Often perceived as an annoying requirement set on by the university for the sake of diversifying the school’s academic profile, the SAGEs program is rarely received with such grace from those taking the classes than from the parents who can boast about their children broadening their horizons. But is this general distaste for the SAGEs program truly justified? With enough thought, there exists as many reasons to love SAGEs as there are to hate it.
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Passionate professor. For the most part, Case gives the professors free range over their respective SAGEs pending an eventual approval. Such circumstance allows our specialized professors to turn to different passions that may exist leading to classes that range from the history of Rock and Roll to analyses of comic books and mystery novels. Essentially, the SAGEs program acts as a catalyst for the most intellectual minds on the campus to go off script and teach us about a hidden passion that they have. I am not suggesting that your physics professor is not passionate about the subject but after over a decade of teaching the same thing over and over I am sure a little variety is welcomed.
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Networking. My first year SAGEs class consisted of twelve people including myself. Six of us are still good friends as we enter our junior year and I spent the summer partying with three of them. The best part? We are all different majors, have different friend groups and are apart of different sororities and fraternities. We have had the privilege of branching out and meeting new people through each other, welcoming a bevy of different experiences. Students within the same majors are not made out of cookie cutters, but a SAGEs class is as diverse as you can get as far as academic resumes go.
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The Challenge. For some, SAGEs is an easy A. Statistically there are bound to be people who just coast through the program with little to no trouble. However, people would not complain about it so much if this was the case for every student. I know one student whose only essay grades that fell below a 90% were essays that she had written for her SAGEs class. She would go onto finish with an A but it did not come free of hours of her complaining and constant frustration which seems to come hand in hand with many of the classes. But the challenge that these specific classes present are what we as scholars should look forward to tackling. Most likely we will not be experts on the topic and by looking at polling done last spring, there is a large population of people on this campus who do not enjoy writing or take classes that require extensive essays like the ones that SAGEs do. What greater challenge is there available on this campus?
- Right of passage. You are required to take a fixed amount of SAGEs classes and if you play your cards correctly, you can be done before you are a junior. And honestly, completing the requirements and the following complaints about the program itself is something that is earned. Literally every undergrad is subjected these unpredictable and diversely run classes so deeply etched into the Case culture that there is now an existing article online that justifies why the student body should love it instead of hate it.