GEs have room for growth

General education courses: love them or hate them, you’ve got to take them. As a liberal arts institution, one of USC’s core missions is to expose its undergraduates to a vast array of subjects before they commit to a particular field of study.

Julia Vann | Daily Trojan

Still, this does not change the fact that these requirements are usually met with discontent by USC students. Thus, if G.E. courses are a must, then perhaps there are some changes that could be made to ease the experience.

The idea behind the G.E. program is that each student is provided a comprehensive education so they are able to handle the intersection of academic disciplines as they might later arise in the real world.

By the time many of us reach college we have an idea of what we want to study — but these aspirations are bound to change. It is not uncommon to find a physics-turned-English-major because often our initial career goals are driven by factors such as family pressure, future income or what might appear to be a “glamorous” occupation.

Upon reaching college, we realize that these reasons are not enough to successfully motivate us for the next four years, let alone the rest of our professional careers.

So, if G.E. courses are so adept at providing us with a well-rounded education, why the cries of protest?

To begin with, students are worried about their futures. Sure, there are those among us that get a rush simply through the process of learning or that aspire to a 4.0 grade point average because it is personally satisfying, but it’s also likely that we are worried about succeeding our majors or what future employers or schools will deem acceptable.

Within a given G.E. category, some classes are clearly more difficult than others, whether that means more papers, more exams or even just more reading. Is it fair, then, that all of these classes, are valued with equal amounts of credits, regardless of difficulty, making their grade contribute to our GPAs equally?

There needs to be a more concerted effort to standardize the level of difficulty. This might seem too lofty a goal, but there are steps that can contribute to establishing a more equal playing field.

It is not fair, for example, to have one social issues course that requires three essays in addition to Writing and Critical Reasoning (WRIT 140) component, and another that requires nothing more than reading.

Perhaps it’s time to begin considering new formats for general education.

One of the more obvious solutions is to make all G.E. courses pass/no-pass.

This would still allow students to benefit from taking classes in a variety of classes without punishing them for choosing a course with a distinctly heavier workload than its other category counterparts.

Some might counter that this pass/no-pass system would essentially promote mediocrity in G.E. courses, but that’s not necessarily true.

There will always be people that search for an easy out in any situation, but it’s also likely that students will begin to choose their G.E. courses based on genuine interest in content and professors, instead of signing up solely based on ease as predicted by RateMyProfessors.com and previous students.

This would also allow students to focus the bulk of their energy on their major-oriented courses —  which, after all, is what brought them here.

Between picking a major, paying for school, planning for the future and having a life beyond academics, college students have enough things to balance.

Maybe somewhere down the road we can look forward to a little slack in the courses we’re required to take so we can focus on the ones we choose to.

Deepa Ramprasad is a sophomore majoring in public relations.