What is the proper cannon for colleges to require as base classes and are they really that necessary?

Question

Do colleges really need to require base classes such as English Comp, Biology, Socialogy, for degrees that have nothing to do with them? Do you need a biology credit if your an accounting major?

Answer 1

You really have this backwards. The real question is, should a person be allowed to pick a specific subject to study as a major before they have received enough general education to be able read, write, spell, do critical analysis, use logic, distinguish properly between common grammatical forms such as 'you're' instead of 'your', "canon" instead of "cannon", etc.

College is not trade school. College graduates are, still, supposed to be educated. You get a Bachelor of Arts, not a Bachelor of Accounting or a Bachelor of Biology.

The most respected colleges in America mostly have rather strict and difficult core curricula that have to be mastered before the students can complete their majors. Two of the most famous examples are Columbia and University of Chicago, but Harvard, Duke and almost all of the rest of the elite schools more or less follow suit, with only a couple of exceptions.

IT has been argued quite a lot recently that because technology and society in general are changing so fast, that trying to teach specific job skills is a waste of time - what is needed is to teach students only general courses such as logic, math, physics, chemistry, rhetoric, etc. Once they learn to think, read and write clearly, then being trained for a job is trivial.

Answer 2

It depends what type of college you go to. In a liberal arts school the idea is to make you a more "well-rounded" person, so the answer is yes--you do have to take "core" classes that vary from school to school (and they do give you the option of several types of classes, not just one specific). In more concentrated university settings, the core requirements still exist, but not in such a regulated fashion. (This meaning you'd probably have fewer of them if any at all)

Answer 3

well, I'm not an accounting major but i will tell you this. you need to take stupid GE courses which is pretty much a waste of time i mean some classes. my major is in medical field but i took or i am finally done with those GE courses after this Thursday final. point is yes you need to take classes that doesn't count towards your major for your freshman and sophomore year. once you are done, then you are on your own. which means you'll get in to you're major and take only your major classes. Good luck!