New Educational Requirements

Here is a quick list of a few of the classes I did take while in school:

Astronomy
Interestingly enough, I’ve never had to explain the difference between a yellow dwarf star and a red dwarf star

Mythology
While I did find this class interesting, I’ve never had to identify which Roman god equates to its Greek counterpart

Musics of Texas
I love me some Buddy Holly, but no one has ever asked me the name of the band that played with him.

And, I find it interesting that I did not take any classes related to the following topics before I stepped into the “real world”:

Managing Your Money
Advice on personal budget management, buying a car, retirement, credit cards, investing, etc.

Communication in Relationships
How to deal with co-workers, bosses, managing people, family, friends, meetings, negotiations, etc.

Thoughts & Beliefs
Explaining various belief systems and identifying how to communicate with people that have a differing opinion

What other lesson-in-life classes would be beneficial for every person to experience before they enter the “real world”?

3 responses to “New Educational Requirements

  1. Pingback: Twitter Trackbacks for New Educational Requirements « Clever Title [cymberly.wordpress.com] on Topsy.com

  2. Yeah, I’ve actually been going on about this topic for a while. There are a ton of problems with our rapidly falling behind education system. A couple of other major problems I see:

    1. College leaves graduates in massive amounts of debt. Also, the high cost keeps many people from attending.

    2. Most people don’t use their degree for what they are going to do anyway. I have a technical writing degree and work in interactive marketing…

    3. Those least equipped to prepare people for real work (tenured professors) teach classes gearing students to take notes and answer multiple question tests. When was the last time in your life you were denied access to reference materials?

    4. Graduates leave with no tangible work experience – the thing most needed to land a job.

    Actually though, thoughts and beliefs is a class in the School of Religion. I know someone who took it.

    My proposed solution? A different kind of opensource university. I wiki university filled with user created and critiqued classes, courses and degrees for all subjects. The information would be free and the certification would cost small fee. Open source text books and constantly improving material. Finally, the ability to create custom degree plans.

    And an even more fundamental problem is that with the rapid pace of technological advancement we are giving students information that will be outdated before they graduate, preparing them for jobs that must be filled that don’t even exist yet…

  3. How about a class on entrepreneurship and growing ones talents into a viable, sustained business, rather than speaking to “counselors”. Seriously, if you went to college for 4-8 years (requirements vary by state) to become a certified “counselor” and work in a public school district making roughly $50,000-$65,000 per year, you have absolutely no place to try to counsel me on anything other than grief; certainly not “jobs” or “careers”.

    Just my $0.02

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