3 ms·
It's kinda odd to see these sorts of "gen-ed" requirements from the UK. US college degrees seem to be lengthened a year and required to be partially filled with
by lol768 7y ago
It's kinda odd to see these sorts of "gen-ed" requirements from the UK. US college degrees seem to be lengthened a year and required to be partially filled with what appears to be a bunch of irrelevant classes. I'd be pretty annoyed given the cost of tuition if, as an adult, I was expected to do a bunch of drama, or humanities, or languages classes prior to graduation... for a CS degree.
To me, and I suspect most people in Europe, the primary purpose of going to university is to specialise in one particular course area and gain a higher qualification. Of course, there is space to ensure students practice e.g. public speaking, working within a team, project management and technical writing within these constraints. But generally, all of the classes will be relevant to the subject area you are studying unless you _wish_ to take a module from a different degree course as an option. The idea of depriving an adult from being able to make that decision for themselves is disheartening.
Most students would surely have already worked through and experienced a great deal of other classes in high school in order to receive a well-rounded education _prior_ to attending university.
So sure, if you want to get outside of your comfort zone, take an optional class or sign up for a society. But this whole concept of forcing it into an unrelated degree is odd.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- zapzupnz 7y agoIndeed. If they wanted CS grads to come out of their shells, then a mandatory communications course might be more in order. That would cover all multitudes of communication: face-to-face, telephone, written, email, etc. Not "Communication for Dummies" but "Communication for the Workplace", and maybe a few boundaries could be pushed within that class, but not to the point of irrelevance.