tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439168179960787195.post5074071068770121459..comments2024-03-28T17:13:01.117+10:00Comments on Condensed concepts: Should course pre-requisites be enforced?Ross H. McKenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09950455939572097456noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439168179960787195.post-66567646642866984822015-10-05T21:32:40.766+10:002015-10-05T21:32:40.766+10:00Dear Steve,
Thanks for sharing your experience an...Dear Steve,<br /><br />Thanks for sharing your experience and expressing you view.<br />I particularly appreciate your idealism.<br /><br />My only moderating response is that we need to acknowledge that this issue has to be worked out in the context of the institution: its resources and the quality of its students. It sounds like you were at a "high end" institution. <br />Stanford, San Jose State, University of Queensland, and University of Lagos are not the same! I don't think the same policy is going to be realistic or workable for all of them.Ross H. McKenziehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09950455939572097456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5439168179960787195.post-59659786230395904672015-09-25T04:22:49.207+10:002015-09-25T04:22:49.207+10:00I have a pretty strong opinion on this. :)
At the...I have a pretty strong opinion on this. :)<br /><br />At the institution where I did my undergraduate degree, the major programs (chemistry/physics/whatever) were pretty highly structured, and the programs themselves had many required courses. Only about 10-20% of courses were free to choose by the student, depending on your program.<br /><br />This meant that it was relatively rare for a student to e.g. try taking biochemistry without taking the requisite organic chemistry, because BOTH courses were already required by the overall program. Since the number of elective courses was somewhat low, taking courses well outside your area of knowledge was less prominent - students would rather sit in and listen to lectures rather than take the courses officially.<br /><br />If you wanted to take a course without having the prerequisite, you needed specific permission of the instructor, and also your program advisor, which meant the rare cases where this was requested were considered on a case-by-case basis. Most students who went through the whole process had good reason, so the decisions were easy, and not laborious for the instructors. By far the most common reason for such an override was because the student had taken a course SIMILAR to the prerequisite, but perhaps in a different department (e.g. calculus for math majors vs. physics majors). Motivated students could still take courses without even equivalent prerequisites (and I did), but always with a strong warning, "At your own risk - don't ask for extra help - you are responsible." <br /><br />There was also a rule that all courses added beyond your normal program load were free of cost. This meant that you could take (or officially audit) any number of extra courses completely for free. Instead of taking a physics course without calculus, and suffer the extra workload of learning on their own, students were encouraged to take the calculus in a previous semester as an extra course for free, and benefit from an actual instructor. <br /><br />Personally, I think this is a good system. I don't see the motivation for undergraduate students to skip prerequisite courses anyway. What is to be gained? This only creates gaps in their knowledge, and most undergrads are not mature enough in their careers to identify what knowledge they will need later (either during their degree or after). There is too strong a temptation to skip "hard" courses if they don't seem useful at the time. Perhaps a high grade in biochemistry is possible without organic, but can you say the same for solid state physics without the requisite statistical mechanics? Are undergrads knowledgeable enough to make such choices?<br /><br />Overall, the purpose of any undergrad degree is to get a broad base of knowledge that is, in some sense, standardized - employers and academics have an expectation of the students' knowledge if they obtain a certain degree, or have a certain course on their transcript. It is usually to the benefit of the students to take the courses that are "suggested" by the prerequisites, because this is what the world expects them to know. Getting a good grade in a specific course is not the ultimate metric that you are measured by. Steve Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15767299905748676344noreply@blogger.com