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General Studies

GENERAL STUDIES: MYTHS AND TRUTHS

There are several myths about a General Studies degree. One is that switching to a General Studies curriculum from another major will somehow allow a student to graduate earlier.  This is not necessarily true. As with any other curriculum switch, a student may lose or gain hours with each change. The outcome of a switch depends on several factors such as the time in a student's career when the switch is made.

Many students who consider changing majors to General Studies also find that they are required to take courses that they would not have taken in other major degree plans. For instance, General Studies requires that students take 6 hours of a foreign language; many other major degree plans do not. Also, General Studies students are required to have a minor; many other major degree plans do not.

What all of this is saying is that a B.G.S. is a degree all to its own, with certain strengths and weaknesses just like other degrees. For many students, understanding a degree's strength is as simple as understanding a chosen field. You know that after you graduate in history, history is your chosen field. You leave college assuming that the world of work and the professions will assume that your training is in history. Thus, there is a strength -- a presumption that you a "history person." But there is also a weakness -- the presumption that all you know is history.

So it is with General Studies. There are weaknesses with the degree and strengths, especially when others are interpreting what you supposedly know.

However, it is true that General Studies students, as a rule, are at a bit of a disadvantage from the start because they have no obvious major field of study, no "major name." A General Studies student must be ready for the question, "Just what is your degree in, anyway?"

How is a General Studies student to answer this question?

More than any other student, a General Studies student must give consideration to the degree itself, must be ready to explain the strengths and the concentration of knowledge to the outside world. This preparation is best done with a thorough understanding of what you've studied for four or five years. While the General Studies "capstone" course GENS410 (link to Syllabus GENS 410) is designed to help you understand your degree and to prepare for the world that awaits you after college, there are a few things you should think about before taking that course.

First, let's look at what you've been studying in order to see where your strengths lie.

Knowledge You Have as B.G.S. Graduates:

66 hours (59 hours remaining for electives and minor for a total of 125 hours)

After taking a close look at your studies, you can see that you have "majored" in a general university education. You have also chosen to concentrate in a certain field to the extent that you have a "minor" in that field.

What you may not realize is that your "general university major" has another name at other schools. At many universities, students can major in an area called "Liberal Arts." A Liberal Arts major is someone who can be presumed to have liberal arts as a field of study.

After leaving a university, liberal arts majors are ready to find jobs where communication and problem-solving skills are needed. They are ready to find jobs where employers are looking for all-around "university thinkers."

Let's take a closer look at what a Liberal Arts major is.


Definition of Liberal Arts

Liberal Arts: studies in the humanities, mathematics, and the social and natural sciences as distinct from professional or technical subjects.

Not only is there a dictionary definition of liberal arts, there is also a website designed by people who think that a strong liberal arts degree is the very essence of a valuable college education. The influence of this kind of thinking is found at most universities because all students are required to take "core courses" in liberal arts in order to graduate. All students at Nicholls do just that. All students are required to take "General Education" courses. These courses are based in the liberal arts.

Thus, it might be said that a General Studies graduate has majored in an overall university education based on the liberal arts curriculum.

Those of you who are interested should click on the website below and visit the national liberal arts site for the  organization known as The American Association for Liberal Education. The words found there will help General Studies students explain the strengths of their degree.

www.aale.org

The pages that follow are taken from this website. Take a look at what is being said. Your liberal arts degree comes with skills that many many employers are looking for.

From "What Good is a Liberal Education? The AALE's (The American Association for Liberal Education) New Assessment Model"

The Academy's Mission, General Education and Curriculum, and Teaching and Educational Resources standards seek to ensure that accredited institutions provide their students with the educational means and opportunities essential for developing the characteristics of a liberally educated person. The Academy's unique Liberal Learning Assessment standards invite institutions to reflect and report on the ways their educational programs actually foster the growth and flourishing of such characteristics in their students. Chief among these characteristics are the ability to reason and communicate effectively, possession of a certain breadth and depth of knowledge, and a love of learning.

The Academy's Liberal Learning Assessment standards do not prescribe specific methods or instruments for assessing student learning. They seek, instead, to identify certain key characteristics of intellectual and personal achievement in liberal learning - Effective Reasoning, Broad and Deep Learning, and the Inclination to Inquire - and then to suggest some clear indicators or criteria of achievement. These characteristics, along with their associated indicators and criteria, should be recognizable across a broad spectrum of liberal education models.

Standard One - Effective Reasoning

An education in the liberal arts always seeks to develop students' abilities to recognize and to think clearly about important issues and questions. The ability to reason effectively includes certain foundational skills or abilities (e.g., fluency in reading, writing, and oral communication, mastery of the basic principles of logical, mathematical, and scientific reasoning), as well as higher-order capacities for formulating, analyzing, integrating, and applying arguments and information.

Standard Two - Broad and Deep Learning

A liberally educated person should possess a rich fund of meaningful knowledge, as well as the ability to compare and integrate new or different areas of knowledge in fruitful ways. An institution's general education curriculum should impart a broad foundational knowledge of the various liberal arts and sciences. Students should also experience the depth of learning that comes from a sustained, progressive exploration of the distinct modes of inquiry belonging to one or more of the major disciplines. Through such studies or their equivalents, students acquire the ability to relate disparate parts of the curriculum to one another, as well as to integrate knowledge gained across different fields of study.

Standard Three - The Inclination to Inquire

An education in the liberal arts and sciences is more than the mere accumulation of knowledge and skills. It fosters and encourages the student's desire for seeking out and acquiring important knowledge and skills, both for their own sake and for the good they contribute to our common and individual lives. For this reason, a disposition for asking incisive and insightful questions and for pursuing enriching and useful skills is perhaps the surest sign of a liberally educated mind.

Effective Reasoning:

The student should demonstrate:

Broad and Deep Learning:

The student should show:

The Inclination to Inquire

The student should demonstrate:

Resume Writing

Resumes generally stress a person's education in light of specific skills and areas of intense study. The skills for General Studies students are those skills listed by the The American Association for Liberal Education. Students who stress these skills on their resumes will find that employers  are always looking for "liberal arts people." Sometimes, students might have to show employers the proper way to interpret a liberal- arts-based resume. But that's the purpose of all resumes: It's the student's responsibility to show that they have what employers and companies are looking for.

A General Studies student is ready to put communication and problem-solving skills to work. Show them what you have. Be proud of what you have.