1 Comment on Paper 4 Outline

1. 

   Krystal Gu

   December 4, 2014 at 12:02 pm (10 years ago)

   Krystal Gu
   Dr. O’Hara
   English 15
   December 5, 2014
   Paper 4 Draft

   Abstract

   Introduction
   According to Penn State’s GenEd website, Penn State aims to build a General Education curriculum that “embraces intellectual inquiry, diversity, and excellence,” and “prepares our graduates to thrive in increasingly competitive global contexts.” Although our current general education system has met these standards from certain aspects, it could be largely improved by making certain modifications. Every student comes to college with different backgrounds and purposes, and therefore, the flexibility of the education system is a basic requirement that should be met in order to ensure the needs from different student bodies. At the same time, the quality of the general education system should be promised in the sense of providing students with applicable real life skills and effective guidance towards their interest of major. Penn State should divide the general education into two separate parts—one is related to real life applications, and the other part is dealing with exploration of majors: the first part should be required for all the students providing them with the real life applicable skills of personal finance, social responsibility, computer literacy, and foreign languages; the second part should offer three options for students with different pursues: an option for the students who have declared their majors but are not quite certain about it, or those who are still undecided but have some interests in certain fields of study, to experience the introductory major related courses and listen to lectures about future employment and real life applications of the chosen major, an option for the students who have declared their majors and want to pursue a minor to meet the general education requirements, and an option for all students to explore different areas of study such as general art, science, sociology, humanism…etc., to build up their general knowledge and themselves into well-rounded people.

   Importance of Flexibility
   Freedom of choice is an essential component of college education, especially for a large university like Penn State, with people coming from all different corners of the United States, and even from the world. Unlike the real life application part of general education which could be applicable and useful for all different types of students improving their competiveness, the second part of the general education system should vary based on types of students it’s aiming at, since every student comes to college for a different reason—students might have different levels of preparedness for entering their majors, different interests of study, different career plans, and even different goals in life. They don’t seek to obtain the same thing from this education system, but they seek to obtain the most of their use from this education. From this perspective, the university, especially a large one like Penn State, should seek to provide students of different needs with different education plans that will best prepare them for their future plans. General Education system should take in all different factors, and provide the students with a flexible curriculum of choices and freedom.
   Real Life Application
   Whether students have declared their majors or not, real life application courses could always help the students in some ways to better adapt to their lives in the future dealing with credit cards, loans, and even health insurance. Real life application classes instruct the students to quickly adapt to the society after graduation while adapting to their work environments, instead of letting them feel overwhelmed by the reality of the world at the same time being stressed about the workload. According to Melinda, a National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) Communications Intern, “Debt, insurance, loans, interest, etc., all seemingly self-explanatory terms are tossed around in everyday conversation, yet I feel my knowledge is severely limited in such a fundamental area. The biggest survival skill post-graduation will be how to live within my means, stay practical and pay off debt.” These seemingly easy skills will become an integral part of your everyday life one day in the future (even today), and it would never be a bad thing to learn it right now. Most of the universities don’t offer courses like this, and it becomes a problem for the graduating students to adapt to their lives after college. Melinda claims that, “If classes like this are ever offered, take advantage of them, because it will pay off in the long run and make the leap into the real world much more manageable.” These real life application courses teaching you how to deal with loans, college debts, healthcare, households, credit cards, how to be a responsible citizen or individual, and even how to speak in front of the public may seem useless right now, but you will find yourself running ahead of everyone else just because that you’ve spent time learning these skills at college. These essential skills not only build students into well-rounded individuals, but also make them more competitive in real life situations. Melinda says that, “While the significance of grades depends on your major and what you intend to do after your undergraduate years, they don’t mean anything if you do not know how to effectively communicate with others. This is why classes focusing on negotiation, management and interpersonal skills are a good idea to look into regardless of your major curriculum.“
   Exploration of the Majors
   For most of the times, students pick their majors without paying close attention to what the major is really going to take them into. They always base their decisions on their superficial learning of a major from their families, and even from a chance talking to a person somewhat related to the major. Students should be given more opportunities to actually delve into the majors that they are actually interested in, instead of basing their decisions on a single saying. They should explore the fields of study that they are fond of, and know enough about it to make firm decisions about their majors. According to New York Times, “Some students go to college knowing exactly what they want to do. But most don’t. At Penn State, 80 percent of freshmen — even those who have declared a major — say they are uncertain about their major, and half will change their minds after they declare, sometimes more than once.” The students making decisions upon their majors knowing minute about them is the main cause of this situation described above.

   Declaration of A Minor
   For the students who have decided what they want to study, and are interested in pursuing another field of study acquiring expertise and professionalism, they are welcome to take a minor in place of the general education requirement. This category mainly aims at the students who are highly motivated, ambitious, and certain about what they want in the future.

   Extensive Explorations of The Unknowns
   This option focuses on the breadth and exploration side of the general education system. Students are welcome to pick this option if they are interested in building themselves into well-rounded people with integrative thinking skills who can interpret from a diverse disciplinary perspective. Even if after the students declare their majors, and they have little or even nothing to do with the previous classes that they took, these courses were certainly not a total waste of students’ time. Consider yourself in the society, do you really only need your major field of study’s knowledge to survive? No, these seemingly futile courses offer you the basic knowledge in many other fields of study that might be related to your future career in some way. Why do people say that sometimes process is more important than the result? This saying has the same application in life, and sometimes it’s these seemingly useless things that make our lives different from the others’.
   According to Melinda, a National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) Communications Intern, “Flexibility is another key skill for college students, for the culture is always changing, thus impacting the business model and corporate culture as well. “
   “ Don’t abandon subjects that you may need later. Students often don’t realize that many popular majors — psychology, social sciences, business — have math and science requirements. You might have to forgo majoring in economics, for example, if come junior year you have to make up courses in calculus and statistics.”

   http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/choosing-one-college-major-out-of-hundreds.html?_r=0
   http://www.nacacnet.org/studentinfo/articles/Pages/Preparing-for-the-Real-World.aspx
   http://gened.psu.edu/