Ashley Steinberg: More requirements means well-rounded students

Students at America's top universities often gripe about having to fulfill requirements in a variety of categories to graduate. English majors bemoan their environmental science seminars, and physics majors detest their Writing Workshops, annoyed that they must study a subject in which they are not interested. Their grumbling is unjustified: Instead, they should be grateful that they are forced to build a broad base of knowledge.

Their counterparts at British educational institutions like Oxford and Cambridge universities apply and are accepted to study one subject, and only one subject, for the duration of their undergraduate education. This means that a student cannot wake up one morning halfway through his undergraduate educations and decide to seriously study criminology, or oceanography, or Italian cinema.

Though it leads to an in-depth understanding of a subject, specialization at prestigious British universities is limiting for students who are interested in more than one area. One cannot study both biology and English or art and French. The consequence is that students must choose between them, and this is a difficult decision, especially if the subjects do not overlap.

The underlying assumption is that students know, and are qualified to know, what they want to study before they even apply to college. This overlooks the possibility that students will want to change their minds once they explore a little further and ignores the distinction between knowing that one wants to study and know what one wants to study.

Specialization also precludes the random discovery of a new intellectual interest; it becomes almost impossible to stumble across something outside the narrow purview of one's own subject and pursue it academically. Unearthing a newfound love for geology or folklore, and having access to its academic channels, simply cannot occur at Oxford or Cambridge, where students are prohibited from taking courses unrelated to their subjects.

In the American system, however, students can and often do have their interests piqued by a class initially taken to fulfill a requirement. This underscores a lovely principle: The college years are a time for exploring and growing, discovering what is stimulating and what is not, trying things on for size and discarding that which does not quite fit.

The philosophy of American education also signals that there is much to learn from people whose interests do not match one's own. The opportunity to take classes in a range of subjects is beneficial to more than just the fraternity boy looking to meet girls in a Women's Studies course. As classes are comprised of students from many disciplines, the contributions they make differ, and the exchange of ideas adds vibrancy and freshness to the course.

It is true that the centuries-old relic of specialization helps students learn a subject more fully, but the broader context is neglected. The exclusive focus on one area does not allow for making intellectual connections across separate realms.

Synthesizing information and recognizing how knowledge intersects is vital to intellectual growth. Subjects complement each other and impart a sense of perspective. For example, a student taking both an astronomy course and a photography course will understand the concept of light in a uniquely complex way.

The point is that subjects that are pedagogically separated are often tied by common intellectual strings, and the more one knows about everything, the better one can know how a something fits into an anything. The American system suggests that the big picture matters. That events and ideas fit into a larger narrative. That open-mindedness, perspective and learning how to learn new information is as important as knowing facts and theories.

The opposite is total expertise in one subject without reference to how it fits in to the larger political, economic, cultural and social landscape. This is impractical and outdated in the Information Age because, as the forces of globalization intensify and our world grows smaller, the capacity to forge connections with people all over the world is becoming all the more important. Knowing a little bit about a lot makes it easier to connect with people at meetings, conferences, even parties.

The requirement that students dabble in a range of disciplines ultimately makes them more complete people. An ability to see the bigger picture and to relate to others is valuable currency, and a system that allows its students to learn only one subject in such intellectually formative years does them a disservice. Though British students studying literature will know Bronte and Byron and Beckett better than their American counterparts, American students will, at the very least, be much more interesting to sit next to at dinner parties.

Guest columnist Ashley Steinberg is a College senior from Boca Raton, Fl. Her e-mail address is mashley@sas.upenn.edu.

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