My name is Kimberly Webb, and I am a history major. Despite this fact about myself, the core curriculum of Saint Louis University requires me to take three hours of math and six hours of sciences, classes that I absolutely will not use in the future.
Every college in the United States requires general education classes like this, and they are especially prevalent in liberal arts colleges. These courses serve to open the students' minds to possible new interests, as well as an introduction to different forms of thinking, and seek to make a student more well-rounded. Despite the good intentions, general education classes tend to bog students down, and are altogether a waste of money and time.
General education courses are required to graduate at almost every university that isn't a trade school or polytechnical institute. However, the actual curriculum of the "core" education varies by college. For my purposes, I'm going to talk about SLU's core requirements. You can find the lists of required courses for BA students here and for BS students here.
Like I said before, I'm a history major. Despite that, I still have to take classes like college algebra and get my choice of different science classes that have been pretty much dumbed down for non-science majors. I have to fill my schedule with nine hours of philosophy and nine hours of theology; my boyfriend is a BS student, and he only has to take six hours of each of those. This creates an unfairness in core, as well as trivializes non-science majors as not difficult enough. What SLU does not understand is that non-science majors are difficult, though in their own way. This creates a divide between BS and BA students, and really makes non-science majors feel almost inadequate.
One thing that everyone knows about college is that it's expensive. This is especially true for private institutions like SLU. Don't even get me started on the fact that SLU puts money towards changing flowers every two weeks, redesigning the Billiken over and over again, or building up Midtown, despite the fact that some departments are quickly losing funding and the washing machines don't work half the time. SLU is losing money by making gen-ed classes required.
First of all, students will more than likely try to lower the cost by taking their gen-eds at a community college or local university, which means less money for SLU. Second of all, professors are being hired and made to teach introductory classes. When someone has to take an intro class, they are probably less willing to join the department, which means less money for that department. This happens a lot in history, which is already a kind of unpopular department. Students lose money by getting lower quality instruction from specialists teaching introductions, or from professors who are not interested in teaching an introduction to begin with. Students also lose the money that they pay to learn about their specific major.
Gen-eds have a huge problem of rehashing "necessary" skills. For example, I learned algebra in high school and, following my college algebra course, I will literally never take another math course. Algebra will be pretty meaningless to me, and to a lot of other students who just aren't into math. I will probably never use a class like "Understanding the Weather" or "Climate Change" in my everyday life. If we really need gen-eds, then the gen-ed requirements should be based on what you're majoring in and what your plans are.
Gen-eds take a toll on professors as well. Professors, at least in the history department, have a specialty. They chose that specialty because they're passionate about and interested in that field, whether it be a region or time period. Because of that, having to teach an introductory course is demeaning and really unhelpful to them. Instead of teaching what they love, they teach the basic things people went over in high school. I propose that introductory courses are offered as a way of funding graduate (masters and Ph.D.) studies, so professors can focus on teaching their actual specialty.
Plus, gen-eds add real, unnecessary stress to the student. Core requirements take up credit hours that could be used on what the student is actually there to study, and add a tremendous workload. It's completely unnecessary to stress students further than they're already stressed, which is another reason to oust gen-ed courses.
True, you can just take AP courses or CLEP tests to count as credit. Except, this is a privileged viewpoint. Not everyone has the time or the money to take AP courses or CLEP tests. Some schools, like mine did (as a career technical school), don't even offer AP classes. These classes are time- and money-consuming anyways, and not a practical option for everyone.
Besides, most Ivy League schools don't have general education classes, and they're turning out pretty well.
