Why the us should cut useless courses from college degrees.

[Ifreann]

Yeah, don't want people to think critically about gender or race, don't we?

Ideally, we can have people that would just be life long learners, that's what I'd do if money were not an issue. But we live under systems that force us to pick jobs and careers to make a living in something that we wouldn't want in any other context

They're not things that need to be thought critically about.

Which doesn't mean that such thinking shouldn't happen.

[Cisairse]

Ideally, we can have people that would just be life long learners, that's what I'd do if money were not an issue. But we live under systems that force us to pick jobs and careers to make a living in something that we wouldn't want in any other context

Yeah, and we should not bake that fact into the education system, ensuring it never changes.

[Alvecia]

Yeah, don't want people to think critically about gender or race, don't we?

Ideally, we can have people that would just be life long learners, that's what I'd do if money were not an issue. But we live under systems that force us to pick jobs and careers to make a living in something that we wouldn't want in any other context

They're not things that need to be thought critically about.

All things should be thought about critically

[Islands of Washington]

We should remove stupid degrees like gender or ethnic studies. I don't know about abolishing courses though.

Very mad that people are thinking a lot about gender.

I may not tell if this is sarcasm, so dont barade me if it is
I dont think its as much as thinking about gender, its more of a, why is their a course that costs up to 30k?
I mean, the easiest way to think about gender is to look down your jeans, but honestly it doesnt seem worth it to go to college for gender studies, and woman studies, just so all the people that decided they take that class complain that woman don't go....into....stem courses....
Doesnt make sense to me but its whatever, your the one spending the money.

[Wahlid]

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.

This is more of an issue with how the class was taught than the subject matter tbh

[Cisairse]

Very mad that people are thinking a lot about gender.

I may not tell if this is sarcasm, so dont barade me if it is
I dont think its as much as thinking about gender, its more of a, why is their a course that costs up to 30k?
I mean, the easiest way to think about gender is to look down your jeans, but honestly it doesnt seem worth it to go to college for gender studies, and woman studies, just so all the people that decided they take that class complain that woman don't go....into....stem courses....
Doesnt make sense to me but its whatever, your the one spending the money.

From a pragmatic point of view, no course should cost up to $30k.

[Liriena]

We should remove stupid degrees like gender or ethnic studies.

Sargon's online petition has become sentient.

[Bear Stearns]

Open up the market for student loans. Allow lenders to quantify candidates based on things like GPA, major, earning potential, work ethic, and other factors. That way the only people taking on loans for arts & humanities majors will be the sort of rich idiots who can afford to do so.

[Liriena]

Open up the market for student loans. Allow lenders to quantify candidates based on things like GPA, major, earning potential, work ethic, and other factors. That way the only people taking on loans for arts & humanities majors will be the sort of rich idiots who can afford to do so.

Alternatively: nationalize all universities and colleges and make them tuition-free.

[Bear Stearns]

Open up the market for student loans. Allow lenders to quantify candidates based on things like GPA, major, earning potential, work ethic, and other factors. That way the only people taking on loans for arts & humanities majors will be the sort of rich idiots who can afford to do so.

Alternatively: nationalize all universities and colleges and make them tuition-free.

Sure, but then I'd also drastically raise the admissions standards for most colleges.

[Albennia]

Alternatively: nationalize all universities and colleges and make them tuition-free.

Sure, but then I'd also drastically raise the admissions standards for most colleges.

I'm not sure you can add anything to the long list of extracurricular activities you Americans need to do.

[Aclion]

I like the idea of people getting some experience with subjects outside their degree. Education, especially higher education, should be about understanding more about the world, not just about getting a piece of paper that qualifies you for a job.

First, schooling is not the same as experience. Second, you don't need to go to school to get an education anymore. These days formal schooling is so that you can have your knowledge certified by a reputable institution. Requiring students to take out thousands in undischarged loans to take classes they neither need nor want purely to provide demand for these courses is simply indefensible.

We should remove stupid degrees like gender or ethnic studies. I don't know about abolishing courses though.

Social justice speakers can get a lot of money.

It's about as likely as making money playing a sport.

[Blanjiland]

Sure, but then I'd also drastically raise the admissions standards for most colleges.

I'm not sure you can add anything to the long list of extracurricular activities you Americans need to do.

Idunno, I could genuinely imagine US schools demanding all applicants to be GMs in chess, olympic athletes and at the same time have a perfect understanding of quantum theory.

As for the OP, this is of course assuming you can define “useless” degrees that isn’t one’s thinly veiled opinion. I remembered thinking the humanities wasn’t all that important a few years ago, but it’s quickly become one of the most fascinating subjects to me. Shouldn’t the purpose of tertiary education to further your understanding of the world around you and be able to become more enlightened, rather then to shoehorn you into a specific job just so you don’t starve once you graduate?

[Reorganisieren Reichregierung]

Open up the market for student loans. Allow lenders to quantify candidates based on things like GPA, major, earning potential, work ethic, and other factors. That way the only people taking on loans for arts & humanities majors will be the sort of rich idiots who can afford to do so.

Alternatively: nationalize all universities and colleges and make them tuition-free.

Then any incentive for taking something remotely useful (demanded by at least some employers) in college will be reduced. Many people would take advantage of free college to study useless courses, and exacerbate existing oversaturation of many fields - employable liberal arts fields are oversaturated, and even STEM is not safe from this as immigration of skilled labor is a thing.

Free college is expensive by itself. Taking care of the resulting underemployed, unemployed, and unemployable will be even more so.

[Atlantarctica]

There's often a lot of talk about how to improve the education system in the US. Personally, there's one simple idea we can start with. Stop forcing classes on students that have nothing to do with their chosen field of study, or have little real world application like art or humanities. Not only would it save them time and money, but high schools could replace them with more useful subjects, such as teaching students how to file taxes. What say you NSG?

Uhh... what? Since when were arts and humanities useless? I agree with the notation that it makes no sense for you to study a completely unrelated subject just to get into a certain college, but the removal entirety of classes such as arts and humanities is nothing more than a laughable joke.

[Aclion]

Shouldn’t the purpose of tertiary education to further your understanding of the world around you and be able to become more enlightened, rather then to shoehorn you into a specific job just so you don’t starve once you graduate?

Again. You don't need to spend thousand to go to school to get an education, unless you want that education certified. Autodidaction is a thing

and I note that the major contributions of Autodidacts are concentrated in the arts and humanities; the topics that people are being required to study in collage. Meaning that even if the purpose of these courses were to further students understanding we're requiring the worst fields we could, namely the ones that are least limited by lack of formalized study.

[Bear Stearns]

Sure, but then I'd also drastically raise the admissions standards for most colleges.

I'm not sure you can add anything to the long list of extracurricular activities you Americans need to do.

For most schools you just need proof that you completed high school and can pay the tuition. See Arizona State.

[Ifreann]

Very mad that people are thinking a lot about gender.

I may not tell if this is sarcasm, so dont barade me if it is
I dont think its as much as thinking about gender, its more of a, why is their a course that costs up to 30k?

Because America is a silly country that charges people a fortune to go to college.

I mean, the easiest way to think about gender is to look down your jeans, but honestly it doesnt seem worth it to go to college for gender studies, and woman studies, just so all the people that decided they take that class complain that woman don't go....into....stem courses....
Doesnt make sense to me but its whatever, your the one spending the money.

If you think that all there is to gender is your genitals then maybe you'd benefit from a gender studies class.

---

I like the idea of people getting some experience with subjects outside their degree. Education, especially higher education, should be about understanding more about the world, not just about getting a piece of paper that qualifies you for a job.

First, schooling is not the same as experience.

Obviously I'm talking about experience with learning about other subjects.

Second, you don't need to go to school to get an education anymore. These days formal schooling is so that you can have your knowledge certified by a reputable institution. Requiring students to take out thousands in undischarged loans to take classes they neither need nor want purely to provide demand for these courses is simply indefensible.

Which is why education should be free at the point of access. So institutes of education can exist to educate people, not to certify them.

[Bear Stearns]

Alternatively: nationalize all universities and colleges and make them tuition-free.

Then any incentive for taking something remotely useful (demanded by at least some employers) in college will be reduced. Many people would take advantage of free college to study useless courses, and exacerbate existing oversaturation of many fields - employable liberal arts fields are oversaturated, and even STEM is not safe from this as immigration of skilled labor is a thing.

And STEM jobs that aren't killed by immigration will not survive automation.

[Bear Stearns]

I like the idea of people getting some experience with subjects outside their degree. Education, especially higher education, should be about understanding more about the world, not just about getting a piece of paper that qualifies you for a job.

Except the nature of a globalized economy has ensured that's basically all it is.

[Albennia]

Then any incentive for taking something remotely useful (demanded by at least some employers) in college will be reduced.

No it's that employers require a degree for all sorts of jobs

Many people would take advantage of free college to study useless courses

"useless" and i think you really overestimate how many people actually want to study those things

and exacerbate existing oversaturation of many fields - employable liberal arts fields are oversaturated, and even STEM is not safe from this as immigration of skilled labor is a thing.

I will never understand why our fellow Anglophones across the Atlantic use "liberal arts" to refer to basically anything.

Free college is expensive by itself. Taking care of the resulting underemployed, unemployed, and unemployable will be even more so.

Bit expensive to make things better guys, let's give the military an extra $100 billion instead

[The Two Jerseys]

The education system has elementary school, middle school, and high school where they can fill your head with useless crap. If I'm paying a college good money for a degree in X, then I want courses in X and nothing else.

[Albennia]

The education system has elementary school, middle school, and high school where they can fill your head with useless crap. If I'm paying a college good money for a degree in X, then I want courses in X and nothing else.

Don't go to college in America, then

[Bear Stearns]

The education system has elementary school, middle school, and high school where they can fill your head with useless crap. If I'm paying a college good money for a degree in X, then I want courses in X and nothing else.

Much of the US university system is a racket to gouge unnecessary fees out of people. Dorms and dining halls are total scams. Gotta pay those cushy salaries however.


On that we should also look into taxing endowments. Harvard's is a glorified hedge fund that they get tax-free.

[Pax Nerdvana]

I think itms kind of stupid that college students are required to take classes. I say just do away with required classes and let them choose the classes they want.