A well-rounded education is a beautiful thing. It is important for us to comprehend the world through an interdisciplinary lens and be able to analyze scenarios outside of our fields of specialty. While gaining exposure to other disciplines is crucial to being a versatile employee or a multifaceted general member of society, supporting fields are, once again, not your area of specialization. For this reason, I believe it would be more logical to make classes that don't directly pertain to a specific major pass-fail classes.

For Example:

A communication major may be required to take a science course such as biology. It can be extremely overwhelming and challenging for that individual to attempt to learn all of the specific parts of cells and their processes. Furthermore, it is most likely not a topic of interest to him or her, which always creates another learning barrier. So, for these types of supporting classes, it would be more beneficial for those individuals to take away underlying concepts and general themes.

What's the Solution?

The grading process shouldn't be identical to those classes that specifically relate to the individual's area of expertise. Therefore, continuing on the example, a communication major should be truly graded and critiqued in a class such as public speaking that will help them to become experts in his or her designated field. He or she should be exposed to external knowledge such as the sciences to understand processes that occur in his or her every day life, but they should not be graded along the same traditional gradient that determines if an indiviudal is mastering a topic. Rather, he or she should be "graded" according to a general comprehension of those supporting topics perhaps through the form of class discussions, writing assignments, conceptual or general knowledge multiple choice and perhaps a simple pass-fail grading scale.

In Conclusion:

This kind of system would alleviate pressure from students to perform well in an area that they don't plan to utilize in their future. It would also allow them to take away the most important points of supporting classes rather than stressing over minute details that they will probably not retain long-term. Finally, it would direct their detailed focus towards the most pertinent areas of studies for their futures.