One thing many Pierce students might ask themselves when looking at their major is “why is P.E. one of the requirements for what I want to do. I myself have also asked this, and I do not understand why it is a requirement.
The first, and easily the biggest arguing point against P.E. being a requirement is that a lot of fields here at Pierce do not require physical education. I myself am leaning on becoming a Psychology major, and being able to run a mile within a certain amount of time won’t help me at all when I’m working in the lab and taking a look at the brain.
Many other major fields, such as History, Chemistry, Mathematics, English, among countless others, just don’t warrant taking a full semester of P.E. when in the end you’re just going to do it once and never again. So why keep this as a requirement for all students?
Secondly, injuries that occur in P.E. can be debilitating for those who absolutely need to remain free of injury. A mechanic, for example, suffers an injury to their arm, meaning they now can’t use one arm for however many months it takes for it to heal, effectively costing them valuable time to work on the thing they actually care about. It’s just plain easier to avoid these injuries altogether by not requiring students to take physical education as mandatory.
In addition, the former advantage of being able to interact with people through P.E. is now completely outdated by today’s social media. It’s so much easier nowadays to find those who we find interesting by the way of Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and through others. Through them, you can communicate to them whenever you like, wherever you’d like, and however much you’d like.
Also, if you prefer to meet up with people in real life, you can do the exact same thing around campus. A lot of different classes force students to interact with one another, so students there can go and meet each other. This creates stronger friendships between them, as they met at something they both can relate at, a class which is actually important to them.
Lastly, the activities that physical education tries to teach are some things anyone can just ask for. If people want to go out and become better at running, swimming, or playing sports, they can go ask fitness instructors, or trainers in whatever they want to become better at. They can also do it on their accord when they want to, rather than being forced to take it as part of a college requirement.
All in all, I still don’t understand why P.E. is mandatory for students to take place of, and I hope something is done about this so that we can spend our time doing far more important things.
