The object of education is not to teach you individual concepts, but to teach you to think. Some types of thinking can only be learned within a certain framework.

I was a hard-core science person most of my young life. During my first year of collage, I was required to take a humanities course. I had no interest in reading old Greek stories or French novels. However I was fortunate that the person teaching the introductory course was not the normal graduate student, but a full professor with almost 30 years of teaching experience. Later I found out she would comb thru the students records looking for hard-core science types and select some for a “special” course. She believed that to be a fully functioning, thinking person, one needed to have the broadest possible exposure to life.

At first I was force-fed books like the Iliad, and similar “old stories”, and she knew how to force. When we got to a point where we had a bit of the stories down, she began the “real” course. The stories were just a way to introduce another culture but the education was about “the human condition”. She introduced us to cultures that we could not have imagined and helped us to see the world from their view.

My brain exploded. We learned about cultures that had no leaders, yet functioned very well, cultures where everyone believed that they were gods, that all around them was what Christians would call heaven. Nature cultures and war cultures. Primitive and modern. I managed to work in one of her courses each semester as long as I was at that university. I might add that it was a state run school and I was on the GI Bill. No way I could have afforded college with out that.

Then there was the language requirement. I was a science major, why did I need a language. I chose Spanish only because I had a bit of exposure to it in Florida’s Cuban community. I managed to get through it, but it was of no “value”. I taught my daughter a few words and we had a bit of fun with it. Then she decided to take some time off after high school and travel. A year in Ecuador for her and several trips down for my wife and myself. I dusted off a poor skill and tried to live in a very different culture. Now I travel in Mexico without difficulty and my daughter works almost exclusively in Spanish, although she lives in Maine. This august, she will travel to Nicaragua to help war widows start a chicken farm. Why did I need to learn a language? There was no way to know when I did it, but it obviously had an impact on my life.

And one more. English Composition. ARRRGGhhhh! I had no use for it. But again, I found that there was value in things that I could not comprehend, until I had exposure to the subject. I later discovered that although my jobs were technical, communication of ideas was very important. Especially as I moved up in management. The ability to express my thoughts in a clear and concise way has greatly enhanced my ability to communicate my ideas to others. But it is not just a one-way thing. It has also helped me to understand others. I can probe around the ideas of others better, by being able to structure questions clearly and directly. I can get the information I desire, even if the speaker is prone to ”stream of consciousness” babble.

The point of all this is that there is a reason that educators have chosen specific required courses. You may not understand why, and in fact, they may do you no good. But you will get exposure to things that you would otherwise never experience. The courses are chosen in an attempt to give you a broader exposure to life. To make you think in ways you would otherwise avoid. What you do with that experience is up to you.