N.C.
State, my future alma mater, like the rest of the country is making cuts
to budget for the next fiscal year – which begins July 1.
Charles
Leffler, N.C. State’s vice chancellor for finance and business, told the N&O that
one of the key goals in budget cuts is to protect the classes students need for
graduation. Along with the classes that apply to my major and minor (i.e., the
courses that will get me a job post-graduation), I am required to take a set of
courses that are referred to as GER – or general education requirements –
courses that all students must take in order to receive a degree. And, in my fourth year at N.C. State, I think
it is time for the GERs to go.
According
to N.C. State we have general
education requirements in order to create citizens, “with a broad knowledge
of human cultures and with well-considered moral, philosophical, aesthetic, and
intellectual convictions.” The good news is, I am in college, so I obviously
already carry some intellectual convictions. Otherwise, didn’t I get a “general
education” in high school to make me well-rounded?
The
courses I am required to take include four science classes, a philosophy course
(where I am learning the exact same thing that I learned in my three required
social-science classes) and an “Arts & Letters Elective,” among others.
Not only
is this the third semester I have learned about Socrates, but as a freshman my
Arts & Letters requirement was fulfilled with a class called “Music
Appreciation” where we were given wooden sticks and told to “compose” our own
“music” (i.e. rhythm) for our final projects.
Through
my tuition I pay about $10 for every hour I sit in (or decide to skip) class,
enough to make me upset when I am enrolled in a bad course – but that is only a
quarter of my education costs. North Carolina taxpayers cover the other $30 it
costs per class period — which means taxpayers are subsidizing the three
random science courses I took – none of which I remember or will ever use
again.
If
general education requirements were cut, not only could I be taking course that
will actually benefit me in the future, but taxpayers would no longer be paying
for university students to learn how to beat two sticks together. That’s what Rock Band is
for.
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