Kelly Brannum
Mrs. Sicking
Composition II
February 4, 2012 Cutting the Core
Core college classes outside a student’s specific major are an unnecessary waste of time and money. The student should have the option to take more degree specific courses to replace unnecessary basic courses. Additionally, a consistent unified system should be established to regulate this throughout the collegiate community. This system, or theory, would be difficult to institute because of the universities’ drive for funding (Alteri). Universities make a substantial profit from unnecessary and redundant core classes. State and federal accreditation systems encourage the universities to offer these classes in an attempt to promote a “more rounded education.” Students would agree that this adversely affects their motivation when attempting to obtain a degree.
Core classes are a required set of basic classes that should transfer or be accredited to the majority of public colleges and universities. If a specific major is aeronautical engineering, for example, it would still be required to take a set of history classes to obtain that degree, although they would in no way benefit the individual applying for a position in this career field. With many corporations now requiring a bachelor’s degree, the degree is becoming more of a necessary asset.
According to the journal of science and education of technology, David Pundak stated that, “There is a growing consensus that traditional instruction in basic science courses, in institutions of higher learning, do not lead to the desired results” (Pundak 152-163). He goes on to explain how requiring students to have these basic courses results in a negative connotation with the university and general field of study. This is because the students feel like their efforts towards advancing their knowledge in a career field is wasted on unnecessary courses. When one cannot see the productivity in their efforts, this negative attitude is debilitating towards the rest of their studies as well. This could lead to a dramatic morale decline in the overall self-confidence of the individual. Robert Klassen performed a study that revealed, “although other self variables are related to procrastination, self efficacy for self regulation is most predictive of procrastination tendencies” (Klassen 915-931). Undergraduates who were most negatively affected by procrastination had dramatically lower GPAs, self-confidence, and overall opinion of the collegiate system. College students spend 18 months on courses that are not relevant to their degree. If these 18 months were applied to degree specific courses, a significant amount of time and money could be saved. Additionally, the level of education in that specific field could be considerably more advanced if the field of study that pertained to them constantly rejuvenated the entirety of the individual motivation. Core classes simply do not achieve their desired effect. Not only are they often an irrelevant necessity but also they often do not transfer easily to colleges and universities.
Because many of these credit hours do not easily transfer over the student continues to lose funds, time and morale. Both students and educators would greatly benefit from a unified system in which these core, or basic, courses could consistently be accredited throughout any establishment of higher learning in the nation. This ties back to support Klassen’s argument on how procrastination is a powerful de-motivator in the education systems. To repeat and repay for the same class would only be met with an immense amount of negativity. Klassen expands to tie the relation between procrastination to self-esteem and then to productivity. He emphasizes that without the appropriate level of self-esteem a student’s performance is greatly diminished. So with this procrastination of having to retake classes their level of aggregation is increased and performance decreased. The challenging part of