It’s a common general education requirement for college in the US, yeah. Biology, physics, psychology, economics, English/writing, math, etc. are often all required, or at least a selection of most of the discipline-intro-level courses is.
Huh, that’s weird. Isn’t highschool sufficient for general education?
Thinking about it, it might not be. I’ve just checked and at least in Germany a US highschool diploma (including passing tests like SAT or ACT flawlessly) doesn’t (generally) qualify you for entering university here. That is, you are literally prohibited by law from enrolling.
I’m genuinely glad this isn’t part of university education here. I mean, I’m attending lectures because I have interest in a certain subject - not because I want even more general education after finishing secondary education.
Well another major wrench in the system is that because education is largely regulated by the states rather than the federal government, they can have very wide degrees of variance between education quality, oversight, and quantity of subjects studied.
This can be good (for instance, as a Californian, I was given the opportunity to take a 4 year engineering course series in high school that helped propel me into studying Electrical Engineering right now in college), but can also be bad due to negligence by the state to maintain and audit schools, along with issues of content erasure or censorship (Texas and Florida being the most blatant examples).
Additionally, this can lead to the “Name school prestige” problem where employers largely focus on students who graduated from elite colleges or universities with higher barriers of entry (Money) and reputable quality, while neglecting students who may have undergone the same rigorous studies at a school that’s not as well known. (With students only holding a High School diploma left in the dust)
The issue isn’t that states are responsible for education. Mostly.
Germany’s constitution prohibits the federal government from nearly everything relating to education as a defense against a possibly fascist federal government. So much in fact, every time the federal government wants to subsidise anything - even as simple as aiding in school renovations - a constitutional amendment has to be passed.
The reason it works (for the most part) is because of the Kultusministerkonferenz - the conference of ministers of education. While there are still somewhat significant differences between the states, they have standardized vast parts of education amongst themselves. This ranges from mandating the teaching of English as a second language to outright changing German orthography in 1996.
As a result, basically all universities in Germany have similar prestige. Sure, some of the larger one’s are better known but you have pretty much free choice where you want to study without hampering your future employment. The exceptions are private universities – everyone will believe (for good reason, may I add) that you basically purchased a degree and are incompetent.
Though now I wonder: Does the US actually have any voluntary body of states that makes standardized decisions for anything? Like education, justice, police, etc. Or do you states insist to do everything their own way because talking is communist or something?
A couple of things to make German more consistent.
Most notably, the use of “ß” (the sharp s or sz [pronounced es-zed]) was adapted. Words with a short vocal cannot be followed by an “ß” now and have to be followed by an “ss”.
Some words affected:
that: daß -> dass
castle: Schloß -> Schloss
This rule was in use in Austria-Hungary from 1879 -1901 by the way.
Another change was allowing the use of triple letters for combined words:
There were a couple more changes with some exceptions for well-established words & some of the more controversial changes were retracted in 2006 but all in all it was a success.
The US federal government does have some oversight and regulation of schools (largely through funding programs such as the school lunch program - fun fact, only exists nationwide because of the high rates of malnutrition for WWII draftees), but because states contribute the overwhelming majority of funding through property taxes, they tend to have most of the sway on what happens within.
The role of the federal government in education (on paper) is to step in when students’ rights are being violated in things such as discrimination (most notable during the desegregation and activist movements during the 60s/70s), but a lot of those protections are being dismantled by the first, and now second, Trump administration (largely by de-fanging the Department of Education).
This caused states to start implementing their own standards and working together to try and push back against societal backsliding and censorship/erasure (using my home state of California again as an example, having robust LGBTQ+ protections in curriculums and safety, alongside active aid programs for students in need). While I don’t think there is an active “cross-state standard” for graduation and employment, some organizations outside of government do have standards that employers rely on (such as certifications). The emergence of the “Pacifica” bloc of states to try and collaborate on legislation and reform (California, Oregon, Washington state), may be the first of its kind towards what you’re describing.
Edit: typo fixes
Edit Edit: Also, private universities in the US (along with prestigious state colleges like MIT, California Polytechnic(s), and Texas A&M) are usually held on a pedestal compared to normal college graduates (although college graduates from any school are more preferred over High School diplomas) usually because of their very rigorous academic requirements to get in compared to standard colleges, since money alone won’t carry you to graduation (you WILL get kicked out if you aren’t learning anything).
Most people don’t?
I mean why would anyone not studying biology (or related fields) have to take biology in college? Or is that a US-American thing?
It’s a common general education requirement for college in the US, yeah. Biology, physics, psychology, economics, English/writing, math, etc. are often all required, or at least a selection of most of the discipline-intro-level courses is.
Huh, that’s weird. Isn’t highschool sufficient for general education?
Thinking about it, it might not be. I’ve just checked and at least in Germany a US highschool diploma (including passing tests like SAT or ACT flawlessly) doesn’t (generally) qualify you for entering university here. That is, you are literally prohibited by law from enrolling.
I’m genuinely glad this isn’t part of university education here. I mean, I’m attending lectures because I have interest in a certain subject - not because I want even more general education after finishing secondary education.
Well another major wrench in the system is that because education is largely regulated by the states rather than the federal government, they can have very wide degrees of variance between education quality, oversight, and quantity of subjects studied.
This can be good (for instance, as a Californian, I was given the opportunity to take a 4 year engineering course series in high school that helped propel me into studying Electrical Engineering right now in college), but can also be bad due to negligence by the state to maintain and audit schools, along with issues of content erasure or censorship (Texas and Florida being the most blatant examples).
Additionally, this can lead to the “Name school prestige” problem where employers largely focus on students who graduated from elite colleges or universities with higher barriers of entry (Money) and reputable quality, while neglecting students who may have undergone the same rigorous studies at a school that’s not as well known. (With students only holding a High School diploma left in the dust)
The issue isn’t that states are responsible for education. Mostly.
Germany’s constitution prohibits the federal government from nearly everything relating to education as a defense against a possibly fascist federal government. So much in fact, every time the federal government wants to subsidise anything - even as simple as aiding in school renovations - a constitutional amendment has to be passed.
The reason it works (for the most part) is because of the Kultusministerkonferenz - the conference of ministers of education. While there are still somewhat significant differences between the states, they have standardized vast parts of education amongst themselves. This ranges from mandating the teaching of English as a second language to outright changing German orthography in 1996.
As a result, basically all universities in Germany have similar prestige. Sure, some of the larger one’s are better known but you have pretty much free choice where you want to study without hampering your future employment. The exceptions are private universities – everyone will believe (for good reason, may I add) that you basically purchased a degree and are incompetent.
Though now I wonder: Does the US actually have any voluntary body of states that makes standardized decisions for anything? Like education, justice, police, etc. Or do you states insist to do everything their own way because talking is communist or something?
This is wild. What changed?
A couple of things to make German more consistent.
Most notably, the use of “ß” (the sharp s or sz [pronounced es-zed]) was adapted. Words with a short vocal cannot be followed by an “ß” now and have to be followed by an “ss”.
Some words affected:
that: daß -> dass
castle: Schloß -> Schloss
This rule was in use in Austria-Hungary from 1879 -1901 by the way.
Another change was allowing the use of triple letters for combined words:
For example:
Ship journey = Schiff + Fahrt => Schifffahrt ≠ Schiffahrt (old)
There were a couple more changes with some exceptions for well-established words & some of the more controversial changes were retracted in 2006 but all in all it was a success.
The Wikipedia article does a better job at explaining some of the detail: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_orthography_reform_of_1996
Wow. Thanks for the explanation and the link.
The US federal government does have some oversight and regulation of schools (largely through funding programs such as the school lunch program - fun fact, only exists nationwide because of the high rates of malnutrition for WWII draftees), but because states contribute the overwhelming majority of funding through property taxes, they tend to have most of the sway on what happens within.
The role of the federal government in education (on paper) is to step in when students’ rights are being violated in things such as discrimination (most notable during the desegregation and activist movements during the 60s/70s), but a lot of those protections are being dismantled by the first, and now second, Trump administration (largely by de-fanging the Department of Education).
This caused states to start implementing their own standards and working together to try and push back against societal backsliding and censorship/erasure (using my home state of California again as an example, having robust LGBTQ+ protections in curriculums and safety, alongside active aid programs for students in need). While I don’t think there is an active “cross-state standard” for graduation and employment, some organizations outside of government do have standards that employers rely on (such as certifications). The emergence of the “Pacifica” bloc of states to try and collaborate on legislation and reform (California, Oregon, Washington state), may be the first of its kind towards what you’re describing.
Edit: typo fixes
Edit Edit: Also, private universities in the US (along with prestigious state colleges like MIT, California Polytechnic(s), and Texas A&M) are usually held on a pedestal compared to normal college graduates (although college graduates from any school are more preferred over High School diplomas) usually because of their very rigorous academic requirements to get in compared to standard colleges, since money alone won’t carry you to graduation (you WILL get kicked out if you aren’t learning anything).
now this is the kind of discourse I like to see here
I really enjoy these convos on Lemmy :)
Learn a lot, share a lot!