A tower of Red Bull cans stretches above a cluttered desk of papers, pencils and books. A journalist paces around the floor; racking his mind to find the topic for his next column (which is already several hours past deadline), struggling to form coherent ideas for an English 1101 paper due the next day, and praying that the Calculus knowhow will arrive in his mind, magically, before the afternoon’s midterm; all simultaneously at 4 a.m. Then a question occurred to him through the caffeine-bolstered stupor: Why did he have to endure all of these classes? Too many of the core classes are just repeats of those from high school.
College’s core requirements often mirror the basic skills and abilities, which are at least intended to be obtained in high school. Why teach them twice? One reason is our flawed secondary school system in the United States. If high school served its purpose well for everyone, that is, to provide students with enough information to function as adults, there would be no need for core classes in college.
A high school education supposedly includes a graduate with a rounded unspecialized knowledge of basic subjects. Whether these subjects are useful to the job or not does not always matter. However, there are nuggets of gold, life tactics to be found there, and that is why it is a requirement for many occupations. But the 4-year requirement of this training is not efficient.
A high school junior who cannot grasp even a trivial topic such as chemistry is in danger of spending more time in the over-structured vague mess that is secondary education. By that point, it is time to learn a trade. Unfortunately, college keeps with it a similar danger in addition to an added price.
Tuition is obviously very high and students struggling with a sequence science or foreign language should not have to pay, study and stress for two years of schooling that may have nothing to do with their career field.
English’s 1101 and 1102 are taught so students are able to communicate through writing, and mathematics are taught for the purpose of critical thinking. But when an adult is required to spend thousands of dollars to relearn them before advancing to a specialized field of study, there is a flaw. Yes, many who enter college may still not possess these basic abilities, but college is no place to catch up.
A college education really entails much the same as a high school one: a broad useless range with the sole exception of the graduate being focused on almost one thing for at least two years.
A trade school, on the other hand, means one thing: certification. Perhaps a country that prides itself how many years its citizens are usually instructed is not the best thing. An education is sometimes overstated in dollars and time when it may best be measured in effectiveness.
In Britain, high school education can cease at age 16 and students have the option of then applying to college in order to concentrate their time and studies as efficiently as possible. By their method, state funds are neither wasted on preparing unwilling students for graduation nor adroit students for repetition.
With the shortened secondary schooling, these students also may gain or perfect the skills for adulthood, sadly absent from many high schools, on the college level, all before the age of 18, while a similar American student may have to wait until age 20.
A shortening of standards by colleges and universities, many being private institutions, seems to be a faraway goal. The release of the core requirements would mean a decrease in the time and, by extension, the semesters of tuition required to absorb the same essential educational benefits. Students could also save on books, supplies, and housing if college could change its structure instead of high schools.
A major shift of colleges worldwide to specialized two-year rather than four year institutions only does not look likely due to the fact that they work very much like businesses. To contrast, public schools work more like uneven mismatched charities, the best of them not preparing pupils for life but for college entrance.
A certain quality of common sense and promising young minds may be the only remedies to the common core. Their reforms may take years, even decades to make sufficient progress.
Thus, for the time being, students across campus shall continue to share the frantic plight of a journalist, who will likely risk not turning in a paper and probably failing a calculus test for a wink of natural sleep in a bed lined with garbage and notebooks. Not to mention submitting a very late column to the school’s newspaper the following day.
