The Intersegmental General Education Transfer Curriculum (IGETC) education plan makes it difficult for a student to transfer to a UC or CSU because students can lose interest in college.
The current IGETC plan either shouldn’t be required for students to follow or needs to be hugely reworked. The IGETC plan has seven areas that contain a whole mess of courses students need to not only take, but pass with a satisfactory letter grade.
Area 5A is the “Physical Science” section in the IGETC plan and it contains Astronomy, Chemistry, Oceanography, and other physical science courses. For instance, if a student is an English major and took a chemistry course, does the student really need to know the elements of the periodic table? This can lead to the student to not be interested in the course and the student is taking the course in order to transfer.
According to livescience.com, 75 percent of students reported that they are bored at school because the material being taught at school is not interesting. It’s a waste of time and money for students who take unnecessary classes they don’t need.
Rather than an English major taking physical science courses, the student should instead take courses that support their major.
Instead of chemistry, a student could take more writing classes such as journalism or philosophy.
Sure, there are areas that contain English and writing classes, but why not just replace all the unnecessary courses with classes that aid the student’s major? This would help boost interest in students.
They would be taking classes they enjoy and need for their major. According to Scholarships.com, the first main tip for passing college classes is to “take classes you’re interested in.” Students take classes in high school and some of the courses are similar to the IGETC plan.
According to the AP Students website, the high school AP Chemistry course shares identical ideas and science practices to the “Chemistry 101” (General Chemistry I) course at Pierce College.
When students are not interested in a class, they lose motivation and the desire to learn. This can lead students to fail the class, then not completing the IGETC plan and finally not even being able to transfer and complete their major.
According to The Brown Daily Herald, a student survey was taken and shows “38 percent of students drop their courses because the course is not relevant long-term.”
If a student struggles in a particular subject, they wouldn’t choose their major that involves that difficult course. Suppose a student struggles in “Area 5A” in the IGETC plan which is the “physical science” courses.
If the current IGETC plan stays active, then more and more students will be taking irrelevant courses. Some students may never be able to transfer just because unnecessary courses exist in the IGETC plan.
The IGETC plan can be reworked by just by removing courses that students don’t need and instead make students take courses that are similar to their college major so students can enjoy the courses they are taking. The required units to transfer should still be 60 units, but those 60 units of classes should be specified courses for the student’s pathway.
