Every fall, new students enter the university and are set on track to complete 39 credit hours in the General Education Program, or GEP. Unfortunately, these courses are required regardless of personal interest, stress level, field of study or socioeconomic status.
College isn’t just expensive, it’s ridiculously expensive. According to the Institute for College Access and Success, “7 in 10 seniors (69 percent) who graduated from public and nonprofit colleges in 2013 had student loan debt, with an average of $28,400 per borrower.”
Forcing students to take GEP courses is forcing them to pay for more than they might be able to afford. Many students have to work during their college years just to help lessen the burden on their pocket.
These struggling individuals want to spend their hard-earned money on classes that are relevant to their future. In today’s fast-paced information age, young adults hate wasting their time more than ever.
Wasted time means wasting opportunities. For a college student, these could be clubs, extracurricular activities, sports, jobs, health or independent learning. Required courses detract from students’ ability to focus on what matters to them.
I cannot count how many times friends and acquaintances of mine have complained that the GEP course they are taking has nothing to do with their major. The truth is, in high school we were already taught most of the material that is meant to provide “a broad and informed understanding of the world,” as the Office of Undergraduate Courses and Curricula’s website states GEPs are supposed to provide. If high school has done its job properly, there is no need for a student to waste time and money repeating the same courses, concepts and skills.
On top of the material being similar, students don’t have the same amount of devotion toward these courses because they do not see them as being relevant or useful.
The additional workload adds unnecessary stress and time to already busy schedules. Many students have faced the unfortunate scenario of doing poorly in a GEP class. Potentially, that grade may have inhibited someone from getting into his or her preferred major. Should a computer science major need to take six credit hours of humanities? Does an animal science major really need six hours of mathematical sciences?
Punishing eager students for bad grades in a class they didn’t want to take only disheartens and discourages them from the learning process. It also doesn’t help that the same students may have to spend their time and effort working to pay off the high cost of tuition and books. This time, effort and money could have gone toward learning information and skills that pertain to their passion.
There is nothing more that GEPs can offer us that high school, books and the Internet don’t already provide. Students will take the opportunity to learn from clubs and extracurricular activities as long as they have the space to take advantage of them.
Students need room to breathe and grow. So let’s take away the heavy burden of GEPs and give students the extra time and money they need to pursue their interests. Only then will they truly flourish.
