I chose to reflect on this reading because I felt that the opinions of Patrick Allitt were ones with which I agreed firmly. The statement "I think more American colleges should offer the chance to specialize right from the outset to those students who want it" is very agreeable because some people know exactly what they want to do and know what they are passionate about. Like Allitt says, the American system is unlike the British because the student has to pay for those costs of education since they are benefiting from the education. If we are paying thousands of dollars, we should be able to choose if we want to specialize right away rather than having general education classes, considering we have to deal with the costs.
On the other hand, students also should have that choice to take general classes if they are undecided on a major, which is where I stand. Personally, I have no idea what I plan to major in, so taking a variety of classes has helped eliminate some possible ideas I've had for majors as well as sparked interests. All in all, I agree that there should be that choice of having early specialization.
One other point I wanted to touch on was the topic of college applications. In America, you cannot simply rely on academics and the grades you got in high school to be accepted into top colleges. Allitt makes the point that his daughter was encouraged early on to join many extracurriculars, anything that will make her stand out above just academics. While I do agree that people should be accepted on more than just grades, the extent is almost ridiculous. A lot of the clubs at my high school ended up with students who really did not care what the club was about and did not participate to their fullest potential. They would just join to be able to put it on their college applications and make themselves "look good". Just an interesting thought I guess.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I totally agree. We should be able to work towards our major as soon as we enter college if we choose to. I'm also undecided which has made my first two semesters more interesting because I've taken random classes that don't go towards a specific major, but by all means if I knew what I wanted to do right now then I would want to be working towards it. We have to pay for our education which makes these years costly and, for some, seemingly unnecessary. And we also had students join clubs just for the name on their transcripts. It's kind of ridiculous what colleges expect to see on your applications now because of the standards that have been set by top schools and top students.
ReplyDeletehttp://voices.washingtonpost.com/campus-overload/2010/01/is_it_really_more_difficult_to.html
I would have to agree with you on all your points. College in the U.S can be incredibly expensive. I've actually found a college cost calculator online that predicts how much college will cost a student and/or their family.(the link is below) With today's economy, and the climbing interest rates of all colleges, both 2 and 4 year colleges, as well as private and public colleges, school is getting more expensive than ever. This is why I have to agree that if an undergraduate student knows what they want to persue, they should have the opportunity to start specializing right away. Students could literally save thousands of dollars if they could persue their college major right off the bat.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that many people don't know what they want to persue, which makes the idea of general class requirements good for those specific students. There is no point in persuing education in a specific field and finding out a few years later it isn't what you really want to do. It is a waste of money, time, and effort, most of which students cannot afford to expend at free will.
I would also have to agree on your point about extra-curricular activities. Many high school students take extracurriculars in order to simply boost their chances of getting into a certain college, not because they are genuinely interested in the activity. It is unfortunate that this happens, and it also makes me wonder if anyone had any interesting solutions to this problem
http://apps.collegeboard.com/fincalc/college_cost.jsp
I would have to agree completely with your response to "Should Undergraduates Specialize". There should be two paths students could choose from; one path being specialization and another taking a variety of classes to dip their toe into the pool, so to speak. Maybe the fact that we can choose to attend college in Britain, but agreed it would be much easier to offer the same system closer to home.
ReplyDeleteAnother point I would have to agree with you and the article on is how much extra-curricular activities effect the college application. Just by typing in "college application secrets" into Google (http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1CHNU_enUS351US351&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=college+application+secrets) I got back extra-curricular activities on almost every list. I do have to disagree with you on the fact that it's a shame that students who don't care end up in these clubs because the responsibility of the club leader should be to give them the boot. I know there are some kids who don't care, but as long as they put in the effort to make it seem as if they do then more power to them.
Specialization is something that is great for anybody who knows what they want to do when they first arrive at college. For a lot of humanities majors we are required to have a bunch of breadth requirements but only about 6 classes directly related to the major. As a student i would much rather have an average of 2 classes per semester about my major not just other things that are required because some dean thinks that having knowledge in that area makes my understanding of my major better. Its understandable for some science majors but for others it forces you to study things that you have no interest in.http://pubs.wisc.edu/ug/10lettsci/depts/geograph.html#cart
ReplyDelete