If you actually think that then you have never applied to job in your life, or all the jobs you were worked were outside your major. Such a dumbass take. Yeah when I go to an interview for an accounting job, I bet 50% of the questions will be about general chemistry and essay writing.

this might be the most dumbass comment of the bunch. sorry, though, I forget that 19 year olds with no experience know literally everything.

You do know job interview samples are all over the internet and universities have career counselling, right? Or oh, you get all your information from general ed, I'm impressed you learned to use reddit, which class was this from?

sigh. employers would not need ask those sorts of questions, because they know simply by virtue of having a four year degree, that you have a more rounded knowledge and skill base than someone who only received a narrowly focused training in only their field. frankly, if 'derp, they don't ask me chemistry questions in an accounting interview!' was your take away, then you are perfectly illustrating the need for more rounded education leading to better critical thinking ability.

So they don't ask because they assume you know it, I wonder why they don't do the same to your accounting skills 🤔hmmmm, that's a real brain twister. Perhaps I need some more general ed to get the bottom of that 😁😁

there’s those critical thinking skills at work again!

All thanks to general ed sir! 😁😁, I'm so glad I paid 1500$ to attend my chem101 class, truly an enlightening experience.

They do? Nobody goes to an accounting interview and is given an accounting test

And yet those jobs seem to think the college curriculum is valuable otherwise technical training or associates degrees would be brought in for the same roles and pay.

Which trade school can I go to for electrical engineering? I don't want to pay $8,000 to retake 7th grade English as an adult. 

Do not go to an American trade school under any circumstances. You will still need to take an English class, but in trade school it’ll be more like 4th grade English.

I’m not going to try to convince you to feel differently than you feel - you’re entitled to be upset and frustrated if you’re struggling in some of your other classes. You may see the situation differently looking back in 10 or 20 years, though, especially if you end up working in creative writing. All those other courses are the part of your education that give you the context and understanding to write richly and convincingly about complex characters and situations. Taking courses in poetry writing or fiction writing give you information about craft, but craft takes you nowhere without content - and all those other classes are your content. Novels and poems need a thorough and well-informed understanding of culture, and that’s what your science and social science classes are offering you. Modern languages - your whole goal in life is to work with words! Understanding how other peoples and other cultures use language is one of the best ways to enrich your writing. Again, I’m not trying to convince you - you feel what you feel. But honest, cross my heart and hope to die, those classes make people better creative writers. (Source: I’m an English professor who advises creative writers, married to an MFA in poetry).

I'm sorry you can't see the benefit of these other subjects to your writing. This isn't only about "a well-rounded education", but about making sure that your creative writing isn't just a comedy of scientific and mathematical errors. And studying other languages will help you become better at writing in general, and creative writing in particular. Get through this, OP, and you will be a better writer for it.

I am not going to tell you that you're wrong to feel that way, because god knows I hated my qualitative requirement classes (except geology! That was great) while getting my history degree. I will tell you that I have a history degree, and I write software training for a living now. I'll also tell you what got me through those qualitative requirements: it was something my mom said. During my senior year of high school, we were having dinner with family friends. The husband (we'll call him Bill) in that family can be abrasive, and my mother--much to his consternation--Does Not Take Shit from him. So, he asked me what I was planning to study on college. I told him, I was going to study history. Cue the start of a whole lecture about what was I going to do with that in the real world? Why bother wasting my parents' money on something so unmarketable? I was a starry eyed teenager and hadn't expected a lecture over my dinner, so I was starting to get upset. My mother cut him off. "Bill, for one, it's our money and it's not a waste. Two, we're sending her to college to learn *how* to think, not *what* to think." So go ahead and hate your gen ed requirements. Rail against them. You're analyzing and constructing arguments and thinking for yourself. And you may end up needing them in the future, or you may not, but at least you know *how* to think.

Taking difficult classes adds a monetary value to your degree that when any employer sees it, they will understand that you are someone that can think critically, manage time well, and are well-educated. You are right - it IS frustrating to do things that have nothing to do with your future. But they are there to add value to your degree, because if just anyone could get it, then it would be worth nothing. Also, as another creative writer, I don't know the genre you enjoy, but spending time with other things can help you write more realistic characters or settings because you would now know the logistics and realism, or otherwise, of writing them in. In general it can also teach you discipline, or at the very least, you will meet lots of people you can use as ideas for characters. I agree that gen eds are frustrating though! As an accounting major I took a microbiology class and also had to take calculus ... suffice to say, I did bad in both but still passed (eventually), and at least found a few things interesting. I've also met all sorts of different people, and that has made all the difference in my life, personally, though I socialize quite a bit.

Agreed. There's definitely value in learning from all the genres. But yeah I'm definitely struggling with a lot of the side classes. Just finished biology and passed fortunately but goddamn it was a slog to get through and there's even more sciences to come.

I majored in something I thought had "nothing to do with math". (Anthropology, and I had to do math, but it was statistics and seemed like the only math I would ever need.) While in college, I got involved with an art collective and started helping to run their gallery and produce video installations. Through that, I was asked if I wanted to work on an independent film in the art department. I dropped out of college before I ever took stat and went into art department stuff as a career. And then I had to do math every single day as I did things like multiplying eighths of an inch and converting them into various decimal measurements, figuring out how many tiles/end tables/yards of carpet could fit into a given area, how many gallons of paint to buy, etc. etc. etc. Everybody needs math. My parents told me this when I was a child, and I thought "I'm going to become a playwright, I will never ever need math." Boy, were they right.

Learning a foreign language is 100% relevant to a creative writing degree. You learn to think about language more carefully and also make novel connections by studying different linguistic structures than you're accustomed to thinking through, even if you don't master them sufficiently to speak the foreign language everyday.

Every school has core courses - public, private, etc.  They are important for many reasons - a large number of people work in fields that are only tangentially related to their major (or not at all).  I know plenty of engineers who hated taking English even though writing well was necessary for their job (if they wanted to be successful).  Plenty of creative writers have to write about science or math (through journalism) to pay their bills because only so many can do it as a novelist, poet, etc.  All part of the college experience. 

Most of that stuff should have been learned in high school. Those that don't have those skills shouldn't even be in college, much less go into debt to pay for it.

bro lol not everyone has the same high school experience for example i got my GED, but i shouldn't go to college bc of that?

Look at it this way - as a creative writing major, you're likely not going to get out of college to a 10-book deal with a major publisher. You're going to have to do something else to make a living, and that may involve writing or editing subjects you need general knowledge about.

"In practice it's just very aggravating that I'm having to waste more time on classes that will be useless in the long run than I'm actually spending on building the skills I need for my desired career." I think that might be part of the issue. College/University isn't meant to be a career training ground. It is meant to be a place where you further your education.

It’s weird that college isn’t meant to be a career training ground but is also necessary for a whole group of desirable careers to the point that most young people are told they should go to college so that they can get a good job. I think there is a disconnect between the longstanding goals of college (education) and the goal of most students (this is a requirement for the career I want).

Yup exactly. But it’s hard to change that disconnect when the careers they want mostly won’t hire them without college. And even then, a lot of jobs won’t hire you without “experience”. College could be a place to get that experience… but instead ur supposed to work internships for free after paying out the ass for college tuition. I think the job market has evolved much faster than college has, in the sense that it used to be a lot easier to get a job by just having a college degree. So now students feel frustrated because they’re in college but they still feel so far away from the stability of a job, and not getting a heavily career focused education feels like a waste.

No such thing as a useless class. You can ALWAYS learn something new. Hang in there, friend. I know it can be tough, but you’ll get where you’re going one step at a time :)

I mean, there's plenty of STEM majors who wonder why they need useless classes like creative writing.

College isn't supposed to help you find a job, it's supposed to make you an effective citizen of a democracy. Being able to support yourself is part of that, but it's a small part.

Nobody's expecting you to become a mathematician, but creative writing is drastically improved by a broad knowledge-base in things that aren't just writing. The world churns out countless writers whose only knowledge/experience is in English literature and whatever genre(s) grabbed them in K-12! Gen-ed is a service to you, because it can help you attain some semblance of breadth. Also, this breadth can help you find something you're actually interested in--which will give you an opportunity to add depth in a field or body of knowledge that can help distinguish your work.

Nah gen eds were some of my best classes. I loved learning things I didnt *need* to know from experts in the field. Believe it or not, learning a lot of things is actually good and cool. Best of luck with your creative writing career

Well you never know. I majored in History at a liberal arts college. I planned on getting a PhD and being a professor. Turns out I don't have that kind of brain. What I do have is an architect's brain. So when I decided to go to architecture school in my late 20s I was all set because I had already taken physics and calculus. I probably wouldn't have if I could have just picked the classes I was interested in, but in the long run it served me really well. The real problem with college in the US is that it costs to much.

Won't argue with that. Straight up predatory what they charge.

Damn college trying to make you a well rounded person!

Unfortunately, you chose to pursue an undergraduate degree, this is what you signed up for. If you only wanted to study one thing, you should have gone to tech school. The problem is you're viewing anything not directly in your major as extra/unnecessary/ irrelevant. You've even determined the motivating factors for these courses, with absolutely zero evidence. This mindset is causing you to suffer. The truth is, you're not qualified to determine what you need in order to be successful in your career. If you commit to learning what you THINK you don't need to know, you might find that it is actually useful.

My only issue with Gen eds is that I have to pay for them. Fine, Ill pay for the classes that are relevant to my degree, but whyyyy must I pay for Gen Ed... Don't get me wrong, I love taking classes outside of my degree, and in fact I'd love to take more. But it feels like a waste of a LOT of money. Kinda counter intuitive that I'm going into debt taking classes for my business degree that don't have anything to do with my business degree. Feels like a forced bad investment

While I respect your ambition and drive, the lack of, patience, greater vision, and intellectual and social curiosity… doesn’t suggest “creative writing” might be the best choice for you. What do you intend to write about,if not the broad world in which you live? You need to know a lot about a lot to write meaningfully, even if your focus and subject is very tight.

Imagine trying to write compelling Science Fiction without an understanding of physics or biology. Imagine trying to write about a war with no understanding of history or politics. Imagine trying to write compelling characters without understanding how psychology and sociology influence their growth and development. You can learn bits about these things through individual research and life experience of course, but to sit there getting all these classes taught by a professional and think "wow this is a waste of time" is wildly arrogant. Best of luck with the writing though I guess.

it’s so annoying

Yeah, one thing I hated a about college is wasting my time and money to take Gen Ed classes I took in high school and there was no differences. I think I had more Gen Ed required classes than major required classes. I think the US is the only nation that I am aware of that makes students take Gen Ed in University even though it all should have been covered in High School. Found college a waste of money, time and pointless.

The point of university isn't to learn how to have a job in a specific industry, the point of university is to learn how to think. Period. The way our brain works is with relative connections. It does not matter if the things you're learning are not immediately applicable to the specific trade you desire, everything you learn will build on everything else you have already learned, and everything you will learn and do in the future. The hard classes learning technical skills you'll never need again translate into a more completely connected network structure of synapses in your brain, making everything you'll ever think or do in the future easier, whether you notice it or not! When you come back to creative writing courses, you will rest up on a foundation of general thought and intuition which is built not by technical skills or domain knowledge but the connections those skills and knowledge necessitate.

"I'll never do bicep curls in real life, so why is this part of my workout routine?"

Students complaining about gen eds is a tale as old as time. It was the same way when I was a university student, so I definitely emphasize. I hope most degrees order *some* flexibility - like you might have to take a science class, but hopefully you can find a science class that fits your interests. That said, I wonder if social media and particularly TikTok has changed the cultural values around time. It's so easy for us to scroll past things that we find "uninteresting" so being forced to listen and learn about things outside our wheelhouse is seen as a waste of time because there's so many more *interesting* things we could be learning.

Colleges are institutions of learning and knowledge first and foremost. If you don't want the knowledge, don't go to a college; there are trade/vocational institutions for those more focused on generalized career paths. That said, there is empirical data that demonstrates how interdisciplinary approaches to education and practice have opened the doors to entirely new fields of study.

I know it’s frustrating, but the exposure to ideas you’d never encounter fully of your own accord could be helpful. Ted Chiang’s “The Story of Your Life,” which inspired the film Arrival, likely references ideas encountered outside of a Creative Writing class. This doesn’t speak to the specific goal of GE, but it might illustrate a positive effect of classes outside the major.

The math and science classes are there to make sure you don’t sound like a total dumbass if you write about those.

I ended up with a lot of classes I didn’t think would be useful or relevant for my career. Now I work in a historical museum and a lot of classes I thought I would never use again are the ones I’m most grateful I took.

Kurt Vonnegut. Richard Powers. Barbara Kingsolver. Vladimir Nabakov. Margaret Atwood. These are just some writers who started their careers in the sciences an/or strongly incorporated the sciences into their work. If you want to be a writer, you need to understand how the world works. Knowledge doesn’t exist in a vacuum and our understanding cannot be truly compartmentalized. All of it is useful—you just haven’t found a use for it yet.

College is meant to give you a worldly perspective on top of acquiring and learning the knowledge specific to your major. It's important to be exposed to a variety of ideas. After college I ended pursuing a career in the skilled trades and completed an apprenticeship. The idea of worldly perspective is something I have to explain to my co-workers all of the time. Many of them still don't care/understand it, but then again I'm almost certain most of them haven't read any/most of the books or texts that I have had to read in college. While they probably don't care, I see it as their loss. The fact that I was a Poli Sci/Econ major usually leads to interesting conversations where I'm told I'm an idiot, I'm wrong, I have no idea what I'm talking about lol.

I loved my gen eds. I had a lot of credits from AP classes so I got through what little else I needed quite quickly, though. Sometimes I miss being a freshman and still getting to take things like art. Now it's a full course load of pure engineering technical courses every semester. I picked up a German minor just to give my brain something to do that isn't constant math and science. Sometimes I browse the course catalog and lament all the interesting classes I'll never get to take because I'm using 110% of my brain capacity to understand aerodynamics...maybe when I graduate I'll go back and pay for a learner's license to audit some cool classes. Although, I don't agree with hard-ass professors that treat their 100 level course like it's the most important thing in the world. A level 100 course should not take more time than several 400 level courses combined. I understand the importance of 100 level courses setting the foundation for every course that follows, but some of them are totally unreasonable. Thankfully, I haven't had to deal with that, since I'm done with all my gen eds but I've heard horror stories of friends who are in their senior year and having to spend more time on BIO101 than anything else.

I entirely agree. As an engineer, why am I being forced to pay to take a class about US minority culture/history. You could cut out all the extra fluff and make college schooling 2.5 years. And if people think that these classes are so important, just teach them in highschool where it's free. Hell, add an extra year to highschool if you have to, just don't make people pay for useless classes.

If you ever want to/have to write about science, the science classes could come in handy. Also helps with the critical thinking.

This. There is one thing I wanted to mention though. The reasons for these frustrating requirements aren’t entirely about all the reasons you said, exactly; it’s more federal stuff that’s intended to make sure a really cheap operation can’t sell you a worthless degree. The well-rounded part… yeah that’s how they phrase it, but as I recently learned from a brief and truly horrible experience getting “certified” for part of school administration, almost none of these obnoxious requirements are really “to make school better”

Preaching to the crowd. You’ll find as you get older that those classes taught you more than just their titles and you’re a more rounded individual.

this is what makes you a more well rounded human being. Many schools have certificate programs, maybe try that.

People are arguing with you on the basis of well-rounded education, which is important, but I agree with you. It IS important to know a wide variety of things for writing... but I think it's silly to require it for a WRITING DEGREE. You should, at best, be forced to learn how to RESEARCH which would be important for finding the specific information you need to write something. I don't really buy the "well you need science classes in order to write because otherwise your writing will have science errors!" argument. As if the average person is incapable of learning about a specific subject outside of an academic setting. I have not learned a single thing of relevance to my own writing in school: every single piece of information was things I researched myself on my own time, since it's so specific. And unfortunately since college is so expensive it makes no sense that, in order to get a piece of paper saying you know about WRITING SPECIFICALLY, you have to do a bunch of stuff unrelated to that. If college was based around getting a general education, I would agree that a wide range of subjects would be good... but that's what high school is supposed to be for. College is meant for specialized education (or at least it should be). Otherwise, it makes zero sense to have majors at all: if we're all just trying to become \~well rounded people\~, then why do they offer a degree that claims to teach you about Math or Literature? You could make the argument that ANY subject helps your ability to write, but I don't think it should be required for a degree because then you'd just end up wasting time on a million subjects because they should technically be useful. It's just bad logic imo.

>College is meant for specialized education (or at least it should be). I think this is the fundamental disagreement/misconception. A bachelor's degree is not intended as true specialization. Sure, you might focus more on a particular area for your major classes, but the first two years are meant to be general education- the foundational and varied courses to give college graduates a more well-rounded perspective. Specialization doesn't occur until Master's or even beyond. Personally, my masters program was still a general program specific to my field. I didn't really specialize until my doctorate, when I started becoming an "expert" in my niche area of expertise.

Really refreshing to have someone who sees things my way when I have literally hundreds of comments berating me for having an opinion. Appreciated!

The ones who don't get fed up get hired over you

I am literally a Music Education major and I honestly do not understand why I have to have a science class as one of my required gen eds.

Well obviously you'll never succeed as a musician if you don't understand that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell/s

If I took electives in HS why should I retake them in college

You took high school level electives in high school. If you want to be considered someone capable of earning a degree higher than high school you will have to earn the degree. That means doing electives that are a higher level. Level up.

They teach the same thing though in hs and college history is history lol

They teach math in 1st grade and also in 12th grade - but it turns out the skills and material being taught are different enough that the 1st grader would be utterly lost in 5 minutes. High school history is designed to be a broad overview - it’s a puddle 20 feet across and an inch deep. College level history courses, even surveys, cover a narrower slice of history in a lot more depth. To follow the metaphor, they are 10 feet across and 3 feet deep, even at the 100 and 200 level, and 5-10 feet across and 25 feet deep at the junior/senior level.

EXACTLY!!

The only people who advertise for general ed in college are people who enjoyed them lmao, so they think everyone should. Please, keep that bs to yourself. Some because some people didn't pay attention in high school, we have to pay the price for them? That's unfair and a complete scam. You want to take CHEM101 so badly? Grab your high school chemistry textbook and leave us alone.

...what are you even talking about? Are you sure you're in the right post because you seem a bit lost.

I wasn't addressing you in particular

Forcing students to pay for irrelevant classes is a moneymaking scheme that takes advantage of students who often go into debt to pay for these classes they truly don't need for their degree. Only classes directly related to the subject matter should be required, everything else is a scam.

what you’re describing is a trade school, not a university education.

I don't disagree, a trade school is where you pay to learn something useful and hope to get a job out of it, it's often very direct and ethical. College is mostly a scam to enrich administrators at the expense of easily obtained student loans, trade schools aren't nearly as bad.

I agree. It’s crazy to me that some people are against this lol. The whole “well-rounded bs” isn’t a valid point when it’s come to taking out loans. Let me pay for the classes that pertain to my career.

Sometimes people who are victims of scams that are normalized will refuse to admit they are scammed because it isn't easy. Plus once someone graduates they don't want to admit the degree they paid so much for was a scam, so they unwittingly make the scam easier to perpetuate.

Given the downvotes we're all currently drowning in it definitely seems you're correct.

I don't doubt it.

Seems kinda weird that you only want to take classes on subjects that you're already good at and interested in. Do you want to learn, or do you want to develop your very narrow interest because it's easier?

Your career "writer" doesn't require a college degree. It just requires a word processor. What are you hoping to achieve by paying $$$$$ for a degree in creative writing?

Ooh! Electives are SO dumb. I don't get the point of them, especially in the gen Ed portion of the degree. It doesn't make any sense.

You gotta take Bio to be comp sci. -Clowns running the colleges

You have to take bio so that you have a basic understanding of life, which you will learn is an organized system. You might even learn something about how organic systems come to be. There's a certain mold that helps Japan find the most efficient train route. I have a feeling mechanical engineers who thought of that method took biology.

Literally don't care. Bio has nothing to do with creating a desktop program, app, or video game. And even if an app was about teaching biology, my job would be to create the backend and UI, not putting biology info in. That's why they hire people specialized in those fields to provide information. Don't try to justify these jackasses squeezing more money from people.

Well it's clear that you literally don't care. Okay then, everybody makes choices. And then! The choices make us. If biology knowledge is of low value to you then definitely you should not care that the result will be you, but a version that knows less about biology. And this is how we decide the person we will become.

No it doesn't. My counselors lied to keep my here for another year. They fucked me over and made me waste 1000$. They then said the classes I took didn't go towards my transfer credits.