Raise your hand if you’ve ever felt like school wasn’t really preparing you for the job you think you want. Raise your hand if you ever wonder if you’re spending more time and money in school than you feel is worth its value. Raise your hand if you’ve ever been stuck in a “weed out” class that feels too advanced for your major because you need to fulfill a graduation requirement. I don’t know about you, but I raised my hand for all three. After mulling this over, I decided to ask some students, both past and present, their thoughts to see if I’m the only one who feels like this. The responses were all different, and each person provided a new perspective that I hadn’t thought to consider.
Current education focuses on a traditional style, where critical thinking and problem solving are the focus. An alternative to this is an applied style – more hands on. At first, I thought making things more applied would be great; for my major, this would give me a chance to get more practice with counseling people before I go into a real client-counselor setting. But not everyone wants to follow the same path as I. A former student pointed out that her undergraduate experience provided her with general knowledge that carried over into the real world. Things like critical thinking, planning and organizational skills, and problem solving are beneficial to everyone, no matter what your career goals may be. However, another student argues that an applied style provides students with real-life examples to discuss in interviews. Employers look for employees who have examples that depict their skill-set, so this becomes incredibly beneficial to getting your foot in the door.
Condensing the amount of time spent in school seems to be a topic that still has very mixed feelings. Most of the students pointed out that the time they spent in their undergraduate study yielded benefits they couldn’t foresee at the time, so while costly, it had purpose.
“
Weed out” classes caused quite a stir. Some feel very strongly that there should be separate classes for those who wish to major in the subject versus those who only need to fulfill a requirement. Many have requested that there be an easier version of the same class. Students who are opposed to eliminating weed out classes voice concerns that it would be incredibly difficult to decide who would go where and how it would be taught. Weed out classes do have some benefits (whether I like that or not). Having students who are interested in the material along with those who are there to fulfill requirements helps to enrich discussion.
As with all things, no matter which way you spin it, there’s never a simple solution. Some people are happy with the status quo, others not so much. Finding an alternative method to the current system of weeding students out would be a good place to start, and having professors that incorporate both traditional and applied styles into their classrooms would be an easy, inexpensive way to test out the hybrid version of education. By choosing to take the middle ground, education could potentially enrich students’ undergraduate experience, and who wouldn’t want the most bang for their buck?