General Education Requirements: Revision For Success

General education requirements, or GERs, in universities are basically what the name implies, "General." These courses are too vague in terms of helping each student succeed. The requirements are suppose to help each student become more well-rounded but this is done by pounding useless information in students' minds within a short amount of time. Therefore, students are paying money to learn about things that they will forget the next semester. General education requirements need to be revised to help students learn more about what they are in school for. Major specific GERs are a necessity in universities because they save time and money for students. These more specific GERs would also better students in their adult lives because they would prepare them for real life situations and activities.

The general education requirements at Oklahoma State University are in need of a massive transformation. These requirements should be tailored to each specific major, this means that every major should have it own specific requirements that are more relevant to gaining success in that specific field. The overall general education requirements for the university, as a whole, should be lessened from thirty-six hours to around twelve hours. With these twelve hours, a student would take courses that make them "well-rounded" but also prepare them for the real world. One of these courses should be finance.

"General education must lead to the ability to do, act, and make intelligent decisions in everyday life" (Zeszotarski 40). Classes like calculus and trigonometry are not important to English majors who will not use these higher levels of math in their professions. Instead, courses that help students develop and be successful individuals in their respective career fields should be made mandatory in GERs.

Courses that include finance, English composition, computer literacy, and communications are all classes that would help students as individuals in society. Finance is used by everyone no matter what their profession is. Everyone has to pay bills or do taxes in their lives and a course like this would help students realize the importance of investing their money and show them the many different ways to invest.

In GERs, the University Curriculum Committees should keep the English composition requirement because everyone will have to write some type of paper in their lives. There should be only one English composition requirement and one of the essays should be a business type paper. This would help every student in their writing skills and it will prepare them for the future by introducing them to a business letter. Also, a paper like this can be useful in writing a letter for a sponsorship or scholarship. Additionally, a computer literacy course is almost a necessity because students use computers in every aspect of life in today's society. "Computer literacy ensures continuing access to educational opportunities by preparing students to manipulate the basic tools of instruction in [college]" (Zeszotarski 42). A communications course would also help students with their verbal skills and their confidence. Undergraduates should gain an ability to communicate with precision and style and think clearly and critically (Zeszotarski 40). This would lead to greater success in students in their lives after school.

To alleviate some costs and time for students, courses like American Government and United States History should become prerequisites from high school. Students have been taught these specific subjects numerous times throughout their lives. Students should not have to pay for review classes. That is why universities have remedial courses. Saving money would also keep students in our universities. Ten percent of students leave their colleges because of financial reasons (Zernike).

What happens to the engineer who needs a higher math course like calculus? Majors that require a more concrete math background should have these courses listed in their own specific major requirements. "This independence of intelligences implies that a particularly high level of ability in one intelligence, say mathematics, does not require a similarly high level in another intelligence, like language or music" (Gardner 73). Gardner's views back up this idea because he believes that a person can be intelligent in one specific area instead of numerous areas. In college, a student would probably be more successful if there were more specific courses in their particular area because the student would not be subject to different classes and ideas that are irrelevant to them.

These requirements should be determined by people much more knowledgeable, in a specific area, than the University Curriculum Committee. There should be curriculum committees for each specific major. The members of these committees must have experience working in these specific fields. This would be the best strategy because they would know exactly what is needed and expected from a person in each profession. Many students say that they do not use half of what they learn in their jobs after receiving their degree. This should be changed because these students are wasting valuable time and money learning things that are completely irrelevant. The new committees are a great way to stop some of this because they would have experience from every possible route that a student could follow with their degree. This means that they would know exactly what is and what is not needed to be successful in a specific career field.

Also, English majors should take a more rigorous coursework that involves classes that pertain more to English. An English major should take more composition classes then an engineer should. And vice versa, an engineer should take more math classes than an English major. This cannot be done through a university wide general education requirement list. This is why the requirement lists should be made for specific major instead of the whole student body. Some degree plans at Oklahoma State University require specific courses for their major but it is in addition to the universities requirement. This should be flipped. There should be fewer requirements from the university and