As high school students start their college searches, the tradition of core curriculum is usually a system they can’t escape. These days most colleges and universities want their students to be well-rounded and educated in areas other than their major. Quinnipiac’s initiative to educate their students across disciplines is certainly the norm, but the college experience should be more individually driven than Quinnipiac allows.

The need for English requirements is evident; writing is a basic skill that anyone who wants a job should have. A single requirement for math is also beneficial for any student in any major. But a science class with a lab or a general history class has no redeeming value with students whose career goals or interests don’t align with the subject.

Please forgive the generalization, but most students apply themselves minimally, receive a passing grade, and move on without taking anything away from these core classes. If these classes were tailored to a major, perhaps they would be better received.

Why must every student on this campus take a fine arts class, but only the business students learn about resume writing? The skill of crafting a resume is necessary for every student here, yet the basics of design composition is hardly useful for a student in the health sciences.

Perhaps beefing up the requirements inside a major or inside a specific college and shrinking the university-wide requirements would be more worthwhile for any given student.

Quinnipiac outlines its expectations for students in the Essential Learning Objectives, and the message is that students should leave their college years with the knowledge and skill required to exist in today’s society and “meet the demands of a 21st century world.”

If the people who design the requirements and create the learning objectives ever took SCI101L or AR103, they would see that these are not classes that prepare you for the real world nor the 21st century. They are classes for the sake of classes. A college education should take learning to the next level; focused, productive, and in the control of the student.