Why the us should cut useless courses from college degrees.

[Imperial Joseon]

Do you ever think about the dumb shit you're about to say before you say them? Serious question. Also, children?

Children, people, potato potato (but pronounced differently).

Po-tah-to.

[Valrifell]

Children, people, potato potato (but pronounced differently).

Po-tah-to.

I accept this solution.

[Imperial Joseon]

Po-tah-to.

I accept this solution.

Right on.

[Cekoviu]

Children, people, potato potato (but pronounced differently).

Po-tah-to.

Kart-off-el.

[Albennia]

A college degree is also a status symbol, one that says you are "edumacated" and not some simpleton. Liberals are oversocialized creatures, and as such they place a premium on status symbols. This is not something they will admit to or even realize. They tell you that because they sincerely believe that it's true and it partly is - not going to college is social suicide in social circles dominated by liberals.

As for humanities, that's to be expected. Academia is a stronghold of liberals and as they believe they are right, they will teach political dogmas as if they are objective truth.

Liberals this liberals that liberals the other

Proof

[Cekoviu]

A college degree is also a status symbol, one that says you are "edumacated" and not some simpleton. Liberals are oversocialized creatures, and as such they place a premium on status symbols. This is not something they will admit to or even realize. They tell you that because they sincerely believe that it's true and it partly is - not going to college is social suicide in social circles dominated by liberals.

As for humanities, that's to be expected. Academia is a stronghold of liberals and as they believe they are right, they will teach political dogmas as if they are objective truth.

Liberals this liberals that liberals the other

Proof

Excellent work taking this down! This is going straight into my effortpost folder!

[Rojava Free State]

Also teaching children pure technical skills is just silly, and services to only teach them to be mindless industrial drones. So I guess that's a win for the capitalists, but I thought we preferred our population with deep critical thinking skills, social awareness, and empathetic nature. It's kinda hard to teach all of those through fucking tax forms.

I told you before men, we might be into this smart shit but a lot of people aint. You'll never change the lumpenproleteriat

[Rojava Free State]

Tbh you're a fool if you think automation will benefit anyone but the ruling class. Communism must come before automation.

It almost certainly will come after. The current social order won't survive ubiquitous unemployment. Nations can continue slapping larger and larger band-aids on the problem, but eventually machines will have taken enough people's bread away that it won't be feasible to keep them down on the street anymore.

EDIT:
I should mention that I believe UBI will actually fundamentally solve this problem.

Class war now

[Valrifell]

Also teaching children pure technical skills is just silly, and services to only teach them to be mindless industrial drones. So I guess that's a win for the capitalists, but I thought we preferred our population with deep critical thinking skills, social awareness, and empathetic nature. It's kinda hard to teach all of those through fucking tax forms.

I told you before men, we might be into this smart shit but a lot of people aint. You'll never change the lumpenproleteriat

Untrue and self-aggrandizing.

[Imperial Joseon]

Po-tah-to.

Kart-off-el.

[Rojava Free State]

I told you before men, we might be into this smart shit but a lot of people aint. You'll never change the lumpenproleteriat

Untrue and self-aggrandizing.

Yes it is true. You won't convince a guy who does nothing but snort coke and shoot dice that the class war must happen now

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Multicultural children's literature. Big dumb my guy. I had to take that shit and a multicultural studies class in college and they fucking sucked. Had some older white lady telling us about the African roots of black American culture (I always felt black American culture was far more similar to white American culture than to Africa but whatever) and bringing up other accidentally stereotypical shit too, like why Muslim women in the near East don't dye their hair because they wear hijabs (not all Muslim women wear those btw and Arab women actually dye their hair alot) and why white Americans are complicit in racism (pretty sure most white folks aren't racists but yeah, why don't you blame your own race for that while I defend them).

That was Multicultural studies. Multicultural children's lit was all this stuff about African children and shit. Imagine goodnight moon but it's some Ugandan child and he's hunting lions and whatever the hell else he does (this was an actual story btw although to be serious it had nothing to do with good night moon). Not only were we being forced to read literature that came from cultures no one even heard of, but they were literally baby books. Like come on.

I'm totally for cutting any classes related to social justice. Most of them are absolutely meaningless. Your future jobs wants to see your qualifications and knowing alot about theories of power and oppression doesn't make you look smart. It does quite the opposite

And before anyone says "but people gotta learn tolerance," I just wanna say right now that a college class cannot teach you to not be a racist. Either you aren't one like most people or you are one and college won't stop that. I'm pretty sure that without these multicultural clssses, 90% of people could still treat a person of a different race respectfully and not start screaming racial slurs at them

Y I K E S

[Dagnia]

I kind of agree. I could have had my degree in two years instead of four if I didn't have to take bullshit like 12th century poetry. If I have to take those, then the English Literature majors should have to take some calculus or physics classes. The state of math education in the US is embarrassing from grade school to university anyway. Even at my Upstate New York college which still has some standards, the math course required for non-STEM majors is barely even classifiable as math (yet they still needed me to tutor them).
I find the idea that one should have to take courses way outside your field to be "well rounded" insulting. I did a semester of foreign study and when talking about university in our respective countries with some students from Europe, one (from Belgium if I remember correctly) made a confused face and said that's what high school is for. Also it implies I'm a boring person who would never leave my computer if I didn't have some aging hippie lecturing on the differences between Foucault and Derrida. The things unrelated to my degree that I was interested in anyway are things I've learned about before, during, and after my college education. All the English literature courses in the world did not make me interested in Beowulf, and if there is someone who is truly that boring that they only ever care about one subject going in, not much is going to change that, you're just fleecing them.
That said, the humanities are not totally useless (though in their current form, they often look that way). Without a firm definition of intelligence, something that belongs to the field of philosophy, we'll never get beyond the most rudimentary AI.

The humanities are useful when you're interested in not being a complete dumbass. The idea that education should be purely about real-world application is a cancer upon education. Imo we'd be better off forcing STEM into trade schools where it belongs, though it won't matter, in thirty years, STEM majors will be replaced by computers.

Then who programs/maintains/builds new applications for the computers? Statements like these are a sign of a complete dumbass who has no clue what any of us do. Are you one of those people who believes mechanical engineers will be replaced by machines simply because... machines or something? We are not anywhere near a point yet where a computer itself can solve a problem by itself. A human still has to write the algorithm to solve the problem, and regardless of whatever trash tech publications say about it, the kind of technology that reproduces, invents, maintains, and improves upon itself is unlikely to happen in any of our lifetimes, as it actually requires imagination, something no one knows where to begin to engineer or program.
The fact that you don't have even the smallest grasp of this is not a sign of the humanities needing to be shut down (I don't believe that, perhaps purge some of the post-modernists and identity-obsessed people, but not shut down) but how badly they have failed their own defenders. We could get closer to that self-writing code or self-engineering machine with the help of the humanities because surprisingly enough, answers to questions like the definition of intelligence, imagination, and life can steer us in the right direction to developing it. This is also why the STEM fields belong in a liberal arts institution along side philosophy and other fields. Unfortunately, they're more interested in navel gazing, who's most oppressed, how many genders can we invent, and getting punked by the Grievance studies crew. The real cancer on academia is the pseudoscience coming out of the humanities. Without identity-obsessed people and postmodernists, there wouldn't be the perception that humanities are useless and that it would be better to cut them out in favor of entirely practical education.

An engineer wrote this.

And? Tell me about all those engineering courses you took, Mr. Well-rounded.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Untrue and self-aggrandizing.

Yes it is true. You won't convince a guy who does nothing but snort coke and shoot dice that the class war must happen now

Never mind that class war shouldn't happen to begin with.

[Rojava Free State]

Yes it is true. You won't convince a guy who does nothing but snort coke and shoot dice that the class war must happen now

Never mind that class war shouldn't happen to begin with.

Either the upper class has to do more to help the poor and to help the nation they're from or there will be a conflict. There will be a conflict if the government keeps using violence and intimidation against peaceful protesters on our soil

The point isn't even whether there must be a class war. Whether you want peaceful reform or violent revolution, you won't convince a drug dealer in the hood to get onboard with it

[Unstoppable Empire of Doom]

I am the very model of a modern Major-General!

[Albennia]

Liberals this liberals that liberals the other

Proof

Excellent work taking this down! This is going straight into my effortpost folder!

You don't need to put any effort into calling a load of nonsense a load of nonsense. Which is exactly what that is.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Never mind that class war shouldn't happen to begin with.

Either the upper class has to do more to help the poor and to help the nation they're from or there will be a conflict. There will be a conflict if the government keeps using violence and intimidation against peaceful protesters on our soil

The point isn't even whether there must be a class war. Whether you want peaceful reform or violent revolution, you won't convince a drug dealer in the hood to get onboard with it

No, no. I agree completely. The rich and powerful are only going to end up shafting themselves if they keep it up. It seems the wealthy elite failed to learn from the October Revolution or the French Revolution. I haven't, which is why I very much oppose the violent revolution route because I know exactly where that leads and I don't want to see my country reduced to such a horrible state. Those presently in office/up for office need to shape up and soon or losing elections will soon be the least of their worries.

But yeah, some random dude selling weed to gangbangers in the ghetto doesn't give a shit. He's a lowlife.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

Excellent work taking this down! This is going straight into my effortpost folder!

You don't need to put any effort into calling a load of nonsense a load of nonsense. Which is exactly what that is.

To be fair, a Liberal Arts degree is fucking useless.

[Albennia]

You don't need to put any effort into calling a load of nonsense a load of nonsense. Which is exactly what that is.

To be fair, a Liberal Arts degree is fucking useless.

You should read this post

[Luziyca]

One man's useless course is another's useful course.

[The Anarchical World Order]

I could get behind wider technical education. Society could also fund elite public schools for hyper intelligent children while allowing the others to take junior college courses while in high school without limitation or school permission. Homework should be banned to give students time to relax, which is important for mental health. Philosophy should be a course available to all high school students, but social justice related coursework should be cut.

[Trollzyn the Infinite]

To be fair, a Liberal Arts degree is fucking useless.

You should read this post

Since when do they encompass so much? Because I could've sworn they didn't. Some of those I'm pretty sure fall under other categories as well.

And considering most of those are neither "Liberal" nor "Arts", why is it labelled as such? It's a misnomer.

[Czechostan]

If I have to take those, then the English Literature majors should have to take some calculus or physics classes. The state of math education in the US is embarrassing from grade school to university anyway. Even at my Upstate New York college which still has some standards, the math course required for non-STEM majors is barely even classifiable as math (yet they still needed me to tutor them). [...] And? Tell me about all those engineering courses you took, Mr. Well-rounded.

I major in a philosophy, I attend a liberal arts school, and I wish my education was more well-rounded. I would have loved an opportunity to take an engineering course if one was available. Looking back on it, I wish I would have taken physics courses. In fact, I've found I've understood my major better by taking courses outside my discipline, because I am able to find the boundaries of it and see where it intersects with other disciplines, plus be exposed to different ways of thinking.

I've talked to STEM people who agree. They take science courses, but they don't get an opportunity to take English courses, so they don't know how to write good research papers, and their papers are riddled with grammatical errors or have no flow. They don't get to take history of philosophy courses, so they don't get a chance to learn about the history of science and its foundations. Etc.

If you go into a course with the mindset "I am a superior STEM major; the humanities are beneath me," or "I'm a humanities major; who needs math, when I have a calculator?" it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that you won't find anything of value. If you go into a course with a willingness to learn, or you're looking for intersections with your own major, then you might find some merit going outside your discipline. Sure, sometimes the course outside you happen to take is shitty. You get the philosophy professor who claims science is inherently flawed or the physics professor who claims science has solved all the problems of philosophy already. But that's no reason to dismiss taking courses outside your discipline.

Or you can stick to one discipline like some people do: the academic equivalent of a liberal refusing to talk to anyone but liberals/conservatives refusing to talk to anyone but conservatives. The whole "our discipline is superior, your discipline is worthless" thing just annoys me so much, and that's largely because people refuse to step outside of their comfort zone and face having to think another way.

[Czechostan]

You should read this post

Since when do they encompass so much? Because I could've sworn they didn't. Some of those I'm pretty sure fall under other categories as well.

And considering most of those are neither "Liberal" nor "Arts", why is it labelled as such? It's a misnomer.

"Liberal arts" just means the skills that were essential for a free person to know.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education

It typically just means a broad education in a variety of subjects, with a concentration in a specific field.