What's a College Education For?
My post yesterday about drunk driving laws attracted some great comments -- but none more provocative than intern Josh Riddle's statement (strictly obiter dicta, as it were) that he is taking a course called 'Sex, Gender and Society: Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies' in order to satisfy his "Cultural Identity" distributive requirement.
But wait. Josh is a student at Dartmouth. He must be kidding, right? But a quick search of the Dartmouth site yielded the following --
Each student must take at least one course in each of the following cultural areas before graduation:
- Western Cultures (W)
- Non-Western Cultures (NW)
- Culture and Identity (CI)
No. 1 is shocking enough -- absent that requirement, could one actually spend four years at Dartmouth without taking one course on "Western Cultures?"
But No. 2? Does anyone think that the study of non-Western culture (however edifying such study may be) should be an absolute requirement for every college-educated person?
And No. 3 is, of course, nonsense - although I grant it does give undergraduates an ironclad excuse for taking courses with the word "sex" in the title.
Distribution requirements used to serve the laudable purpose of ensuring that undergraduates would end up with a well-rounded study of all the "liberal arts." Now, evidently they've become yet another engine of Western Culture's self-loathing. Josh, I would feel sorry for you, except of course that I envy you (ah, to be an undergraduate again....)
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Re: What's a College Education For?
My "CI" was a course entitled "Mexico and Its Borderlands." I was hopeful that I would perhaps learn a thing or two about the history of Mexico (which I knew and continue to know very little about). Unfortunately, I learned absoultely nothing in the course. I felt sick when I computed how many thousands of dollars the course cost.
May '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
"Some ideas are so stupid only an intellectual could believe them." - George Orwell
Nov '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
The programs you mention are a consequence of public funding.
I teach computer programming to civil engineering students at a California State University. I get tons of foreign students (roll call can be tough). To my knowledge, the ethnic studies departments on campus don't get a single one.
If you're a middle-class family in China and you get the opportunity to send one of your kids to college in America, do you send him to get a bachelor's degree in 'Culture and Identity'?
Nobody waits on tables 40 hours a week, takes 12 units a semester, and lives on Top Ramen for four years to get a degree in Woman's Studies. You have to pay people to get those degrees.
If the government stopped funding these kinds of useless classes and degrees, these departments would collapse. And notice that it's these departments that control our universities, usually with an iron fist.
Meanwhile, the students keep running around shouting about corporate welfare.
Oct '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
Starve the Beast: The programs you mention are a consequence of public funding.
If the government stopped funding these kinds of useless classes and degrees, these departments would collapse. · Jan 5 at 7:24pm
I'm ready to make that motion!
Dec '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
No. 1 is shocking enough -- absent that requirement, could one actually spend four years at Dartmouth without taking one course on "Western Cultures?"
Sure. Calculus I-III, differential equations, discrete mathematics, probability, statistics, computer programming, data structures, physics I-II, microeconomics, macroeconomics, etc.
Oh, OK, a history course: History of Math.
Isn't is sad that we don't get enough of this in high school? What's high school for?
Edited on Jan 5, 2011 at 8:00pmMay '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
Let me give two cheers for non-western cultures. Given Chinese momentum. it is likely that today's students will be doing business in the mysterious orient someday. Without some knowledge of asian cultures they will be at a considerable disadvantage in dealing with mysterious orientals.
The reason I don't give three cheers, is that the courses will probably be propaganda for anti-imperialism, taught by hard-core lefties, even though, last time I looked at my watch, it was 2011.
Jul '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
Adam Freedman:
But No. 2? Does anyone think that the study of non-Western culture (however edifying such study may be) should be an absolute requirement for every college-educated person?
And No. 3 is, of course, nonsense - although I grant it does give undergraduates an ironclad excuse for taking courses with the word "sex" in the title. ·
No. 2: Sure, a university education should expose you to the wider world, of which non-Western cultures are a big part. This presupposes, however, that the class is not just a packaging of trendy post-modern West-hating garbage, which is probably too much to hope for.
No. 3: I promise those will be the least sexy classes ever.
Jul '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
In the 80's, I enrolled at Fordham University to pursue a Masters Degree. During our orientation session, we were told that we would be required to take six credits of "diversity" courses.
I stood up and protested that I wouldn't spend my tuition dollars for politically-correct courses that I believed were of no value to me. When the response was that I had no voice in the matter, I turned and walked away. Approximately three hundred other prospective students stayed and meekly submitted.
Years later, I enrolled at another university that somehow hadn't succumbed to cultural fascism. I got a great education and, other than one testy exchange with a biology teacher about intelligent design, was never subjected to PC nonsense.
The difference between Fordham and the university where I subsequently studied was that Fordham had a big, fat endowment and the the other school depended for its survival largely upon tuition payments by older adult students who were returning for continuing education.
Jun '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
I start college again on Monday. Thank you ever so much for completely bumming me out. :)
Sep '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
I was amazed to learn last May at my sister's graduation that Cal State Northridge has an entire department for Central American Studies. Literally just a handful of students graduating with that degree. And this was separate from the Chicano/Chicana Studies department they already had, lest we conflate the dynamic, prosperous civilization that is Central America with any other part of Latin America.
May '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
Is it actually called Chicano/Chicana Studies? That's doubly unnecessary and ridiculously political correct. Chicano is both the masculine and the generic in Spanish, and there is no gender in English.
May '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
Adam Freedman:
No. 1 is shocking enough -- absent that requirement, could one actually spend four years at Dartmouth without taking one course on "Western Cultures?"
Yes, actually. As AmishDude described, there are more than enough technical courses to fill up a four year undergraduate program. Engineering departments are constantly pushing back against "humanities creep", the asymmetrical process whereby engineers are forced to allocate an increasing number of their credit hours to humanities classes (taking time away from engineering courses), but humanities majors have no reciprocal requirement to pass calculus or mechanics.
I'm not saying you should necessarily be able to graduate college without taking a Western Civ class. It can be character-enriching to study the humanities. But there is an inherent conflict between high quality specialization and a "well-rounded" education.
Edited on Jan 6, 2011 at 2:30amMay '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
[deleted double post]
Edited on Jan 6, 2011 at 2:14amMay '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
Adam Freedman: No. 1 is shocking enough -- absent that requirement, could one actually spend four years at Dartmouth without taking one course on "Western Cultures?"
But No. 2? Does anyone think that the study of non-Western culture (however edifying such study may be) should be an absolute requirement for every college-educated person?
The study of non-Western culture tends to reinforce the greatness of Western culture.
Jul '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
My son just completed a course in Southwestern studies with heavy emphasis on yanqui imperialism. What about the drug cartels threatening the corrupt oligarchy's hold on power in Mexico and the thousands of murders that make Iraq seem like it's populated by the Amish? "It never came up," he said.
Re: What's a College Education For?
I have to say, I took the one "CI" class that actually wasn't a complete and total joke: classical mythology. It was, in fact, one of the best classes I took at Dartmouth. However, I remember searching and searching for a good "CI" class that wouldn't be a complete waste of my time and money. This was literally the only one I could find.
Jun '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
Great River by Paul Horgan is the only book you need on the subject. It's a thousand pages in 8-point font of splendid prose and delightfully un-PC.
Dec '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
outstripp: Let me give two cheers for non-western cultures. Given Chinese momentum. it is likely that today's students will be doing business in the mysterious orient someday. Without some knowledge of asian cultures they will be at a considerable disadvantage in dealing with mysterious orientals.
The reason I don't give three cheers, is that the courses will probably be propaganda for anti-imperialism, taught by hard-core lefties, even though, last time I looked at my watch, it was 2011. · Jan 5 at 8:56pm
I think you would be very lucky if a course that satisfies the NW requirement would actually be on east Asian culture at all, let alone would teach you Chinese history and culture.
I still say it's better left to high school. You don't need to pay tuition to watch a documentary or join a book club.
Jun '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
Are we ready to proclaim that unless a student has a specific reason for being there (i.e. engineering, chemistry, or mathematics) one should not attend college? With tuition sky rocketing, what's the point of going to college if we are forced to sit through gender studies, Chicano studies, etc? Is it still important to get a 'liberal arts' education when that term is continuing to evolve?
May '10
Re: What's a College Education For?
Thankfully, the schools I've attended have not yet been as far gone as #3, but I do have ample experience with #2. In my Ph.D. program we're required to study a "world area" for our coursework and comp exams, which can't be "Europe" if you're an American historian or vice versa if you're an Western European historian. From what I understand this policy was implemented several years ago after politicking about the non-Western regions being ignored by the grad students.
For most other students this is just an annoyance that they deal with, but I had the audacity of choosing a research interest in US foreign relations with Central and Eastern Europe. The bureaucracy completely crapped on my proposals to study CEE for my "world area", even though as a region it's the most ignored in my department, unlike most of the non-western regions. As best as I can tell, this animosity is a reactionary hangover from the Cold War.
Although I've enjoyed studying my fill-in choice (China), it's doing absolutely nothing to help my career prospects.
Edited on Jan 6, 2011 at 7:22am