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Editor:
We are writing in response to Jill Dellamalva's column, "General education is a benefit to students," Oct. 4). We agree with her that there are some benefits to taking general education classes outside one's major. However, this increases the total amount of units a student would need to take to graduate. At the same time, the Arizona Board of Regents is trying to decrease the number of units it takes to graduate.
While this may not impact those majors that already require 125 units or less to graduate, this has a tremendous impact on all engineering majors. To implement either of the two proposals for expanding the general education requirements, the number of technical elective units required for all engineering majors will have to be cut. This means the future engineers graduating from the UA will not have the technical background required to succeed in today's job market. As a computer engineering student, when I graduate, I would rather have exposure to Computer-Aided Logic Design as opposed to Traditions and Cultures.
As a scholar, Stephen H. Balch seems to be living in a mythical world where everybody should study a broad range of topics. He blames other scholars for not "setting academic priorities for students." If the general education requirements are expanded, the scholars will be setting the wrong priorities for engineering students. Engineers need to be specialized to build better roads, reduce environ-mental pollution and design better computers.
As for the UA implementing a standard set of courses for all freshman to take, it is currently in place. It's called English 101 and English 102. These classes are considered a huge waste of time for most majors. Do you expect these new general education classes to be any different? Even if students are forced to take these classes, will they learn anything? One can sit through any course, absorb the material being fed to them and regurgitate it back up on an exam while learning nothing. To learn, one must have a desire to learn. To form this desire, one must have an interest in the material.
If either of the two proposals to expand the general education requirements are accepted, undergraduate engineering majors will suffer greatly.
Niraj Shah
computer engineering juniorDave Ory
civil engineering junior
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