General education classes in college

• Broadening perspectives
o Gen ed’s can expose students to a wide variety of topics that are not part of their
individual major
o Which can help students have a deeper understanding and appreciation of
different cultures, majors, and societies
o It can help students' post-graduation as they will have a general education of a
lot of subjects
• Exploring potential career paths
o They can help students discover interests they never knew they had
o Exposes them to different majors that they might not have previously considered

Critical thinking
- Allows for provocative measures of learning to be retained mentally
- Applied for everyday life
- Promotes successful behavior

General understanding of the world

• Minor bits of common sense
• Learning broad skillsets
• Gets you ready for change
• Help improve communication
• Civics preparation

• Ninety percent of provosts somewhat or strongly agree that general

education is a crucial part of any college degree.

- News insider

- Having a bachelor’s degree Attests that you have certain skills and a minimum base level
of knowledge, which would not be possible to achieve without general education
courses.
 - work force early: (You go to college to accrue knowledge and wisdom for your career
and the rest of your life, and although major specific classes further your specialty, being
in generalized classes helps your base knowledge and further your accumulated time of
experience.)

- Argues you learn them in high school (Why you have AP and transfer credits)
- Amount of academic knowledge in first year is too much:
- Use time and resources/ money (Regarding money, you are still getting all the benefits
of being at college, you are furthering your relationships and networking regardless of
the classes taken.)

- Why is a good thing to be well-rounded: Being well rounded allows you to have critical
thinking, apply your knowledge to a multitude of situations, and solve problems
regardless if you prepared for it.

- There is the opportunity to make money through internships, co-ops, and part-time jobs.

Consider age and maturity of college students

Rebuttal
Argument that General Education wastes time and money:
o Typically, general education classes are easier than classes for specific majors.
o This allows these classes to be a buffer for the difficulty of harder classes.
o Strengthens known skills

• General education classes in college can be repetitive to students, making them sit
though things learned in high school.
o However, many students forget parts of basic education, so a refresher can be
needed in college.
o College general education classes teach higher level material in the same topic
o Not all high schools are the same, therefore there needs to be general education
classes to make sure everyone is on the same level
Surgeon