Re: What to teach (was: American students do poorly)

[David Dockstader <DRDOCK00@UKCC.UKY.EDU>]

On Fri, 27 Feb 1998 13:49:35 -0500 Richard W. Tarara said:
> Shouldn't all of this have taken place in the K-12 'Science' courses, such
> that by the time students get to college the 'specialization' can begin?
Apparently not.  This is why most colleges have general education requirements!
It is these gen ed requirements that keep most of us employed since in most
schools science majors are a minority.  Another question is should specialized
courses for majors be taught any differently than gen ed courses.  In general,
I would think not.  My father was a graduate of RPI in engineering and I
remember the results of an alumni survey that was done just as I was thinking
about college.  The results showed that by a large margin, the engineers had
rated their engineering courses the least valuable of all their college
courses.  I can only guess that this was because the courses were so narrow
and concentrated on such specific facts the students found the content
inapplicable in their careers.