#44367: Brad R. — 10/18  at  07:32 AM

That's right, she's a journalism major. The future of American media. She complains about having to learn math, history, chemistry, and having to read books in English class.

To be fair here (I go to J-school myself), I had plenty of science major friends who whined about having to take English and philosophy classes...

#44368: — 10/18  at  07:32 AM
I certainly hope that was supposed to be funny.. Obviously, she can write in complete sentences, I'm sure she can multiply, I would hope she can give general information about the sciences, and she atleast knows what the periodic table is..

She picks all that stuff up, but doesn't realize it. In any case, I think HS just prepares you for college. College prepares you for your careers.

#44370: Reed A. Cartwright — 10/18  at  07:37 AM
When I was an undergrad there was a study of the students on campus that found that buisness majors were the ones most likly to say that they shouldn't have to take classes outside their majors. The second highest, education majors.

#44372: — 10/18  at  07:49 AM
Go go Idiot America.

We should take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

#44373: Kristine Harley — 10/18  at  07:56 AM
If I were an editor at Glamour Magazine, I would confront her at her interview about this opinion piece and her whiny, it's-not-my-fault-I-flunked self-absorption, and ask her whose fault it would be if she didn't complete an assignment because she waited until 2 a.m. the night before deadline to write it, or didn't want to wait in the rain for some spoiled celebrity who's always late, etc.

One English nerd and I really got into it when I was in college about having to take science and math classes. I told him that he might find these courses valuable. He finally yelled at me for being a "cold" science freak. I bit back the suggestion that he use his math assignments as inspiration for his poetry. Some weeks later he came to me and said, "You were right. I wrote a poem about the square root of negative one."

#44374: Bartholomew — 10/18  at  07:56 AM
Actually, one of the reasons I disliked science at school was because it was sold to us as being "useful". The only way to rebel was to prefer the humanities...

#44379: John Timmer — 10/18  at  08:07 AM
Any person in science who's complaining about the humanities classes they have to take is phenomenally shortsighted. The ability to write using properly constructed and compelling english and the ability to generate cogent arguments in favor of your approaches and results are both critical for success in academic science (maybe industry, too - i've not worked there). It sounds as if they never considered that writing a decent grant might be important...

#44384: — 10/18  at  08:28 AM
I can agree with that comment about Business majors not liking to take non-major courses. Based on ancedotal evidence of course, I find Business majors to be the most anti-intellectual of all students. Ever notice how so many of those Creationists are accountants, real estate agents, salesmen, etc.? Why is that? Maybe anti-intellectuals are drawn to business programs because they find them the least offensive to their views.

My university is math/engineering oriented and doesn't even have a real business program (thank god, there's too many B-Schools as it is) But I know one business student from another school whose an ardent YEC, the only YEC I've ever met, and he doesn't like the idea of taking science or math classes, hell he doesn't even like his economics classes and that's social science!
I also remember in high school a lot of the future business students complaining about having to take Calculus. I'm sure all business students aren't like this but it seems like a lot of them are.

#44390: Ronald Brak — 10/18  at  08:38 AM
I didn't understand why we had English classes in school. I didn't see how they would help us to obey orders without question. It never occured to me that the purpose of education might not be to learn to obey orders without question, but then I did go to a religous school.

#44391: — 10/18  at  08:40 AM
I'm going to send that link off to my son, who's doing a bit of a Eng. lit/writing major at a college not too far from Iowa.....

Even as a dumb techie, I can still manage to write better than this erstwhile "journalist", who appears to have a limited vocabulary, and difficulty constructing a sentence with more than one clause (and further expecting her to express any thoughts beyond self-absorbed adolescent whining would, I suppose, be considered unreasonably demanding). I probably acquired what writing skills I possess by doing a lot of that "silent reading" she so despises (a lot, though by no means all, of that reading being in those boring scientifical subjects she loathes). Moreover, I did most of that reading because I enjoyed it, not because the English teacher made me . But we know that Ms. Iowa Idiot was too busy partying and hanging out, and just being generally "cool" to waste time on such nerdly pursuits.

In short, what impresses me (ie. in a bad way) about that piece is, not only her contempt for any knowledge beyond the bare technical minimum of her vocation, but her marginal competence even at that vocation. The whole thing is so poorly written that it alone should constitute grounds for putting her on academic probation.

The great journalists are both good writers and well-educated: they've got something worth saying and the skills to say it compellingly. Ms. Idiot appears to have neither -- but maybe one doesn't need them to write for the fashion/celeb/sex/lifestyle rags like Glamour.

#44392: — 10/18  at  08:49 AM
My vote is for satire. I think a major clue is the shallow sounding 'Glamour magazine'. Ha. No, once you realize it's satire I think it's pretty good.

#44394: — 10/18  at  08:52 AM
I ended up writing the author an email. The main point I provided was that college should teach one how to appriciate and (at least somewhat) enjoy any topic one is confronted with. If you don't have the ability to take different views on issues, all you really are is a robot. A short-sighted robot, which seems to be Idiot America, wanting more to be sure what to do and think that be right.

#44396: — 10/18  at  08:56 AM
I don't think its satire. I can usually pick up on satire pretty well but this really seems like something someone would actually believe. There are a lot of teenaged girls who want to work at those magazines and hang out with hollywood celebrities all day, this letter seems pretty realisitc. If it is satire it is extremely subtle.

#44397: — 10/18  at  08:59 AM

My vote is for satire.

It would be nice if you're right, though selfishly I hope you're wrong because otherwise I just made a fool of myself (however, I'm in good company). Doesn't seem over-the-top enough to be satire (and Glamour does exist -- it's one of those grocery-checkout glossies that tells women how to dress, do their makeup, hair, dating strategies, etc. Um...that's just based on reading the cover, of course....)

#44398: — 10/18  at  09:00 AM
I’m getting a M.F.A. in science writing at Hopkins, and I am not embarrassed (from this point forward) to admit that Iowa turned me down for their J-School program.

Good journalism is suffering because science writing or writing about science is in steep decline.

#44400: — 10/18  at  09:07 AM
On the bright side, her name is permanently attached to it and it is certain to appear when any minimally competent employer googles her.

Enjoy your future job interviews, Stacy!

#44402: — 10/18  at  09:13 AM
I wouldn't worry about her future employement prospects. I'm sure a lot of the newspaper/magazine editors today would agree with her position completely.

#44403: Pat Kirby — 10/18  at  09:18 AM
The second highest, education majors.

In grad school, I taught introductory science labs. My worst students? Education majors. Not only did they whine the most about the workload--nonexistent, really; show up and do the exercises; leave--but they lacked basic math skills. When explaining relative humidity, I found that they didn't even understand ratios.

Following closely in the idiocy were those majoring in journalism, criminal justice, communication, and yes, business.

#44411: — 10/18  at  09:37 AM
From the article Not only did the gen-ed classes waste my time and money, but they also hurt my GPA. Being forced to take classes makes them less interesting. If they aren't interesting, you won't do well in them. Statistics and astronomy bored me, so I opted not to attend class and neglected to study for them.

How is this fair? I shouldn't have to give up my dream of working at Glamour magazine because my GPA was low - all because of some stupid gen-ed classes that I was forced to take. Let's just get rid of them.

Even the best Jobs have parts that are uninteresting and just plain boring but they still need to be done and it says a lot about her that she was only willing to work at the stuff that interested her, an attitude that reduces her employability.

#44418: — 10/18  at  09:49 AM

In grad school, I taught introductory science labs. My worst students? Education majors. Not only did they whine the most about the workload--nonexistent, really; show up and do the exercises; leave--but they lacked basic math skills. When explaining relative humidity, I found that they didn't even understand ratios.

In fairness to the education majors, I bet a lot of them were student teaching. And not student teaching bright young 19 year olds, but ordinary elementary and middle school kids. My wife's done it and it's unspeakably exhausting. So if you're doing whip-and-a-chair duties with a room full of rowdy 10 year olds several hours a week, with the goal of becoming a public school English teacher, I can sympathize with the feeling that a mandatory science lab was causing you way more grief than it was ever going to benefit you. However, this is not the same thing as some whiny bimbo saying she shouldn't have had to take any classes outside her specialization during high school.

And I can assure you, something hard science types forget, lots of very smart people are bad at math. I took remedial math all thru high school, and yet I still got a PhD in linguistics at a major university, and published my dissertation 8 years later. The fact that I forgot how to do long division some time during the 80's (and still can't remember) has had no bearing on my career.

Trackback: Erm, yes Tracked on: The Liferaft of Love (72.9.234.70) at 2005 10 18 09:53:57
In particular, this criticism is a little unfair. The stuff aimed at Stacey Perk, the University of Iowa student who dislikes general education classes because they make her brain hurt and damage her grade point average, but the implication that the ...

#44425: Les Lane — 10/18  at  10:11 AM

On the bright side, her name is permanently attached to it and it is certain to appear when any minimally competent employer googles her.

Not to worry - she'll work for a non-Googler.

#44426: — 10/18  at  10:12 AM
Oh yes, the horror of needing to be able to write.... English.

The difficulty of having to be able to learn to assimilate, digest, and then present organized thoughts on disparate subjects.

The incredible unfairness of having to apply oneself to achieve one's dreams.


Yes, why oh why should life require that of a journalist? It's just so darn unfair.....




But have no fear Stacey, the future is now! These traits already seem out of favour in the media so don't give up your dreams of a long career in the hard-hitting world of discussing celebrity hemlines.

If it could happen to half the hacks out there, it could happen to you too!

#44431: KathyF — 10/18  at  10:17 AM
Actually, she should consider moving to the UK, where students are tracked by the time they reach high school (even earlier, sometimes, for ability) and there's no useless gen-ed classes required in college. Somehow they manage, though.

#44432: — 10/18  at  10:17 AM
You know, I remember having a similar feeling in high school, only it was outrage that I was being graded on how fast I could run, or how many pull-ups I could do.

To be fair, I was right that I would never need to use algebra or calculus again. But I could have, and I knew that at the time. I ended up as an arts major, and now I'm a librarian, and yet my favorite non-fiction books are about science. I realise that's a personal quirk, but how one could want to be a journalist, and have no interest in any of the fields that a journalist would be expected to cover is unfathomable.

Also, in defense of the education majors (having been an education major at one point, and having a mother and a sister who are teachers), the real problem is not the "useless" courses that you're required to take outside of your major, but the vastly greater number of completely worthles work required within your major. If anyone ever needed an example of unintelligent design, your local College of Education would be it.