4 ms·

Ged rid of the ideal of a "well-rounded" student. We've been stuck with this since the middle ages (see the Seven Liberal Arts), and it has been a major source

Ged rid of the ideal of a "well-rounded" student. We've been stuck with this since the middle ages (see the Seven Liberal Arts), and it has been a major source of compulsion in education ever since.

_delirium 16y ago
I'd go the opposite direction, personally. I wanted to take more humanities classes as a CS major, but was compelled to take a bunch of specialized/unnecessary CS classes in sub-areas I don't care about (or could've read about on my own) instead. I tend to see majors and disciplines as the major source of compulsion in education--- they all have ideas about "required cores" that everyone must take, often motivated more by politics than anything else.
- maxharris 16y ago
  What I'm saying works just fine. If you want humanities courses, get a humanities degree; If you want chemistry, get a chemistry degree. If you want both, get both degrees. Lots of people double major, or get more. One of my friends completed five non-trivial, non-overlapping majors in college! This would work so much better if the majors were pure and no general requirements interfered. It works both ways. I wanted less humanities and more science, but there are plenty of people that don't want to take a single math or science class in college if they can avoid it. Why force people?
  - _delirium 16y ago
    Well, my observation is that schools where the general requirements have been reduced have allowed the majors to fill the space by upping their own requirements, whereas schools with more general requirements have fewer per-major requirements, so it seems to be a tradeoff. I personally greatly prefer the 2nd approach, e.g. Harvey Mudd has 1/3 general science/engineering core, 1/3 humanities/social-sciences, 1/3 your major. Contrast with many engineering schools, where your major takes up >2/3 of your courses, which I think is a rather oppressive way to do things. It's possible there could be a school with fewer of both kinds of requirements, where students get a build-your-own-major sort of deal. But if we're going to choose between more general requirements or more per-major requirements, I greatly prefer the first: to me, the 2nd ("all CS majors must take systems, theory, databases, and 2 of the following 4 classes") is a lot more compulsive, and generally results in useless specialist classes being added based on who's politically powerful within the department.
    - maxharris 16y ago
      > to fill the space This is another deep problem with education. When people are forced to become "educated", school devolves into a holding pen. Why is it that we all went to college for four (or more) years, other than tradition?

Ged rid of the ideal of a "well-rounded" student. We've been stuck with this since the middle ages (see the Seven Liberal Arts), and it has been a major source of compulsion in education ever since.

_delirium 16y ago

I'd go the opposite direction, personally. I wanted to take more humanities classes as a CS major, but was compelled to take a bunch of specialized/unnecessary CS classes in sub-areas I don't care about (or could've read about on my own) instead. I tend to see majors and disciplines as the major source of compulsion in education--- they all have ideas about "required cores" that everyone must take, often motivated more by politics than anything else.

maxharris 16y ago
What I'm saying works just fine. If you want humanities courses, get a humanities degree; If you want chemistry, get a chemistry degree. If you want both, get both degrees. Lots of people double major, or get more. One of my friends completed five non-trivial, non-overlapping majors in college! This would work so much better if the majors were pure and no general requirements interfered. It works both ways. I wanted less humanities and more science, but there are plenty of people that don't want to take a single math or science class in college if they can avoid it. Why force people?
- _delirium 16y ago
  Well, my observation is that schools where the general requirements have been reduced have allowed the majors to fill the space by upping their own requirements, whereas schools with more general requirements have fewer per-major requirements, so it seems to be a tradeoff. I personally greatly prefer the 2nd approach, e.g. Harvey Mudd has 1/3 general science/engineering core, 1/3 humanities/social-sciences, 1/3 your major. Contrast with many engineering schools, where your major takes up >2/3 of your courses, which I think is a rather oppressive way to do things. It's possible there could be a school with fewer of both kinds of requirements, where students get a build-your-own-major sort of deal. But if we're going to choose between more general requirements or more per-major requirements, I greatly prefer the first: to me, the 2nd ("all CS majors must take systems, theory, databases, and 2 of the following 4 classes") is a lot more compulsive, and generally results in useless specialist classes being added based on who's politically powerful within the department.
  - maxharris 16y ago
    > to fill the space This is another deep problem with education. When people are forced to become "educated", school devolves into a holding pen. Why is it that we all went to college for four (or more) years, other than tradition?