The very many questions-not-worth-their-own-thread question thread XXIV

[hobbsyoyo]

For every time I was tempted to agree that gen eds were too darn long I was later forced to sit through an engineer attempting to lead a meeting, or write an email, or speak with a co-worker that wasn't an engineer, or not get into a fight with a coworker who was.

Point taken though no matter how many gen eds you cram down their throats, many of the kinds of people who are inclined to be engineers will never be good at writing coherently, having non-awkward conversations or leading anything.

Quick snap poll. When you hear the term "National Socialism", does "socialism" or "nazism" pop into your mind?

Nazism

 

[Farm Boy]

I kinda thought that most engineer on engineer tiffs were healthy. Like nerdsmy people arguing over the pros and cons of splashing red or blue into their green MTG deck. Not all of them though.

I agree to an extent. I really do. I'll accept a pro to gen eds though if they only accomplish one thing, sometimes I think it is worth it if only to see a cum laude science/math/engineering major get taken down a peg in their 200-level music appreciation or basic spoken English class when some "idjits" happen to be better at it than them. It theoretically makes some of them somewhat more tolerable to deal with later in the workplace for all the other people that aren't engineers/hard science majors/whatever. It's less a feature of the conversation being awkward. That's usually fine. It's more a feature of some people having a huge superiority complex. Not sure if this is the best way or even an effective way to instill a degree of broad-mindedness but I can get behind at least the theory.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Well I'm not even against gen eds either. I'm against stacking up 2 years worth of gen eds that do nothing but get in the way of your other requirements and delay getting a degree. I wasn't kidding when I said 5 years is the new 4 year degree as they set asinine expectations such as 18 credit hours/semester every semester even though when you're talking straight math/science courses that's an impossible proposition. And then they have to trim the whole program when they get up to ~200 credit hours required for graduation. They've done this to my program several times and yet they still have a full 2 years of gen eds in the curriculum somehow. I shudder to think what it was like before they cull the course list.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

One other thing I guess is worth considering:

Many degrees can actually make use of the gen-ed requirements because even though they count as gen-eds for everyone, for some degrees they are actually pre-reqs as well gen-eds. That's not fair to everyone who has to take the same gen-eds that don't count as pre-reqs for anything compared to someone who actually needs them for their degree. It makes the other guy have to take that many more classes for a 4 year degree.

 

[Farm Boy]

It was that way 10 years ago, so it might be kinda new but not brand new. I don't know exactly how many gen eds are required to get the right side of the Dunning-Kruger effect out of education. Perhaps you've identified part of it, you load up on whatever the plausible maximum of science/math courses is, you can't skip ahead in some of them as you need statics before you can take dynamics(or whatever the real names are, you educated me once ) and you fill in the remainder of your 18 credit hours with the gen eds. Is the 5-years actually because the gen eds are slowing things down or is the 5 years because of the progression required to get all the engineering curriculum both in proper sequence and complete? I always had the suspicion it was the latter. At which point I could understand a bit of a mea culpa, as in - I don't have time to write speeches and watch movies when my sophomore math courses are kicking my patoot. Which they do for darn near anyone who isn't somewhat of a savant.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Physics->Statics ->Dynamics
->Mechanics of Materials (concurrent with dynamics)

Screw their real names.

Is the 5-years actually because the gen eds are slowing things down or is the 5 years because of the progression required to get all the engineering curriculum both in proper sequence and complete? I always had the suspicion it was the latter.

It's a little of both in that there are a few classes that count as gen eds that you actually need to progress (such as physics above) and then there are just a load of gen eds that go nowhere. So for instance, you will have to take a couple of English courses and some sort of composition course, a speech course and a literature course. Is every one of those courses needed? And that's on top of an assortment of random courses from psychology to biology to chemistry to computer programming to you name it...

I'm not trying to pick on any one course or degree field, just make the point(s) that
a)There are too many gen eds when they are continually having to add in degree courses to make up for the growing depth of knowledge in a field
and
b)It's not fair to the guy who is going for STEM to have to take 2 English courses, a composition course, a speech course and a literature course that don't lead to anything but 'well roundedness' on top of their STEMish gen ed classes (such as physics, chemistry, computer programming) compared to the guy who's majoring in English who can use all of the English/comp/speech/lit classes for their degree and don't have to take all of the physics, chemistry, STEMish gen ed classes.

Does that make sense?

And jesus Christ I'm not trying to start another freaking LA/STEM flame war. I'm not saying I don't value Liberal Arts degrees or courses. I understand good and well the value of making STEM students take liberal arts courses and the need to be able to read, write and speak coherently as taught through English courses. I also understand that even English majors will have to take some STEM courses such as math and physics and chemistry. However, they stop at say Chem 101 and Liberal Arts Calculus while for STEM degrees you're talking 3 Calc courses, 3 Chem courses, 3 Physics courses then Statics, Dynamics, Mechy Mat and Computer Programming which are all also technically our gen eds in addition to all of the other STEMish gen eds the English major takes + all of the actual English/Lit/Speec/Comp classes.

I'm sitting at about 200 credit hours completed with 4 semesters left to go for reference though after this summer I have exactly 1 gen ed course left (ethics) and the rest is for my major. Oh and I did pick up a minor which added 5 classes, 2 of which I needed for my regular degree gen eds so really just 3 additional classes.

 

[Farm Boy]

Bear in mind relative failure rates from different majors. I understand there are definitely majors in liberal arts/education/whatever that students fail out of(I'm always boggled by the rate), but the rate is not necessarily the same as a student that starts in an engineering progression. What happens to those students is also not always the same. It is somewhat more likely that a sophomore that has decided he or she cannot pass through the engineering curriculum will change majors a year or three in and wind up using those gen eds to select a new major. Those gen eds may also then be the foundational prerequisite classes for progression within that major(for example a 300 level film theory humanities gen ed class may indeed be required as you said for a degree in Media Studies, the Journalism basic newswriting gen ed may be a roadblock prerequisite for progression within that degree). It is somewhat more likely that a student that decides he or she cannot pass through the Communication Studies curriculum is not going to be attending university the following semester. It's pretty significantly unlikely that the Liberal Arts calculus class is suddenly going to look like the path in the dark.

I'm confused by your last paragraph. 200 credit hours already with 4 semesters(lets assume a standard 15 hours per semester) to go? An engineering degree from your institution requires 260 credit hours when the "norm" for Liberal Arts/biology/physics/math or Education or Business or Theater and Performing Arts or whatever is ~120? I would have guessed it would come in at closer to maybe 130 - 150 tops for engineering plus maybe 18-21 additional extra credit hours for a minor tacked on.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Just audited my degree progress for you.

I have nearly 200 credits total, but only 163 transferred over or where taken at this school. I'll have 166 when I finish this summer course. After that, I have 4 semesters at 12 credit hours each (it would be 15-18 credit hours each but I have all the other pre reqs done) for a total of 214 credits that count only toward my major and my minor (all courses that don't count towards the degree aren't in the audit).

Subtract the 9 credits for my minor and my degree is 205 credits. Ayup.

I told you they recently had to trim it down and have done at other points in the past. Truth is, my degree really really needs another computer programming course and there have been a few classes that were worth far less than the effort they required (such as a 2 cred hour class that took 60% of my total studying time every week). Even so, it obviously needs another trim.

At 4 years of 2 semesters each, that works out to a whopping 25.6 credits per semester to get out in 4 years which is clearly impossible. They are counting on every student taking a ton of classes in high school for college credit in order to be able to get out in 4 years. Nevertheless, the councilors tell every new student in my program to expect to take 5 years to graduate as a matter of course. I'm not sure how bad it is in other STEM degrees but it can't be much better at this school anyways.

Edit: Now I'm going to have to do more digging because a cursory search shows ~130 credit hours required for an aero degree at other schools. I will have to go through their course listings however as they do sneaky things to 'hide' courses that are actually required such as say College Algebra and Trig that you have to take and are college courses but they aren't listed in your degree (despite being required by the University). They do that to a ton of courses in Engineering degrees to make the degree look easier than it is to get unless you took all that stuff in high school for college credit.

Edit 2: Yup that's what's going on. They left out ~20 credit hours worth of courses that are prereqs for things like your Calculus or your computer programming or physics courses and whatnot. They flat-out left them out despite being prereqs and college courses and the fact that they'd probably count toward some LA majors if you went down that program instead.

 

[madviking]

I'm taking philosophy classes to improve my writing. I don't think it's that bad.

 

[Farm Boy]

You have to link me the online catalog requirements man, 205 hours with none "wasted" in transfer is setting off alarm bells at your advising department. Not saying it isn't plausible, it is indeed, but that's getting pretty close to Master's Degree territory. Which, to be fair, isn't necessarily unreasonable if you look at average salaries for Bachelors degrees in other majors and what they bump up to on average with an MA or MS.

I hear you on those insane 1 or 2 credit hour courses that devour time though. Any music major would agree with you too. "Hey, learn how to play a tuba a trombone and a tenor sax this semester. That's worth 1 credit," or "Join the marching band and practice an equal number of hours as the football team does and attend all the home and away games. That's also worth 1 credit hour. Athletic scholarship award? Hehehehe! Here's a certificate instead."

 

[hobbsyoyo]

^You may have missed the 2 edits, but I found that the claims for '130 credit hour' engineering degrees are extremely misleading. They get to those numbers by purposely not including prerequisite college courses that are required before you can even take the courses that are listed as part of the degree. So for example, you have to take Calc I, II and III. Well before you get to take any Calc, you have to take College Algebra and Trig, which is 6 (or was it 7?) credits worth of courses. Just glancing at the course list they only show the actual courses they will count toward your degree while leaving out all the other prereqs (many of which would actually be counted toward other degrees but not STEM degrees). It makes a STEM degree look easier to get than it is and rests on the flawed assumption that everyone comes out of high school with at least a year's worth of college credits. I'll try and dig up more specifics later but I've wasted too much homework time as it is.

 

[Farm Boy]

Heh, sorry for the distraction. I've just been digging through engineering degrees from my neck of the woods and most of them seem to normalize around 108 hours "in program." Which leaves out the gen eds. Those also aren't aero degrees, so maybe you've just intentionally selected something vaguely masochistic.

I don't think they can include the prerequisite classes very easily in the major catalog. If they start listing Algebra and Trig in the major you either then have to take those courses in house(which would count against transfer caps should you switch institutions(which would be mean)) or they would have to proficiency test and waive those requirements as an exception based on testing out for everyone who can, which then becomes a massive headache for say, Economics, should the student decide to transfer to a different college within the university later because some of the requirements for that major might be "proficiencied" in at a more advanced level but taught with the incorrect emphasis.

I can't imagine it's too terribly uncommon for students to start into engineering with more advanced courses than basic college math so it's hard to set the floor. My high school didn't even bother offering advanced algebra or trigonometry and I somehow magically tested into engineering calculus my freshmen year. Which, btw, was a massive mistake since I didn't have the groundwork to get through the content. And, since engineering calculus wasn't actually a requirement of my Liberal Arts degree wound up counting as 3 wasted elective credits. I had to go back and take a lower level statistics class afterwards anyhow. =/

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Fair points. There is also a thing called "university requirements" which is not the same as degree requirements. That covers things like Trig or 2 semesters of foreign language, etc. So there's a big chunk of courses that gets left out when they say '130 credits' to graduate (the lowest figure I saw for random engineering courses though was 128, not 108). And it sucks because as I've said, if I had gone the LA route, my College Algebra and Trig (and others) would've been degree requirements as well as university requirements, so those degrees really are 120 credits or whatever they've quoted. Don't know if I'm making sense...

 

[Farm Boy]

Right right, university requirements are not the same and you have to separate them for total hours to graduate. I think you are overestimating the amount of overlap with LAS majors though, even though many of those degrees actually do take 120 hours, not more. Say you are a Media Studies major within LAS, you can't load up(at least here) and double-dip your major courses and have them meet both departmental and university requirements at the same time. So say you need a 300 level humanities credit. Film Theory and Criticism is such a gen ed. You also need Film Theory and Criticism as a major requirement. It's only going to count for your major in this instance, you'll have to find a different humanities credit to take as well. Distributive studies requirements(forcing you to take stuff outside your major)is probably more onerous for LA&S majors than anyone else since a broad base of study is actually the defining feature of such a major, it's just that you might not notice it since they can get out the door with a raw 120 so long as they don't mess anything up.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Consider an amphibious invasion of Poland from a position of air and naval supremacy. What is/are the optimal path/s of conquest that quickly neutralize/s concentrations of military and economic power? Is it as simple as following the lowlands and rivers?

 

[Cutlass]

Well, that really depends on where the enemy chooses to be at the time, I would think.

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Oh, disregard the positioning and movements of their armed forces for now. Just static cities, bases, structures, and areas to consider at the moment.

 

[madviking]

going up the Vistula ain't a bad plan

 

[Dachs]

Oh, disregard the positioning and movements of their armed forces for now. Just static cities, bases, structures, and areas to consider at the moment.

Yeah, a non-terrible plan would require more context. "Concentrations of military power" can't be neutralized without knowing where those concentrations are.

 

[Lord Baal]

Yeah, a non-terrible plan would require more context. "Concentrations of military power" can't be neutralized without knowing where those concentrations are.

Katyn?