What Should I Take?
A guide for the perplexed college student
Over the years, I have offered scores of first-year college students advice. I have encouraged them to clarify their goals; to create long term plans; to think strategically about what they want to get out of the next four years; to explore intellectual interests outside of their comfort zones; to challenge themselves. I have rarely encouraged students to take (or not take) specific courses or professors, a practice that I have always found questionable. Most of my advice has inevitably been ignored. That, though, doesn't seem to trouble anyone. By the time they meet with their academic advisors, first-year students are already overwhelmed with advice and itching to get on with their less-supervised lives.
Colleges have often tied themselves in knots trying to figure out what a good secondary education should look like, or even if there is such a thing. Some of what passes for “general education” are strange concoctions that emerge from faculty committees in which each member fights for their own discipline. Most are well-meaning. More often than not, though, by the time these requirements filter down to students they are often seen as a set of hoops to jump through. The vision behind them, if there is one, if often obscured.
First-year students, this is for you (or really your parents, since I’m not sure I have any such subscribers). Only a month left of summer, and soon you’ll be picking or repicking your courses in earnest. How on earth can you navigate the plenitude riches while also tracking the thousand weird requirements written the bureaucratic-ese?
Here is my advice: start by forgetting all of the requirements and a major. Don’t worry - we’ll return to them. Now it’s your turn to think about your education writ large. In four years, what do you want to be able to do? What skills do you want to have? What kind of person do you want to be? Make some lists. This is your vision. Your time in college goes by quickly and nobody is going to make your vision for you.
Once you have a vision, you need a plan. How does your vision practically map to areas of knowledge? If you want to be a moral person, you may think that you need some philosophy. How many courses? If you feel that you like art but never learned to appreciate it, maybe you need something in art history? Improving your writing (which should be on everybody’s list) may mean five to eight courses, but these can overlap with any number of other areas of knowledge. Maybe you feel that an educated person in the United States needs to know something about economics or computers.
You will most likely come up with too many subjects and more courses than you will be able to take in four years. You will see, laid out clearly, how little time you have. Now you will start to make some hard decisions. Some courses, and maybe some subjects, will have to be scratched from your list.
Now start mapping the courses to years and/or semesters. Don’t stress about any of this. It’s all fluid. It can and will change over time.
Only now is it time to bring requirements and majors into the conversation. It is likely that you can fill your requirements in a way that aligns with the plan. You may need to tweak it a little, but you may find that instead of picking courses through the “box checking” method you go into the process with a vision of where you want to be at the end. If the major you think you want doesn’t align with this vision and its plan - well, maybe you should think of a different major.
Put your lists and plan in a safe place. Come back to it every semester or year. Revise it based on where you are then. Always, though, stay focused on the end goal: who you want to be and what you want to know by graduation.
How might this look in practice? If I could do it again, this is the plan I would follow:
1. Philosophy: 1-2 courses. Everybody should have some idea about how to formulate the "big questions," e.g., how to live the "good" or meaningful life. One class should focus on major thinkers (more a history of philosophy); the other class either on moral philosophy or some specialized, non-analytical topic (e.g., idealism, existentialism).
2. Political Science: 1 course. This should be on political theory. Every citizen should have an understanding of the theory that undergirds our society as well as alternatives.
3. Literature. 1-2 courses. While many students will have taken such courses in high school, college literature classes will increase your ability to engage with and profit from great literature. At least one of these courses should not be a survey; the goal is to learn to read deeply in a particular way.
4. Art/History of Art. 1 course. Art and music provide alternative ways of understanding and expression. They also can serve as a great source of pleasure, whether in their production or consumption.
5. Music/History of Music. 1 course. See above.
6. Economics. 2 courses. For better or worse, we live in an age that thinks economically. A couple of courses will help you better understand what that means and provide some skills that might help when it comes to employment.
7. Math: 2 courses. Let’s leave aside for a moment that Aristotle and many other ancient philosophers and theologians insisted on an education in math, in part because it trains the mind to think in certain ways. We live in an age of big data. The ability to understand what to do with that data is valuable, not only potentially for career preparation but in many other contexts (e.g., evaluating claims in newspapers). So statistics is a must. For a second math course I would recommend probability, as a way to understand risk.
8. Computer Science. 2 courses. As with economics, computers are a fundamental part of our society. Computer science courses provide a better grasp of them; practical skills; and a logical and rigorous way of thinking that is applicable in other areas. At least one of these courses should focus on programming (note how this can be combined with statistics).
9. Laboratory Science. 1 course. In college I took four semesters of laboratory science. I didn't like them and didn't do well in them. I'm glad I took them, though. Everyone should experience a college lab and engage in the scientific method.
10. History, Anthropology, Religious Studies. 1-2 courses. These disciplines will help you to see the variety of the human experience. Like foreign travel, they help to broaden your perspective.
11. Language. I am less certain here. Personally, I think that languages are amazing. We increasingly do not need to know a language to communicate effectively; we can use apps. But languages open doors to different ways of thinking and understanding.
12. Writing intensive courses. Very few things that one learns in college are is important as good writing. At least one course every year should involve extensive writing and the opportunity for revision, providing that the instructor delivers quality feedback.
13. Class size. Online courses have been extensively discussed as potentially revolutionizing higher education; they deliver information in bulk. In the past few years we've also seen their limits, though. For students in college, online courses might be a great way to "take" courses that focus on information delivery. In fact, despite the fact that lecture classes can be quite enjoyable, I would advise students to take only a minimum of these courses in college. The real "value added" of college is feedback and engagement, and the more time that one can spend in smaller classes the better. Such a strategy might result, for example, in a student taking the introduction to macro economics online and then being able to take a smaller economics seminar. This is not always easy to pull off (there is less motivation to do the assignments in an online course; one has to squeeze them in somewhere) but it seems silly to spend so much money on information delivery when there are so many cheaper ways to get the same thing.
14. Research skills. I am sometimes stunned by how poor the research skills are of some of my students. I've had seniors who don't know how to use a library (and their online research skills are hardly better). In this case, as with writing, the discipline matters far less than the skill, and any class that helps one to develop basic research skills (history might be good here) is advisable.
This curriculum, over the course of four years, should leave room for most majors and several other electives. It won't, though, work for everyone. Engineering, and some science, majors are locked into much more constraining curricula. Pre-meds could probably do something along these lines but with fewer other electives left.
Have a plan. Own your education.