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E-PrinceAt the start of the year, I sat down with my academic adviser to discuss my course load for the upcoming semester. There were a myriad of possibilities that had already caught my eye. Unfortunately, the majority of them began ...(back to the article)
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Great article! Distribution requirements are just for engineering grad students to have jobs.
@student: The non-specialist survey courses are a very small fraction of the AI slots. Grad students don't need to teach them; there are plenty of other courses for us. Engineering grad students also do relatively little teaching compared to research. We also detest teaching survey courses filled with unmotivated students.
Princeton's distribution requirements are a joke. I agree. Either get rid of them and stop this farce, or design them so that students actually have to learn something useful.
Is it slightly odd to elect to attend a liberal arts school...and then complain about having to get a liberal arts education?
The columnist makes an excellent point. Those who want an institution that requires a true interdisciplinary, classically-grounded liberal arts education should (and do) go to schools that mandate this: Chicago and Columbia. This is great for them, and a fully legitimate method of instruction.
Princeton, however, makes no claim to having a core curriculum nor forcing any sort of rigorous basic program on its students. Nor should it. The weak distribution requirements that we currently have are simply an inartful and ineffective attempt to force students to take courses that they wouldn't otherwise take. The result is that most students simply take a few throwaway classes that they barely like and never take advantage of afterward.
Princeton should absolutely abolish these requirements.
Distribution requirements are not the problem. Like many students, I used mine to explore fun and interesting courses in fields that I otherwise would have avoided. (Combining distribution requirements with P/D/Fs is a great technique for this.) I agree with Teach – a liberal arts school should encourage such exploration. And there are STs that don’t involve science, and QRs that don’t involve math, for those who do want to avoid those subjects.
Rather, the problem is the horrible advising system. It’s ridiculous for an advisor to encourage a first semester freshman to take courses s/he would rather avoid just to fulfill distribution requirements. The first couple of years at school should be spent taking courses in a few different fields to explore what Princeton has to offer and, eventually, settle on a major. Distribution requirements can, and should, be taken care of later (and often, almost all of them fall into place just by exploring interesting courses).
The solution to the problem is to fix the advising system. A couple of possible solutions: train advisors better so that students don’t experience the same problems as the author, who simply had a horrible advisor; or, make more extensive use of a peer advising system, by which older students who have a better sense for how/when to fulfill distribution requirements can advise freshmen on how to select classes.
So, the columnist is too specialized for her own good... Not really a good argument against distribution requirements, now is it?
@08: "ST's that don't involve science and QR's that don't involve math" are a ludicrous a waste of time. I took "easy" science and math courses and found them neither fun nor interesting. Since I already took rigorous science and math in high school, there's no reason I should be forced to repeat those subjects at Princeton when I've already demonstrated proficiency.
Some peope come to Princeton already knowing their major, so encouraging them to dabble in departments that don't interest them is frustrating and counterproductive.
In short, I can't agree more with this editorial.
Perhaps, you should have gone to Brown???
I can understand a senior writing a column on this subject, but not a freshman. What about a survey of music history course? Statistics? A cultural anthropology or psych course? Wdn't hurt to gain a bit of insight into disciplines other than your own...
Distribution requirements were and always will be what you make of them. Senior year I still needed an LA. As a mol bio major and pre-med, I already had plenty on my plate: 15+ hours of labwork a week, thesis, traveling to med school interviews and of course my mol bio coursework. But I still chose to take on a 400-level english course, Shakespeare and Film, taught by two star professors: Wood and Danson. I certainly worked much harder than my friends who took kiddie-lit instead. But it was very worthwhile. If your choice of distribution requirements are boring, you have no one to blame but yourself for failing to have the drive, ambition, or courage to enroll in a more demanding but interesting course. And if you lack these qualities, maybe you shouldn't have been accepted to Princeton in the first place.