RACHEL JOHNSON
Assistant Perspectives Editor
College must be a time when students can explore numerous areas of study in order to determine what they want to do with their lives. They should have the opportunity to enroll in a variety of classes so they can learn about a number of different subjects. Pepperdine students are hardly afforded that opportunity, however, because of the high number of general education requirements they must take to graduate. That means there is little room for elective units and, as a result, little room for students to discover other areas of academia.
Pepperdine students must complete approximately 40 to 75 units worth of general education (GE) classes to receive a diploma. On top of GEs, students have a lot of units to complete within their major, ranging from 50 to 60 units. Since Pepperdine students only need 128 units to graduate, that leaves no room to explore other areas of study by taking elective classes. Granted, some classes allow students to choose between different topics but the fact remains that students are given very little freedom to decide what they want to study, other than their major area of study and, if required, their outside concentration.
It is imperative that students are offered the opportunity to take classes other than those required for their major or for graduation. Exploring other areas of academia that complement a student’s major expands his or her worldview, which is key for entering the real world. Without having learned about new topics that do not necessarily pertain to his or her major are of study, how will a student be prepared for life outside of college?
Advice for undergraduate students at the University of Texas-Austin was posted on their Web site (http://deanofstudents.utexas.edu) so professors could encourage them to grow in knowledge and continue learning new things. Michael W. Brandl, a professor of finance at the university, wrote, “Challenge yourself. Take classes wildly outside your major; engage in debates with complete strangers. If you are a conservative Republican, take a class on Marxist theory. If you want to be a corporate executive, take courses on worker’s rights.”
Brandl is right on target. In the finance department at the University of Texas-Austin, where he teaches, students are offered 17 different choices for electives, with topics like international finance and real estate finance. The students must also take prerequisite economics, statistics and business administration courses but they are able to explore a number of different topics within their finance major.
In order to fully understand and appreciate one’s particular area of study, a student must understand equally well the viewpoints of the opposing side. If students are only engaging in discourse revolving around their respective majors because GEs have taken too much space to explore electives, they aren’t really getting everything they hoped for in an education. They are only getting half of the education they expected.
Having time to take electives would allow students the opportunity to study topics they never would have considered studying before. Taking an intercultural communication course would be beneficial for the business major who needs to learn to interact with people from all over the world. Taking a photography class would open the eyes of the journalism student, who would learn the importance of associating his or her article with the photo put on the news page. Also, taking a financial class would aid the non-profit management major in administrative tasks like managing finances and balancing checkbooks.
The solution, then, is to require students to take less GEs and allow them the freedom to explore other topics by requiring more elective units. Students need more room to experiment with other areas of study. Pepperdine students are paying huge amounts of money to earn a diploma and have the right to study different topics that would complement their major areas of study.
There are so many classes offered on Pepperdine’s campus that it seems ludicrous that students are essentially constrained to major courses because of all the GEs they have to take. Granted, Pepperdine is a liberal arts school that needs to require a certain amount of Ges but it can remain a liberal arts school while still offering more electives or condensing current classes. For example, administrators could possibly condense the humanities and religion courses; instead of requiring students to enroll in three separate classes, the course material could all be presented in one class.
Until then, students should enroll classes like the Great Books and Social Action and Justice Colloqiums. These programs offer different areas of study and as a bonus for students who enroll in these four-semester long classes, certain GEs are automatically eliminated from their degree audit report. This is one way that Pepperdine is attempting to expand educational experiences for students. Still, administrators must give students the chance to receive an education that encompasses a variety of classes and subjects, not one that restricts a student to GEs and major courses.
09-20-2007
