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Piper Sowald
English Composition II
16 March 2022
Why are many students taking courses unrelated to their major?
Millions of students go to college to get a better education and hopes of a higher paying

job in the end. To get there though, they are required to go through 2-8+ years of extra schooling

and rack up thousands of dollars in debt. They also are required to take many unrelated courses

to their major in the first couple years. Why are these courses still necessary in the 21st century?

When our questions can be answered at the tip of our fingers, only a few clicks away.

Every college has different general education requirements, some more alike than others.

The Chinese cultural history of education used to be more focused on mastering a skill, like a

magnet school. However, the students that came out of those schools failed at their jobs because

they only knew one skill and were not able to comprehend and communicate with the other

employees well. Qian Mu said it best, “With people who do not mutually understand one

another working on interrelating matters of state and society, this will eventually lead to conflict

and clashes, collapse and separation, and nothing will ever get accomplished … In summary,

Chinese society today needs people with the Tong (Complete and transferrable understanding)

attribute more than experts” (Qian, 1940).

In most of the research being read, people say general education is required because it

broadens the students’ horizons. It gives the students a way to take a class or two in a different

area than their major to learn about something new and be able to connect with other students on

a different level than them. Scott Hawksworth from Standford University says, “College is the

perfect time to get to find out more about your interests and what you excel in. Students have

even switched majors because they connected with that elective subject far more than their
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original intended major” (Hawksworth, 2017). It is better to be learned in multiple areas than an

expert at one, just like the Tong Shi learning shows. This also has been shown to help students

have a higher success rate in the real world.

General education is meant to help the student become more knowledgeable about all

subjects and aware of what is going on around them in different areas of study/knowledge base.

Catherine Seraphin of College Xpress Magazine at Harvard University says, “Students just need

to realize how skills learned in one class can apply to an entirely different subject and,

furthermore, situations that could be encountered during one’s career. (Besides, if you start your

own freelance writing business with a dearth of skills in math, you may find balancing your

budget especially taxing)” (Seraphin, 2013). The skills you learn in one class can help you in

another class, or similarly, in your life.

A dilemma in the academia world is transfer students. Many adults are going back to

college to further their education in some way or other. Most colleges have not accepted that

there should be different general education courses for returning students, even when they have

previously taken a year or two of general education at a different college. Well-roundedness is

still acquired in the previous schooling, yet they are being forced to take more courses or the

equivalent of the courses because the prior class(es) did not full all the credits needed or was not

on the correct specific topic the current school prefers. The schools want each student to graduate

with the same classes under their belt, rather than accepting a previous schools general education

classes as acceptable. William Giczkowski a professor at the University of San Francisco says,

“Much has been written about general education requirements, but the literature inevitably

reflects the faculty’s theoretical bias in favor of a framework designed for traditional students”

(Giczkowski, 1995).
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This leads to the evitable waste of time and money on the student’s account. No one

wants to waste precious money or their time; whether the time and money spent was at the

previous college or new college. Jill Barshay, writer for the Hechinger report shows, “For

community college students who want to transfer to four-year institutions (80 percent of

community college students begin their academic careers with that intention), it’s often difficult

to transfer credits. Some are not accepted, others are not the exact courses that an academic

department requires. For example, a community college calculus course may not fulfill the math

requirement for a four-year business degree” (Barshay, 2017).

Clearly, there are more pros to taking general education courses, as this research is being

done. The end goal is to not waste a student’s time or money by having to retake the same or

equivalent courses, especially when transferring to a different college. Whether we are wasting

tax-payers money, our parent’s money, or our own hard-earned money and time. Maybe there

should be more test-out options available for each general education class for transfer students,

like a one-time free of charge test. This could help reduce so many things for a student, such as;

stress, money waste, and time waste.

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Works Cited
Lu, Yi, and Yuan Xu. “Defining According to Its Essence: An Analysis on the Concept of Tong Shi

Education (General Education) in the Native Chinese Context.” Chinese Education & Society,

vol. 51, no. 1, Jan. 2018, pp. 39–56. EBSCOhost,

https://doi.org/10.1080/10611932.2017.1411139.

Barshay, Jill. “Wasted Time and Money on Undergraduate Classes.” The Hechinger Report, 4 September

2017, https://hechingerreport.org/wasted-time-money-undergraduate-classes/. Accessed 27

February 2022.

Hawksworth, Scott. “Pros and Cons of Taking a “Pointless” Elective.” The College Puzzle, 9 August

2017, https://collegepuzzle.stanford.edu/pros-and-cons-of-taking-a-pointless-elective/. Accessed

27 February 2022.

Seraphin, Catherine. “General Education Requirements What’s the Point?” CollegeXpress

Magazine, Spring 2013, pp. 20–21. EBSCOhost, https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=f5h&AN=94323999&site=eds-live.

Giczkowski, William. “Are Traditional General Education Requirements Right for Adult

Students?” Adult Learning, vol. 6, no. 6, Jan. 1995, pp. 12–13. EBSCOhost,

https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=EJ506077&site=eds-

live.