Advanced Writing Workshop Portfolio

I have been an undergraduate student at North Dakota State University since the fall of 2012. Although it has already been a few years, I can still remember my first class here. It was Biology 126, a general education course. I walked into Gate City Bank Auditorium only to find that there were few open seats, much to my dismay. A lecture hall that seats up to 400, this was quite the change from my 13-person graduating class.

 

Unfortunately, that is all I remember about the course. The difference between genomes and genotypes will forever be a mystery to me; I didn’t retain this information because I knew it would not be useful to me as an English education major. The same is true for many other classes that I took during my first and second years of college, and I am not alone.

 

This year, I am a resident assistant in Seim Hall and I have seen my residents become frustrated with general education courses. For them, general education courses are a review of the material covered in high school all over again.

 

One resident asked, “Why are we forced to take general education courses in the first place?”

 

I too was at a loss for reason; some may argue that general education courses produce well-rounded students, but that is why we study the core subjects in high school. Others may argue that general education courses provide the opportunity for students to explore their interests, but at what cost?

 

NDSU currently requires its students to take a total of 40 general education credits in order to earn a baccalaureate degree. Now let’s take a few minutes to explore why this is generally a bad idea.

 

General education credits are a waste of time.

 

At NDSU, a full time student is allowed to take up to 20 credits a semester, but it only takes 12 credits to be considered a full time student. Meanwhile, most students usually enroll in 15 credits. That means it can take up to four semesters for students to complete their general education requirements.

 

For example, one of my classmates is a fifth year senior, and she is still trying to fulfil her general education requirements. Many students will also switch majors, but they are not able to make this decision right away because they do not experience classes that are actually related to their major until after they have completed their general education requirements.

 

This is time that could be spent pursuing a minor, or even a double major. Instead, we are forced to take general education credits under the false-pretense of becoming well-rounded individuals.

 

For example, I wasted a lot of time because I had to take three additional math courses in order to fulfill a quantitative reasoning requirement. During my first semester at NDSU, I was placed into Math 102, a class that was not worth any credit. This was supposed to prepare me to take Math 104, Finite Mathematics, but that was not the case because I still managed to fail. Then, I had to retake Math 104 in order to get a passing grade. As a result, I wasted three semesters trying to fulfil a single general education requirement.

 

General education credits are a waste of money.

 

This is true because it costs $3,988.86 for a student from the state of North Dakota to attend NDSU each semester, with in-state tuition starting at $3,381 and student fees of $607.86. Because general education courses can take up to four semesters to complete, some students spend a total of $15,955.44 on general education credits.

 

That is a lot of money.

 

I don’t even want to think about how much debt that will translate into student loans after interest starts to accumulate.

 

This is money that could be spent pursuing a minor, or even a double major. Now, if I minor in communications, I will have to add another semester and further postpone my graduation date because I wasted so much time and money on general education courses.

 

We should eliminate general education requirements.

 

In response to those who argue that general education courses allow students to explore their interests: students would have more time and money to explore their interests by taking electives if we completely eliminated general education requirements. That way, students would not have to pay for courses that are unrelated to their future careers. It would also become much easier for students to pursue double majors or minors.

 

NDSU is not the only institution that requires general education credits. In fact, it is a very common requirement amongst institutions of higher education in the United States. However, it is practically unheard of overseas.

 

Like our parents always used to tell us, “just because everyone else is doing it, doesn’t make it okay.”

 

As students of NDSU, it is time for us to stop wasting our precious time and money on general education credits that will become irrelevant to us in our future careers by eliminating general education requirements.

 

You can help support this cause by contacting Student Government or by submitting your own opinion articles and letters to the editor to the NDSU Spectrum in order to bring more attention to this issue.

 

Even if we are not able to eliminate general education requirements entirely, we can at least attempt to lower the amount of general credits required at NDSU.