Something I don't like about college

[Xanadu84]

When your going to be a professional, people expect you to be at least somewhat broadly educated. If you go to a doctor who has no idea what geometry is, or lacks a basic knowledge of history, people will freak out, and employers will think less of you.

Think of education as a point based system for character advancement. You want to put most of your points into medical oriented skills, definitely. But especially at lower levels, a little bit of variety will help you in a number of situations, and when it costs you 1 point to advance a lower priority skill, or 20 points to push that medical skill a little further, it might be worth it to spend a little bit of effort to at least be passable in a few other areas.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I'm going for a CIS degree and I need government, some science (biology, chemistry, etc. - but lucky high school dual enrollment covered that), and accounting, which all seem useless. Why the hell do I need to know how to do accounting for a small business when going into the programming/web dev/game dev field? They have accountants for that.

Oh, and then there was my Composition II class... we did more reading and analyzing of stories than we did writing... wrote my final essay about that and how I didn't like the class because of that; passed the class with a B.

 

[yoyo13rom]

Edit: Fuck wrong thread! give me a second to read this one at least.

 

[Dorby5826and360]

I am currently majoring in video game design at my college and I had to take 3 Math Classes, 2 English, Science, health, and history(although I do enjoy history), most of these classes I do not even need in the field of work I am going into. All of these classes wasted away my precious time when I could of been taking the classes that I need. Luckly I am finished with all those classes.

 

[Mr.logic]

The idea, as I'm sure you're already aware, is that they want to produce well rounded students. In any field, the best people have some general knowledge of all fields. Sure, some of it may never be of use to you, but you never know when it'll turn out you need it. I've spoken to engineers for instance, who tell me that the most important class they ever took was High School english, because the writing skills they learned there really impressed their boss.

Just be patient. You'll be taking rediculously difficult classes related to your major soon enough.

A well expressed opinion, also I agree with what you said which leaves me with nothing else to say.

 

[Akkiko]

Imagine if you were writing a drug prescription and accidentally misspelled... now how awful would that be for your poor patient who go the wrong pills? Possibly in deadly combination with another prescription.

Knowledge of history could also be useful as a doctor, it helps give you insight into certain ethnics. For example, history could teach you that Asian people have only ever really consumed rice wines due to the fact that their body lacks proper enzymes to break down Western alcohol. If a certain country suffered such a disease or what not in the past, it might help you connect dots on a particularly difficult case.

Mind you, this is all speculation.

 

[Dags90]

Math is just a good benchmark class to show your ability to think abstractly, besides you'll never be able to survive in the world without higher math!

I don't particularly mind GE classes, they're great for padding your GPA. You won't use most of your early major education in day-to-day practice. Organic chem is just there to be a hard class so that you can say "Yeah, I passed Orgo" to your employers.

 

[Borania]

For instance, the 4 FUCKING English classes. Why do I need all of that? Also, history classes and math classes.

Psycology, chemistry, biology, I can understand, but why do I need to spend my precious time and money doing classes that do not apply to me?

That I need to correct you on, I don't study math but it is extremely important.
Let me say one thing: Math has saved more lives than you ever will. Most importantly: statistics. I read a book that talks about the subject recently (Bad science by Ben Goldacre), It doesn't provide a full picture but does give the most important ideas. Now as a doctor, you will read a lot of research about medicine. Quite a lot of this research will be about trials, if you want to help your patients you will need to be able to evaluate these trials to see whether or not you think the results are correct. Math is an invaluable tool in this regard.

History is always good to know, I doubt it will have any direct effect on your job but it never hurts to know some stuff about the past.

 

[Jark212]

This is why a lot of people go to Community Collage for their core classes, it's the same education for like 1/40th the cost...

 

[Corporal Bill]

For instance, the 4 FUCKING English classes. Why do I need all of that? Also, history classes and math classes.

Trust me - if you're going into the medical field, the ability to express your thoughts eloquently and authoritatively to patients or on reports is surprisingly important. The history classes don't make much sense, to be fair, though.

History of medicine.

 

[Steve Butts]

You should also consider that there are plenty of people, like myself, who declare a major because they found a subject they love while exploring the general requirements. I took Latin and Intro to Ancient History just to satisfy the core requirements and wound up loving the subjects so much that I obtained degrees in both.

 

[_Cake_]

I feel like people should be more directly trained for there jobs.

On the other hand you have to admit a lot of doctors come from other countries. I have had a doctor so bad at english that I had to get a new one. I just couldn't understand him.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

I have the same irritation.

For my major (Computer Science) I had to take 2 full semesters of Physics, and first semester Physics lab. This makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is that I have to take 4 additional credit hours of science. I'm ending up taking Geology 101 (didn't take Bio or Chem in HS, so I can't take those). This is (to me) a completely useless waste of my time and money.

 

[JIst00]

History - Medicine has a history and has shaped it, the world would be a different place without it.
English - Learning how to communicate and present arguments concisely and other things.
Maths - Maths is in pretty much everything, a good knowledge of it is always going to be helpful.

Thinking about it, all those classes make sense for building a foundation of knowledge in students wanting to major in medicine.

Kudos for wanting to get into medicine, and for getting this far, may seem stupid right now, but you will be thankful you learnt all this stuff at somepoint.

Knowledge is Power.

 

[WinkyTheGreat]

It's due to the whole wave of "liberal education" that's swept higher learning institutions for years. Colleges want to be able to say, "We produce well-rounded adults! Our English majors take Science classes! Our Science majors take English classes! We produce real human beings."

this, of course, leads to hilarious results if taken to its logical extreme, with grossly ill-conceived courses like "Physics for Poets" and other such nonsense.

Well played with the Patton Oswalt reference sir.

 

[8bitmaster]

I have the same irritation.

For my major (Computer Science) I had to take 2 full semesters of Physics, and first semester Physics lab. This makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is that I have to take 4 additional credit hours of science. I'm ending up taking Geology 101 (didn't take Bio or Chem in HS, so I can't take those). This is (to me) a completely useless waste of my time and money.

ouch. same major but no need for specific science. just need 5 semesters of math, but im already taking classes for my major.

 

[Jaded Scribe]

I have the same irritation.

For my major (Computer Science) I had to take 2 full semesters of Physics, and first semester Physics lab. This makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is that I have to take 4 additional credit hours of science. I'm ending up taking Geology 101 (didn't take Bio or Chem in HS, so I can't take those). This is (to me) a completely useless waste of my time and money.

ouch. same major but no need for specific science. just need 5 semesters of math, but im already taking classes for my major.

Most of my requirements are pretty reasonable.

Tons of math (obviously). Physics makes sense. 2 writing courses (Basic Rhetoric and Writing, and a Technical Writing course).

Humanities is a little bloated in terms of credit hours (24 required, or 2 semesters worth if you do the bare min 12 hour course load) but at least all but 1 credit hour class (Ethical Implications of Computing, which as I far as I've heard is basically a semester of "Don't be a hacker, mmkay. Hacking is bad, mmkay.") is all free choice.

I'm all for a well-rounded education, but many colleges take it too far.

 

[Rhymenoceros]

Not to be strident, but are you fucking stupid? You do understand there isn't JUST medicine. Great doctors don't just read medical texts, Great doctors know an awful lot about an awful lot. Science isn't as clear cut as "This is Science, Nothing else applies". Maths are needed for statistics, calculating odds, understanding numbers HELPS. No one will trust a doctor who talks like a rapper.

You're problem here isn't that you don't need these things, it's that you don't understand why you need these things. If you stick to the medical stuff you will be a very mediocre doctor.

What this guy said, but less insulting and less reportable.

Same his same as him but with more Dragons!

OT: Those courses may seem completely unnecessary but to become truly great in one field you need to have a basic understanding of other fields. Truly great physiscists have a way above average understanding of all the sciences