At some point in your academic career, you have most likely taken an elective course, whether it be for fun to explore an area of interest or simply to fulfill a graduation requirement. 

Elective courses, and discussions about their merit and need, have been a hot topic in talks regarding education, school curriculums, and (yes, you guessed it) school funding.  

Students either love electives or hate them with a burning passion.  

Let’s get into some views from both sides of the argument, beginning with the benefits of taking an elective course.  

Elective courses, especially in middle and high school, are extremely helpful in broadening a student’s academic horizon far beyond what is taught and reinforced in core classes and the standard education. These classes, which can span from ‘The Basics of Photoshop’ to ‘Personal Finance and Accounting 101,’ give students the opportunity to pick and choose what material they would like to learn, allowing them to get a more in-depth understanding of a subject they may want to pursue as a career or  explore new subjects and interests altogether.  These courses also reinforce skills developed in other classes and teach students other valuable life skills and abilities.  In this way, elective courses are very similar to the “specials” many elementary age students rotate through during their typical school week.  For young students, these courses enrich understanding through hands-on activities and interactions, including (but not limited to) classes in visual art, physical education, library skills, computer science, and music and the performing arts.  These specials teach and foster valuable skills, such as personal health, creativity, and imagination, that are not typically emphasized in the traditional classroom setting.  Electives in middle and high school are virtually doing the same thing, but at a higher learning level.  

Subsequently, by allowing students to make choices in education by choosing which electives to take, students become more engaged and motivated in school, as they are learning about a subject or understanding how to perform a skill that interests them.  According to Robert Marzano, an education researcher, the ability to make choices “has been linked to increases in student effort, task performance, and subsequent learning.”

Despite being called elective courses, students are not always given the choice of whether or not they would like to enroll in a course.  The best example of this situation is general degree requirements for students pursuing a degree in a college or university.  

Many college students, especially those in rigorous or work-heavy programs, find taking electives pointless and a waste of time.  For the most part, students in college already know what they plan to pursue, so why make them take classes that do not relate to their major at all?  One of the main arguments against this point is that taking a large variety of electives from a plethora of subjects and disciplines makes students more informed and a better, well-rounded person all together.  While this may be true, it is hard to ignore how, as one writer put it, general electives “detracts from valuable study, work or leisure time that’s already thinly parsed.”

Where am I in this argument?

 I agree with both sides.  Electives are very helpful not only in educating but engaging students throughout their early schooling carrer, but when they progress to means of higher education, I find electives more troublesome than helpful.