In the spirit of NBA All-Star Weekend, “Highly Stressed Students and the Aimless Curriculum” by Naomi Schaefer Riley on Minding the Campus is a slam dunk.
Ms. Riley makes many articulate points concerning reasons why today’s college students lack direction in their lives, but there is one that I want to specifically focus on for this post. In describing today’s menu of courses available to students, Ms. Riley states:
College viewbooks today read like a “choose your own adventure” book. Students come to college to “explore” all of the “options” but with no particular end in mind. The thick college catalogs seem exciting to many at first, but how does a high school graduate even know where to begin? Even the most driven student cannot know what courses will be most interesting or useful or how to make them all fit together. As a result, the undergraduate education these days is more like a Chinese menu. Some courses from column A and some from Column B.
I have used this “Chinese menu” analogy informally with colleagues. Students currently have buffet-style course offerings that instruct them to eat until they are full; for a better experience, students really need the equivalent of a five-course meal that is prepared by expert chefs (professors).
I am not arguing for less “academic freedom.” Professors can teach subjects how they want. But, programs and courses need to be structured and sequenced better to provide a more organized intellectual experience because, contrary to popular progressive beliefs, students do not always know what is best for them.