problems aren't solutions

I'm a bioengineering major. The bioengineering program was only in its second year when I entered as a freshman, and as a result, our requirements for graduation were not particularly stable. Every semester, as it came time to enroll for new classes, we'd invariably get an email from our department advisor, telling us about new requirements that were being added, or old requirements that were being changed.

So it was that some semesters I was taking mechanical engineering classes, and then a couple in chemistry, and then the semester where we took our classes with electrical engineers and pre-med students. We all understood the intent. They wanted us to be as well-rounded as possible, and bioengineering was a huge field.

For some of us, that knowledge was enough. They were trying their best. Some of us, however, felt lost and confused. I picked my concentration of bioinformatics shortly after I got to college. I'd been debating between the bioengineering major and computer science since I first started applying to colleges, so picking the concentration that was a blend of the two seemed only natural.

Completing my concentration required five courses outside of the bioengineering core, two of them background math to help with the higher level courses, one a programming class for the same reason. I only actually had to take two bioinformatics courses, despite it being my concentration, what I'd claimed I wanted to base my life around.

I had to take three difference chemistry courses, and four in the mechanical engineering core. My course requirements stated that, for all that I'd declared by concentration to be in bioinformatics, I was going to take more classes two other different colleges than I was in bioinformatics at all.

I wasn't a particularly special case. Pretty much everyone had similar complains. The ones who wanted to be material scientists wondered why they were dissecting rabbits and the biomechanics people wanted to know why they were required to be able to build and EEG and know the theory behind it (four seperate courses taught this material.)

We did it, because we didn't have a choice, but I don't think very many of us were happy about it.

I know, Bioengineering is somewhat of a special case, but it highlighted for me a couple of problems that I think a lot of college curriculums face.

First of all, I really did take three different chemistry classes. The material in them, however, probably could have been covered in less than two semesters. We had a lot of overlap. I learned how to build an EEG from scratch twice, and a lot of the rules of physics we got again and again too. I had to take differential equations my freshman year, but by the time we got to the classes that used them (sophomore, junior, and senior years) our professors had (perhaps rightfully) decided that we'd forgotten what we'd learned in that class, and spent a couple of weeks just catching us up on the math.

There is a lot of repetition in a lot of course requirements. And it makes sense, in terms of hammering basic, essential skills into a student's head. But I'm a bioinformaticist. I program computers in my spare time. A lot fo the stuff that my curriculum spent a couple of years hammering into my head is not, and will never be, an essnetial basic skill for me. Am I happy for the exposure? Yes. It was interesting the first time. Was I happy to learn it twice more? No. Why did I need to learn this so badly again?

My other "big issue" cropped up when I decided to take a second major. All of my previously "free electives" were filled up trying to fit a second set of degree requirements. I took four or five classes from one of two technical cores every semester. Opportunities popped up. Did I want to take this cool project course? How about this one on design? How about an indepedent study on leadership? Intuitive user interfaces? I did, in fact. I had the prerequisites. I'd learned enough at this point to know that leadership, project management, design, and user interfaces were going to be key to my success in the professional world.

Did I take any of them? No. I was too busy taking my thrid chemistry class, thermodynamics for the second time, and an "advanced" computer architecture course, even though I never cared about the innards workings of the computer in the first place. It was, to say the least, incredibly frustrating.

None of this suggests a solution.

I don't think the solution is cutting classes across the board. Maybe differntial equations and three chem classes weren't useful for me, but they were for someone else. In my ideal world, the "solution" is an extremely heavy emphasis on personalized curriculum, and dedicated academic advisors that make sure the personalizations make sense and offer great advice. The problem with this being that that's incredibly unrealistic and next to impossible to scale.

I think, in the end, as much as I don't want to say this, that the colleges are trying to do the best they can, and probably succeeding. I don't like it, and I'm frustrated a lot, but the entire University doesn't revolve around me. In the real world, there are limited resources. In the real world, everything isn't fair and perfect.

I've gotten what I needed out of college by supplmenting my curriculum with extracurriculars and the two electives I was able to take. It's not ideal, but it worked, and I learned a lot. I still think there's a problem, but lacking a solution, I'm not sure that it's fair for me to demand that something changes.