Extortion

[RANDALL]

Hxtr suggested this should be a post, so I decided to start this topic. I'm a Senior in college, studying Mechanical Engineering and I have had to take completely useless courses that I feel are just ways to suck money out of kids. Like I said, I'm trying to be an engineer and I have had to take, for example, Hispanic Film Study, Ancient Rhetoric & Speechmaking, and Critical Cartography. These courses were required for the Honors College, but still, they were expensive and pointless. They claim they want well-rounded students with broad horizons, but those courses were stupid.

 

In the School of Engineering at Rutgers University, if you fail a course that is on your graduation checklist, you have to retake it and at least pass the course. An F from early courses are replaced on your transcript with the passing grade from retaking the course. I agree and accept that, BUT if you are a Junior or Senior and you fail a major-specific course, you still have to retake the course, but they won't replace the initial F on your transcript. THAT is bull shit. A student must devote another 3 months and thousands of dollars to pass the course to move on, but a Dean or administrator cannot take a few minutes to change a grade in the computer? EXTORTION. I have fallen victim to this. They claim it is policy, but thankfully I have a Dean that has at least one drop of compassion, unlike anyone else at my school, and agreed to help me out. Rutgers has two sub-campuses and the main campus. I transferred with my friends as a part of a specific program and we were registered for our courses up at the main campus for our first semester there two weeks before the school year began our Junior year. At that point, we were stuck with terrible professors and in addition to that, the work at the main campus was harder and taught differently than we were used to. We were screwed and it was easier for us, although more expensive, to fail the courses and retake them with better professors because otherwise we would have had to fight our hardest to just pass the courses.

[Masterlixx]

Its been quite a few years since i have gone to university.. but that practice was stopped all together at mine. No replacements.. you retake and the F stays as well

[little_old_man]

Unfortunately most colleges have policies similar to those and students have little choice but to take them.

 

I predict a big shake-up in the near future regarding required courses and the cost of a college education. Students are graduating with debt equal to a mortgage and it's getting more difficult to find jobs that pay enough to ever pay the loans off. Like many things in the US, something's gotta change.

[Bullet]

I hated taking gen ed courses as well and was told the same thing, "to give you a well rounded education". Although I did learn some interesting things in Humanistic Botany (they covered things like how to make beer and whiskey, morning glory seeds as a hallucinogenic, etc.). I was lucky though because I could work every summer, xmas and spring break and make enough to come out debt free. It was cheaper back then!