Like, OMG, I might have to, you know, learn something!

Via Jeff at Culture Kitchen I became aware of what can only be described as People's Exhibit #1 for why general education courses are an absolute necessity in higher education. A woman with the unfortunate name of Stacey Perk, a junior at the University of Iowa majoring in American studies and journalism whines:

A problem exists within the high-school education system: It doesn't prepare students for their careers.

Here's the clue phone for you, Stacey. High school isn't supposed to "prepare students for their careers," at least not in the sense that you seem to mean. High school is supposed to give you the basic tools that every citizen needs to be productive in the world. That includes things like being able to read well enough to understand a driver's test or a ballot initiative, being able to handle balancing your checkbook and understanding the interest rate structure on your mortgage application, and being able to recognize logical flaws in advertisements and political stump speeches. A high school education is also supposed to prepare one to go on--whether to college or to an apprenticeship or technical school if one chooses not to take the higher education route.

But Stacey's letter gets even better worse:

The school system needs a reality check; most students aren't going to be mathematicians, historians, or chemists. So why do we have to take these classes? If students know at an early age what they want to do for their careers, then high schools should offer classes in that area. This would make me feel that the time I spent in the high-school classrooms wasn't a waste.

I'm sure that most students have some idea what they'd like to do when they finish school. I know from both personal experience and having spent the last decade working in higher education that (a) many of those personal goals are completely unrealistic, and (b) most of them will be changed at least once between the time a student starts high school and the time that same student graduates high school--let alone college. Which, of course, is one reason why high school and college curricula require students to get a reasonably well-rounded education rather than focusing on all and only those subjects necessary (in the students' own opinions) to prepare them for their future careers. Isn't one of the reasons that one goes to school because one does not yet know enough about the world and how it operates to be able to tell what is, and what is not, important?

There's also the fact that people change careers an awful lot more often these days than they used to even when I was a lad, and this trend is not forecast to change any time soon--except perhaps in that people will change jobs and careers even more often than they do now. So, Stacey, the career you think you're going to have today will not only probably change by tomorrow, even if you actually wind up working in that field chances are excellent to good that within five to seven years you'll be doing something else: all the more reason to learn as much as you can.

Stacey saves the best for last:

Not only did the gen-ed classes waste my time and money, but they also hurt my GPA. Being forced to take classes makes them less interesting. If they aren't interesting, you won't do well in them. Statistics and astronomy bored me, so I opted not to attend class and neglected to study for them. These gen-ed classes caused my GPA to plummet. I worried that these classes - ones that I would never use - were going to hurt my chances of getting into the journalism school, which has a 3.0 GPA requirement. As it turned out, my GPA was below 3.0 after my first year. I had to take summer classes to raise it, and luckily, I was eventually admitted to the J-school. I can not imagine what I would have done if I were not admitted. I would have had to change my major.

How is this fair? I shouldn't have to give up my dream of working at Glamour magazine because my GPA was low - all because of some stupid gen-ed classes that I was forced to take. Let's just get rid of them.

Stacey apparently flunked basic logic, or she would realize that it wasn't "some stupid gen-ed classes" she was "forced to take" that hurt her GPA. It was her decision "not to attend class" and having neglected to study for them which hurt her GPA. It's hard to do well in a subject one does not already know if one never bothers to show up for the lectures which one has paid for, and then one does not study for the exams. I think even high school freshmen have learned that lesson by the end of their first marking period.

And how does she know that she will never use statistics or astronomy? I'm sure I don't have any idea what I'll be doing 15 years from now, so how can I be certain what knowledge will, and will not, be useful to me? Moreover, while I would agree with Stacey that statistics is a tough row to hoe and not terribly exciting, I can personally attest that they are very useful indeed. Especially, I would argue, to a journalist-in-training. How else do you expect to be able to unravel all those marketing claims, to say nothing of the latest Gallup poll? As Benjamin Disraeli famously observed, "There are lies, damned lies, and statistics." If you don't know the first thing about stats, it's very easy for people who do to pull the wool over your eyes. And in the present political climate, America needs far more people who are able to detect bullshit when it is flung at them day after day by those in power and those who control the media.

If you ask me, there is no better preparation for life than a liberal arts education. It is not the facts and figures themselves that are important--there are always reference books for those, if one cannot recall them off the top of one's head. But what a broadly based liberal education teaches one is how to learn, how to think, how to reason correctly. Those are vital skills in any profession, and with that training under one's belt, one can literally go on to do just about anything that one has a yearning to try. Employers will train new employees in the specific tasks required by their jobs--and that process goes a lot more smoothly and quickly if those new employees already know how to learn and reason and think critically.

So, Stacey, my advice to you is to get your ass back into those classrooms, pronto. You've got a lot of learning to do, and quite a ways to go before you're ready to be released into the wide world. And God help us if you wind up working for the New York Times: one Judith Miller in the world is more than enough.

Comments

[fiat lux]

Heh. Just wait until she starts applying for jobs and discovers exactly how difficult it is to get a full-time paid journalism gig.

[Andrea]

Oh good Lord. I don't even think it's the job of an undergraduate education to prepare students for the work force -in the way she means. I guess I agree with her that there is a curriculum problem at the high school level, but it seems farly clear that we'd name that problem quite differently. She wouldn't like my solution at ALL ;)

[Michael]

She should also be thanking her lucky stars she didn't come to our J-school. I quote from page 191 of the current Undergraduate Catalog, the section titled "Major in Journalism":

Special Requirements

At least 90 semester hours of the total hours required for the baccalaureate degree must be taken in subjects other than journalism, with at least 65 of those hours in the liberal arts. The department currently considers liberal arts courses to be most of the courses offered in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and courses in art history and appreciation, music history and literature, and theater history and criticism.

...Students must also fulfill the requirements of a minor or a second major, which must be selected in consultation with a department adviser.

(My emphasis.)

My understanding is that the second major is required because they only teach you how to write in the journalism classes. You also have to know at least a little something about something else, so you have something to write about. I guess Ms. Perk missed that little tidbit of information.

[Michael]

And I tend to doubt any of our advisers would approve American studies as a second major for someone whose dream it is to write for Glamour magazine.

[Bryan]

There is almost no job in business that doesn't require statistics, and magazine publishing is a business.

Working at a "popular" magazine would make a social sciences minor very helpful, but art and design courses would certainly not be untoward.

I get a feeling that the statistics and astronomy were cover for math and science requirements.

If she wanted to get an apprenticeship, she would learn nothing not associated with her job, but she would also be stuck with that job for the rest of her life.

[Steve Bates]

Sigh. My late father, whose last career was as a high school guidance counselor, met many young people with attitudes like that of the student whose letter you quote. Again and again, he had to persuade them of a fundamental fact: one does not go to college to learn a trade. Life is far too complex, rich and fascinating (not to mention full of pitfalls and sidetracks) not to "waste" at least some of one's undergraduate days studying things quite off the topic of any intended career. Did I, as an undergraduate electrical engineering major, really need those courses in quantum physics, world history and music theory? Well, yes, I did, and so does Ms. Perk, even if for her there is no Glamour [sic] in them.

[Mustang Bobby]

I have a friend who teaches theatre history at a highly-regarded university. When reviewing the time periods that would be covered, he mentioned "Napoleon Bonaparte." One of his students raised her hand and said, "Who's he?"

He's recovering nicely from his stroke.

[Michael]

Unfortunately, Bobby, that kind of ignorance is growing more and more common. The average college freshman doesn't know the first thing about U.S. history, much less the history of the other 95% of the world. I have to admit to a bit of semi-snobbery this past weekend. At one point as we were wandering around campus, I remarked to my friend Dave, "It's so nice to hear polysyllabic words being spoken outside of a classroom."

[andante]

I've been outspoken about just this issue to our local school board.

It's insane to neglect the basics and drop essentials for things like "Floral Arranging" or "Marketing".

[Jason]

Michael,

I like the requirement of a second major for j-school students. I think an American Studies minor or second major would be fine. Why wouldn't it be? American studies basically combine history, literature and other disciplines. It's the quintissential liberal arts degree, in my book.

[Michael]

American studies is a little too limited a scope to qualify as the quintessential liberal arts degree in my book. And in Ms. Perk's case, I doubt it would get her very far toward her stated dream of working for Glamour magazine. It'd be great if she wanted to work for the American Historical Review, but I have to think that something like fashion design would be a bigger boost for someone who wanted to report on the doings of the "beautiful people." (Gack!)