"We're in college... we should be able to do what we want!" But alas, we are subject to the restrictions of our majors, the curriculum, and the requirements for graduation. Many majors have so many requirements that students do not have an opportunity to take additional classes. Should some of these requirements be sacrificed so that students can become more well rounded? No, I do not think so. When students graduate from the U of I in their major, graduate schools or companies believe in their ability to succeed at their institution because of the reputation and curriculum that they know to be true about this university. They know the coursework that is required for a certain major to be attained, and by looking at the particular student's GPA the institution has determined that this student is high achieving, and thus would be a success. So, from a professional future standpoint, the coursework would be a less objective measure if some students could opt out (here, we may also consider whether students would even opt out if allowed, knowing that someone is going to be reviewing the students' judgement if they choose to take "wine tasting" instead of their "biology" major course).
First of all, I think we need to prioritize any type of change we are trying to make. The first problem we must solve is the decline of degrees. I believe this is a bigger problem, because the ultimate goal of education is to raise the efficiency of people in the work force. That is, the rate and quality at which employees are able to accomplish the jobs. Once we do this, we can continue to raise the efficiency and quality by concentrating on other areas (such as elective curriculum).
Declining for Degrees discusses the progression of students who are starting to "glide" through the system rather than using higher education as a way to pursue learning effectively (getting the right things done, according to Drucker). If students are allowed to take some electives instead of their current required classes during their senior year, isn't this just feeding into the decline? I feel like, now, is as necessary of a time as any, to impose stricter rules on the major guidelines. Education is taken for granted, assumed as a right. If we can impose stricter rules in terms of degree requirements, then it is possible students will focus more on their learning than just gliding through.
The argument against such a strict major curriculum is whether students are getting a well-rounded education if they do not have room for courses outside their major. From what I know, and perhaps it is different in Engineering, but students should be able to finish their curriculum (including required gen eds) by taking 15 hours a semester. The students who are looking to be more well rounded and have further interests will have the desire to take the 18 hour semester their senior year. If they feel that it is too much, they could take it as credit/no credit. In addition, students could even just sit in the lectures for their electives without even taking the class. This would take away the pressure of tests and homework for those added hours. Professors are pretty good about letting this happen.
There are also many other ways to build a well rounded student outside of coursework. People volunteer in areas of interest. As a business student, if I were interested in medical relief, I could go volunteer at the children's hospital or join an RSO. This is another reason why it is so important for students to know the resources that they have. I know that there is an RSO called Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC), but not that many students on campus may. I also know where to go for resources if I was looking for more information in medical relief. I would ask one of my friends that were Pre-Med majors. I think the project group that is working on publicizing resources to freshmen will help. Freshmen can then build a network and join the groups that are of interest to them---making them more well rounded without having to change or sacrifice any curriculum.
To conclude, I feel that there is no excuse for students to sacrifice their major classes in order to take electives that they are interested in just to be more "well rounded". This is just going to feed into the system of "gliding" There are many other ways to do this, and the costs of allowing electives over requirements would outweigh the benefits.
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It's interesting to me what you said, especially considering that many in Accounting stick around a fifth year to sit for the CPA exam, which has the 150 hours requirement, so that such students could very well take substantial elective credit if they desired without going the 18 hour route, but for the undergraduate major there is not that flexibility, as you note. On the 18 hours itself, I don't have the data but my sense is that while it may seem rational to take that many hours (save on tuition and graduate earlier that way, quite apart from the electives issues) many students don't do that. For students who already have a lot of AP credit, maybe there is one explanation - they don't want to hurry up graduation more than they are already doing. For those without the AP credit, perhaps a different explanation - harder to keep up the GPA by taking more credit hours.
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you that making it optional to swap out electives for requirements dilutes the requirements. Perhaps I didn't frame the prompt well, but I had in mind the possibility that some of the requirements would be dropped entirely. I can see you are not in favor of that, but the argument for keeping them should be other than via this dilution issue.
Given what we've just been reading in Drucker - management is a liberal art - there is a question whether in your response above if you feel the tightly prescribed curriculum is good preparation for management. In thinking about this, do note that in the career trajectory specific skills are usually of most value early on and broad general skills more so later. When the companies hire students out of school they may have more of a focus on the entry level positions and the next few steps up the ladder. But the education you are getting from the U of I is meant for a lifetime. So there may be some short term versus long term arguments to be made to counter what you have said.
I want to switch gears slightly, to have you consider these questions in terms of what we will do next in the course. I'm afraid that will challenge some of your fundamental precepts, just as the prompt this week seems to have done. You have argued in multiple posts about the benefits of extrinsic motivation. Consider this paragraph from Edward Deming, whom Senge cites in his introduction.
"Our prevailing system of management has depressed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of destruction began with toddlers - a prize for the best Halloween costume, grades in school, gold stars - and on through the university. On the job, people, teams, and divisions are ranked, reward for the top, punishment for the bottom. Management by Objectives, quotas, incentive pay, business plans, put together separately, division by division, cause further loss, unknown and unknowable."
This may be too alien for you to embrace straight away. But Deming was a giant. So it is something you should consider.
Hey Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteI thought that you encorperated the movie and Drucker really well into this post! It also made me understand the points that these pieces were trying to make even more.
Honestly though, I am wondering if you feel like classes prepare you to be more efficient in the work place. I know you are in the school of business, and honestly, sometimes I have envied the relavance of your classes compared to mine.
As you know, I am a biology major headed off to medical school next year. Some of my classes - not so relavant to being a phsycian, and to me it is frustrating. Sure, I learn how to learn better, but I still sometimes feel like I wasting my time - as I could be doing other things outside the classroom or taking non-core requirements that will help me become a better physician.
I guess what I am trying to say is that although I agree with you that major requirements shouldn't be sacrificed for electives, I also think we need to take a closer look at those major requirements if we want to make the system as effective as it could be.
-Alessandra