I was looking at a public state school's requirements for a finance degree for my son in a few years. Looks like they require biology among other odd courses to satisfy "General Education" requirements... Is there a better way to do say a finance or computer science degree without these GE type padding courses? Sort of like a technical school but not quite, if you catch my drift? Or is everyone forced to go this route?
Novel idea... Check out U. of Maryland's CLEP program. (College Level Examination Program). Last I saw there are now 30 or more "tests" one can take for 5 hrs of college credit each, assuming current college grants them credit against degree requirements. Way back when.... I was in the military fresh out of high school and decided to take the tests. There were only 6 categories... like English, Math, History, etc. Each exam was 3 hours, so I took them all thinking that if I got any credit at all it would be worth the 3 hours/exam. I was good in math and English, so I expected to pass those... but to my surprise I passed all 6 and got 30 semester hours credit. My college said they would count those 30 hours against my "elective requirements*", but they wouldn't count the math and English exams for those requirements... I had to take those classes. That was fine with me. I still basically "tested out of my freshman year". You might have your son query his college to see if they will accept CLEP exams for elective credits before getting involved. FWIW... *Side note... I spent 3 years taking only science courses (graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BS in chemistry and biology) and never wrote a term paper... never had to be tortured by having to listen to any Lefty political brainwashing, either.
Colleges degrees require you have a major and a minor... + exposure to other disciplines to "round-out" your education. Personally, I see biology as one of the more interesting and valuable "other disciplines".
I know that Scat, yet thinking of a rational explanation for the artificial necessity for it : #1 - to burst, potentially, students hidden interest in other fields too. #2 - to produce even more intellectual society (now this one, is cringy one, take it with a bit of salt) #3 - produce more job hours for the teachers from the other fields (more hours, more income for university, it's a bis after all) Just doesn't make sense to me, the incorporation of anything, that is not correlated. Unless one will be swinging in biotechs.
Well yeah... the more classes the college requires for their granting of a degree, the more money the student will spend there. If you want to be "well rounded" in your education... then you pursue a liberal arts degree... full of poetry, art, and song... for whatever that's worth.
Meanwhile, a well skilled, self taught street musician, somewhere in Venice, will be be making 2x - 5x more per/day.
Interestingly... a genuine, quality education today might include proficiency in math, English and foreign language... specifically Spanish and Chinese/Mandarin. And you can get ALL of that for FREE or minimal cost online! America's "college education racket" has a high SCAM coeffecient IMV!
Amen. But very few will manage finding/landing a job place for them selfs, with such education, unless they come up with their own ideas/bis models etc. Shortsightedness of employers too. E.g i applied for a job in few banks. I have no papers, self - educated. (not naive- just ain't noone punch me for trying) But the last time i called the bank, they had to connect me, with one - two - three people, in order to receive pretty basics answers about trading/investing. Then the chat was funny, cuz the broker was girl. (kudos to bank for the customer support) Back to your point. Yes, can be done for free. No reason for the young folks, end up with $100 000 debt with no bankrupt options, but it is as it is.
Sounds like New York. Sorry, you need to know what a flower's stamen is in order to get a degree in woodworking, or computer science. Or, as you say, finance. You know, that is very important to know when you are balancing a company's budget! Without the knowledge of the flower, you might fail the world, and your employer, while trying to balance their books! Go go secondary school systems in the USA!