During my undergraduate years, I had the same issues that all students have with course distribution. You have your major, but you need to have a balancing series of courses beyond the major for a distribution that introduces you to a broader education. In my case, as an anthropologist, I needed classes in the sciences. I had plenty of English and Foreign language courses, but I required the sciences. I opted for courses in Geography and Computer Science. My advisor agreed with me that they might be helpful and complement my anthropology major nicely.
Economically the Computer Science classes paid off enormously. I made money in grad school running to the computer center for proffesors who wanted to do statisitcal analysis, but lacked computer skills.
But my love was the geography courses.
I lucked out with a professor of Geography whose special area was cultural geography, which meshed well with my anthropology. But my general geography course was an absolute dream. I could slip away into the world of landmasses, river systems, tectonic plates, and other mysteries that had fascinated me as a child. In my imagination, I could picture ages of erosion, deposition, uplift, and “mass wasting.” It could be a bit transcendent.
I had chosen wisely. Doing research in Coastal Maine, I was happy to find that the post-pleistocene (post-glacial) geography of the coast had huge ramifications for travel, the economy, and town development. The geography background helped clue me in to the things that the maps explained.
The geography even included influences on language. Instead of going to town, you went over town or over to town. This was because you didn’t travel by land but by water. So you got into a boat and traveled across the water to town.
All my geographic courses paid huge bonuses, and I tend not to have a lot of sympathy for those who complain about having to take classes outside their major.
We all have to choose, but maybe they did not choose wisely ( I love to get my Indiana Jones quote in!!!)
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Pardon my snippiness, but I think more Americans could use a course in geography.
Not snappish, I agree.
A friend’s family moved from Montreal to Florida. The first day at school her teacher asked her to tell the class about her boat trip to the US. She said, “We didn’t come by boat. We drove here.”
The teacher said, “WHAT! Well, where is Canada?
Well, to some people in the States, this is an Island nation. An impoverished sense of geography and a very particularistic view of North America.
I think non-major courses are very important. I’m not going to make a generalization about the citizens of my country and geography beyond this. In a purely practical sense, most people don’t travel so why do they need to know? That’s not my perspective, but it is the perspective of plenty of people. I can’t diss the ignorant. Without them I wouldn’t have had a job. That teacher who asked, “Where IS Canada?” sad but also not. She ASKED. Lots of people fake it.