People spend years in college studying a subject in hopes of getting paid a good amount of money to work in that specific field for the rest of their life.
After all those years of hard work, a piece of paper saying the student has become an expert at what they studied is given. Those general education classes that they had to take, which had nothing to do with their major become irrelevant, or simply, a waste of two years.
English majors will never need to know about symmetric polynomials, just as math majors will never need to know about a Shakespearean sonnets’ use of iambic pentameter.
They will, however, need to know how to file for a mortgage, how to fix a leak in a sink, how to change a tire, how to do their taxes or anything to do with healthcare.
If college is a school for adults, it certainly doesn’t teach you how to be one.
Pierce should have a program teaching students the necessary life skills needed beyond college.
It may be difficult adopting a “Life Skills” class as part of the typical college curriculum, a fail in the class could be a misapprehension and interpreted as ‘you’re a failure at life’, or ‘you get an A because you did your taxes better than your classmates.’ It would seem rather ridiculous. Instead Pierce should adopt a program where there is no letter grade.
It could be once a week for one to three hours around the late afternoon, making it convenient for the younger students who typically have earlier classes.
The program could also to teach the young students about conducting a professional social media presence. According to careerbuilder.com, 51 percent of employers who have researched job candidates on social media have found content that caused them to not hire applicants, up from 43 percent last year.
Each week, something different could be studied and there could be a schedule of what skills are learned one week and what is learned the next. For example, Week one, April 18, “How To File A Mortgage,” week two, April 25, “How To Repair A Flat Tire.”
Each week the scheduled classes will attract a new and different audience for those who just want to learn about the basics of healthcare for one week and those who want to repair the kitchen sink the next.
It would be a non-committed program. Sign-ups early on would not be required. This way there is no extra step into building popularity for the program. If the turnout is good and popularity increases, then having sign-ups would be mandatory.
As far as finding an instructor, Pierce could pay one of their own professors extra to teach the class for one day like an instructor in the automobile department, or a professor who teaches in one of the finance classes.
After you have graduated college and have earned a degree in your field, you may not ever have to remember learning about linear regression. Instead, you will probably have a better time remembering how to fix the kitchen sink, which you learned how to do in a few hours.