Subj : Re: Screens Distract Stud
To   : Aaron Thomas
From : Dr. What
Date : Sun Mar 30 2025 09:46:55

-=> Aaron Thomas wrote to Dr. What <=-

 AT> The colleges I went to call those "liberal arts" and/or "general
 AT> education." Those classes were fun and interesting, but what good is a
 AT> 101 knowledge of anything?

Certain classes, like writing a research paper, would be useful no matter what
your major.

Other classes were also "useful" but geared completely wrong.  ex: Economics. 
Now, learning economics is certainly useful.  But this was economics for
economics majors, not economics for dummies.  Useless class.

There were a few surprises, though.  Ex: A humanities class (go fig) in logic. 
It helped me greatly in my computer science classes.

But I still don't understand how learning about the Yanomami people made me
more well rounded.

Most of my Humanities classes were useless.  All of my Social Studies classes
were useless.  We lucked out in that only a few Humanities classes were
required and all the Social Studies classes were electives (you just had to
take so many).  But I never was able to get into the Tolkien class. :(

I understand the idea of being a "well rounded" student, but it seemed to me
that the actual policy was geared toward making students have to take classes
by worthless professors.  Oh, and more money for the college.  So even back in
the mid/late 80's, the rot was already setting in.

 AT> OTOH: I took PSY 101 and learned about "classical conditioning" which
 AT> was beneficial in understanding how the left operates, but the rest of
 AT> the course turned me into a wanna-be psychologist who diagnoses people
 AT> all the time. Hang on, let me put on my "expert" glasses..

Yes, the Dunning-Kruger Effect is alive and well on college campuses.


.... I may have my faults, but being wrong ain't one of them.
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