Life is hard for them. Students and faculty call them pointless and unimportant and fake. They are the least-loved, the butt of cruel jokes. The very mention of their name elicits rolled eyes at best, and a scoff at worst. Everyone demeans them; everyone points at them and ha-ha-has right in their face. Life is hard indeed for the courses that exist solely to fulfill distribution requirements.
We so wish to come to their defense. We so wish to say that, in the end, they left us wiser than before—better people even. How we wish to say those things! But are we lying to ourselves? Lying to them?
Maybe they deserve better after all they have given to us. Did they not save us from failing physics or chemistry? Were they not there for us in our time of need to stand in and fill a quantitative studies requirement? Did they not provide a safe-haven from arts, literature and performance or from ethical inquiries?
They did all of this for us, and still, we denigrate them, even deny our association with them out of shame.
A friend of mine used to tell his parents that he was off to biology class. This was half-true. It was a class in the biology department, but to call it biology is a slap in the face to those who have endured Bio 118: Genetics and Molecular Biology.
Throughout his semester in the course, my friend did some light reading and completed a single five-page essay. He and his classmates devised a schedule of who could skip class each week in order to send a semi-respectable contingent to sit before the professor (actually it was professors as the majority of weeks there was a guest lecturer). Needless to say, his parents were pleased to learn that he received an A in bio.
This course was an extreme example of the punch-line requirement-filler, but its existence illustrates the trouble with T-Reqs. As Trinity students, we must take classes in all the Areas of Knowledge. Few students, however, are interested in all of the five areas, and many would choose to avoid a particular area or two if given the choice. The result: Areas of Knowledge loophole-courses like the one I described above.
The Trinity College Web site’s stated purpose of the Areas of Knowledge requirement is “to expose Trinity College students to a broad array of course work in a variety of academic disciplines even as they concentrate their focus on the area of their major.” A noble purpose, I think we can agree, for a liberal arts education.
Certainly, there are courses that attract students who simply want to fulfill requirements that are interesting or somewhat academically rigorous. Perhaps some of these courses even excite students to further explore the subject matter. It is for these courses that the distribution requirement exists.
But seasoned ACES-users can find the path of least resistance through the Areas of Knowledge requirement with ease, and who can blame them? Few are so righteously devoted to the principles of T-Reqs as to suffer through two courses they are not interested in when there is an easy way out in the form of the requirement loophole-course.
Such courses undermine the purpose of the Areas of Knowledge requirement. They are, simply put, a waste of time—not only for students, but for everyone involved in the collective wink between students and faculty that brought them into existence.
On one hand, we are truly thankful these courses are available. No doubt there would be far more complaints about the Areas of Knowledge requirement if they did not exist. On the other hand, they are a farce. Perhaps they are good for a $200 question on Jeopardy! down the road, but that is a big perhaps.
The courses we take to fulfill distribution requirements should pass muster as academically substantive, or we should do away with the requirements altogether. There is no need to participate in an Areas of Knowledge charade.
Jordan Rice is a Trinity senior. His column runs every other Thursday.
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