Yup. Comp Engineer here. Taking summer classes right now. Guess what I have to take?

Anthropology.

It is a waste of time.

> Why do they do this

Because university is a business.
They need to make money.

The more useless mandatory courses - the better for them.

Colleges want more money. The longer they keep you there, the more money they make

absolutely.
psychology, intro to music, english lit, ect...

what does this have to do with nuclear engineering?

That or maybe they'd like you to be a more rounded individual so you're not the academic equivalent of an idiot savant.

Engineering major here.
Shit would just be dandy if my degree wasn't necessary.
Engineering Geology can suck my ass.

>>9374679
>>9374719
what is their justification for this? What are the reasons that they tell you when they say you have to take those subjects?

>>9374749
even some of the engineering courses are a load of shit.
intro to engineering - biggest waste of time.

>>9374761
no justification. you just can't have your degree without them.

Taking the classes doesn't really bother me in and of itself.

What really pisses me off is that if I had taken classes relevant to my major instead I would have so much more knowledge that I actually need that I have currently.

>>9374734
are you kidding me? Do you seriously think this?

High school is for teaching a range of subjects. People who go to uni do so for a specific reason in a lot of cases. Unless it's stuff which is broad like a science or arts degree.

Why the fuck should a guy have to pass some subject in order to pass his course when its relevance is very little. Or the depth exceeds what he needs to know to do his job?

>>9374606
YEAH, MAN! WHEN WILL I NEED TO ADD VECTORS AT MY CASHIER JOB????

A trade school is for learning what you need for the job.

A university degree is to make a smart, and well rounded individual.

Music Major here,
I have to take so many fucking classes.
And they're all at 8:00 in the morning every year.
It's fucking impossible to graduate in 4 years even if I wanted to.

I was required to pass Physics for a graphic design/video production degree. Oh, ok.

>>9374841
No it is not you stupid nutfuck. Universities grew out of guilds in the middle ages where people of a similar profession would gather to exchange knowledge.

>>9374977

And math grew out of a need to track crop and herd supplies when humans first began an agricultural life. Doesn't mean that's how the shit's defined today.

>>9374845
did they tell you why?
whyblox

>>9374841
This used to be the case in the past where uni was for the wealthy. People mainly go to college to get a job these days, not so they can discuss politics and philosophy with their blue blood friends

>>9374844
>>9374844
are you ed or performance? also, what instrument ?

>>9374845
Where did you go to school?

I always thought that a basic Optics course would be useful for film/video production curriculum.

The depth of some of the stuff they tought at in my uni course was too much in my opinion. irl there are other people who do that particular job who you pay money to so they can complete that task

The course taught you too much shit that was not required and it makes you maybe slightly better if at all at your job. It's fucking bullshit

>>9374841
do you do some sort of arts degree or similar? like art histroy or something?

If you want barebones skills, 'this is exactly what your job will require, and this is how you do it' then go learn a trade.

A degree is there to teach you how to think critically and give you enough background to be able to pick up skills later as needed.

having a degree shows you're a tool and can take lots of bullshit. managers like that shit.

>>9375718
Most courses just add stuff in there to increase credits. Hence make the degree cost more

You don't need a lot of the things that they teach you. I'm not sure what your course was like, but mine was just full of shit. Plus the level that they need you to perform tasks was bullshit as well

>>9374841
This. A million times this.

This was the foundation of the university system since it began.

Most universities offer shit career placement programs anyway.

>>9375771
What do you mean by 'full of shit'? I can't think of any courses I took that were full of shit.

>>I'm the kind of guy who just wants to learn the essential shit to get the job done.

Then you should have enrolled in technical school.

People don't like when I say this but: Universities are for intellectual pursuits. If you are there so you can 'make mad staxxx' you are in the wrong place.

A true University gives a well rounded education too all students, regardless of their degree. A true student pursues knowledge regardless of its practicality.

>I don't want to learn extra stuff that I do not need to know

hah

this is why you will be a wage slave, and I get paid a very comfortable salary to do basically whatever I want in my research field, with equipment I choose, and on my own schedule

Even if you don't have what it takes to work with your mind, people like you who don't read anything they're not forced to are a big part of the reason this country is going down the shitter

its who you know. not what you know.

>>9375792
by full of shit i mean very specific knowledge that was not required to do the job right.

For example, you go to culinary school to become a chef. They have a course on baking. It's time to bake a cake. I would assume that they would teach you what is required to be able to mix the ingredients and then use the oven to bake the cake. Also info to know when to add or take out certain ingredients based on what type of flavour you are looking for such as more sweet or more dense.

The uni course would teach you how flour is made, the way the oven works, what chemical reaction is involved then the sugar heats up, etc. Stuff that is of little importance to your job as a chef.

Why would you need to know what chemical reaction the sugar undergoes?

>>9375850
most people who go to colleg do not plan to persue a life of academia. You can go and smoke your pipe and read or write research papers. But not everyone wants to do this

A doctor is taught organic chemistry to a level which is adsurd for his degree

YEH WY THE FUCK DO I HAVE TO TAKE DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS I WNANT TO BE A PHSYICSIST NOT A FUKKIN MATHEMATICIAN.

>>9375882
If you want to become a chef, you go to a technical or trade school, not a university.

>If you are there so you can 'make mad staxxx' you are in the wrong place.

Yo I want to make mad staxxx so where I go?

>>9374679
this must be a joke
jokeblox

>>9375882
Sounds like tech school would have been right up your alley.

I think high schools should offer some kind of seminar on making a choice between tech school or college. Both have something to offer students, but most seem to default on college for no real reason.

>>9375851
So you could just like design dildos and bongs all day and they'd still give you money?

In order to receive my comp sci degree I have to complete statistics this summer. Complete bs in my opinion. Also, who the fuck needs psychology, and philosophy?

>>9375936
>differential equations
>physics

seriously. If you don't see the connection then you are a fucking idiot.

Network Technician here.

I got to waste three years of my life.

First year, we were basically taught how to open and move windows, type documents in Word and install an anti-virus.

Second year, we got into programming. And thus we learned how to program using batch files and the Visual Basic editor in Word and Excel.

Third year, finally, we get to actual networking stuff. The whole course is on the Cisco Academy website. The teacher is basically just sitting at the front of the class doing nothing just to collect his paycheck. We did everything online. Of course someone found all the answers and we all ended up cheating.

On the job marked, I finally land a cool gig repairing all kinds of stuff and doing a little bit of networking. I quickly discover that everything I learned was completely useless and that the most useful thing to have was an ability to learn and adapt quickly. This is the only useful skill to have. Everything else taught in school is useless.

>>9375917
So a doctor doesn't need to understand how a drug works? Just that the pharmaceutical company assures him that it does work?

That's not someone I'd want treating me.

>Finance
>Elective class on insectology. BUGS. FUCKING BUGS

>>9375962
i reckon my course could have been taught more like a tech school really. I have heard several people on here say the same thing who have graduated the course. No way people would let that happen though

I guess when it comes to it I am lazy and just want to know specifics on how to get the job done. People who want to do research or enter a more specialized pactice can learn more once they go into those fields

>>9375968
>comp sci degree
>doesn't want to learn math

the secret to a happy fullfilled life is to put up with the absolute bear minimum of crap that you need to so that you can pursue the things in life that you really enjoy. For some people there are far less requirements to be happy.

>>9376014
That sounds like fun to me. Might meet some cute hippie chicks.

>>9375968

You don't know what Computer Science is, do you.

>>9375972

Someone needs a refresher course in sarcasm.

>>9375917
I'm not in academia. I'm a barred member of the legal profession. Even in my profession people who have no intellectual interests outside of their own cases in front of them are mocked for being jobbers.

Man has collected tens of thousands of years of knowledge. Shouldn't you at least take it upon yourself to learn some of it?

I won't need to quote Dante in the original Italian at the closing argument for my DUI client but that's not the reason you go. You go to enrich your mind, and to stand on the shoulders of giants.

>>9376081
I like that jargon - "jobber".

>>9375985

my wife is a physician. i got news for you -- 90% of american doctors are assholes, of the kind you'd find posting on /b/. they're ignorant and miserable people who have no passion about what they do, no actual interest in biology or chemistry or how drugs work (though they have encyclopedic memory of practical facts). Their major hobby is drinking. the whole enterprise fucking sucks.

10% or so are decent people who really care about medicine and their patients, but good luck figuring out who's who. they all get training on how to put on a good front.

My problem with the gen ed requirements of my university was not so much the subject matter but how the course was taught. How engaged can anyone really be when they are in a sea of 500+ other students. The other problem was that when I would attempt to engage the instructor and challenge what they were presenting (I believe critical assessment of any information given by the instructor is fair play) they would simply dismiss the question and move on as if it would be too much trouble to actually acknowledge student presence in the class room. The sad thing about all of this was that this all occurred in a top 20 state school.

So to answer the question I don't think that gen ed requirements in themselves are bad but the way they are being treated in most schools is terrible and that is why there is so much resentment towards them

>>9375481
They said physics would be good to know in my department if I were going into 3D animation so that a student could understand objects reacting in a physical environment, to gravity, all sorts of other bullshit. Sounds reasonable in theory, but applied? Uhhhhhhh, no, dude. No. You have eyes, you can witness gravity in effect. You don't need to know calculations of conservation of energy or what the fuck ever. It's just dumb. I've never once heard of a 3D animator stopping his work, and thinking, "Hm, how quickly would this Transformer fall if knocked off a building? Fuck it, throw in a explosion, and we'll see what looks good."

And I was doing graphic design/film/video.. taking Physics is stupid as shit.

>>9375543
A university not even worth mentioning. Goddamn, fuck my college experience.

>>9376110
I saw the kind of people who did premed (a huge thing where I went to undergrad). I definitely believe that.

>>9375968

Just curious, you in canada?

>>9376081
why not learn it in your own time? Rather than spend money to learn it in college and have to pass the course when it has nothing to do with your degree?

People have caried interests and hobbies. A lot of people do read outside uni. But to make it compulsory and difficult more than it has to be is just obscene

>>9376110
I am convinced this is true. Because I hear the talk of the med students I've been around, and all they can talk about is how well they are going to get paid once they endure the burden of school. Ugh.

no. i thought my first year of uni was too much bullshit, so i dropped out. fuck paying for that crap.

>>9376133
>You have eyes, you can witness gravity in effect. You don't need to know calculations of conservation of energy or what the fuck ever. It's just dumb. I've never once heard of a 3D animator stopping his work, and thinking, "Hm, how quickly would this Transformer fall if knocked off a building?

That's exactly what a good animator would do. It would take 30 seconds to apply F = ma to simulate realistic motion.

>>9376133

Arrrgggghhhh fucking rage.

They teach you physics so that you'll have a proper understanding of how to do animations, you don't need the specifics, but you need a rough understanding of how objects of various weights move and apply that to your field.

>>9376158
most people go to uni to get a job to make money. Only the courses which are considered "lower tier" are the ones where people go to persue their interests

Med school must be hard. So why would most people put up with that shit if they can't make some money afterwards? I know a lot of people who have graduated medicine and tell me they regret it as a result. It's hard work and not what it used to be. But it is very safe in terms of employment

>>9376133
I graduated with a film production degree as well.

This wasn't at my school, but one other school I looked at also required a physics course in their curriculum. That's why I ask.

>>9376014
I believe you mean entomology.

>>9374784
This. Thiiiissssss.
I ended up graduating with three majors. All students at my uni are required to take several totally online classes, fair enough, except that none of the classes offered had any relevance to any of my majors whatsoever. What pissed me off the most is that I was unable to take on an extra, relevant subject in addition to the online ones so it felt like less of a waste of time.
If you're going to shove breadth subjects down people's throats that's one thing, but to structure degrees in a way that cuts time away from the major discipline(s) to waste time on this irrelevant stuff I cannot see how this is a good thing.

>>9376259
he probably never turned up to those classes in order to learn the subject name

Sounds ridiculous if he had to learn about insects for a finance course

>>9376143
You learn it on your own time also. You take the course for a guide along your journey and to interact with the other classmates who are along that same intellectual journey. The journey itself is important because it allows you to examine, interpret and discard, how to argue, how to examine things dispassionately, etc.

For example, in undergrad I took a number of Marxist history classes on the mechanics of specific 3rd world revolutions. While I am a little bit pink, I am not red and I don't generally support Marxist revolutions. I constantly wrote papers vicously critical of the moneyed power and status quo in these countries.

They have come in handy when crafting arguments (not the legal aspect, the style and persuasive aspect) for my clients who I find to be distasteful human beings.

So that class I took as an afterthought sophomore summer really taught me a lot on how to argue for people you dislike. Thanks for that, Prof. Haynes!

There have been so many other examples where a liberal arts education has helped and enriched my mind and ultimately made me much better at my career.

I would suggest rounding out your education. If you only listen to a small number of voices, you aren't getting the whole story. Plus there are a whole lot of aspie engineers and CS guys. There aren't a lot of well rounded people who are engineers. Those guys are prized and get snapped up to management rather quick.

>>9376133
How shortsighted.

Tell me they don't apply any laws of physics when they make things move at ILM or Pixar.

Fuck you.

>>9374606
Yeah, it's called the " let's see how much more money we can squeeze out of you while you're here" tactic.