Specialized Education versus General Education

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Disadvantages of General Education
Benefits of General Education
Advantages Specialized Education
Transition to Specialized Education
Conclusion
Works Cited

Introduction

In a general education system also known as liberal education, college students take many courses in a major subject and fewer courses in a minor subject. The liberal education system aims at providing general knowledge to the student and improving their intellectual abilities as opposed to specialized training that focuses on developing specialized professionals or technical people. In most cases, under the general education system students pursue related major and minor subjects to develop an all-rounded person.

However, sometimes the curriculum forces the students to pursue unrelated subject combinations, which fails to prepare the students adequately for employment. Specialized education on the other hand focuses on training students on one major field with fewer elective courses offered.

In addition, specialized education focused on a single discipline produces professionals with proper skills giving them an advantage over liberal education-trained students in the job market. In order to make a transition from liberal education to specialized education, implementation of policies that promote technical and work-related training is important.

Disadvantages of General Education

I do not support the general education system offered at undergraduate level in colleges. First, the courses that one is forced to take are not directly related to the student’s major subject of study. Usually, the students choose one major subject comprising of many courses and a major subject that includes fewer courses (Pascarella and Terenzini 152). The two combinations might be so different making it difficult for the student to perform better on the two subjects.

Additionally, I believe that elective courses not directly related to one’s subject of study contribute to poor performance by students. In a general education, understanding the major subject effectively is a challenge, as students have to spend a lot of time studying the elective courses or the minor subject. This phenomenon contributes to decline in performance of students in their major disciplines resulting to poor grades.

In addition, students often find it difficult to cope with extensive study required when they pursue many disciplines leading to increased incidences of college dropouts (Winter and McClelland 47). Although most people argue that elective courses enable students acquire skills on diverse areas, I think liberal education lacks integrated general programs making it difficult for the students to acquire relevant experiences within the program.

Students pursuing interdisciplinary programs at college level often lack a proper foundation of the courses they study. Selecting unrelated course combinations by students gives them a superficial understanding of a subject, which makes them not to effectively compete with their specialized education counterparts in the job market. Furthermore, students pursuing a particular subject lack a unified intellectual experience which a rises when students select different minor courses in addition to their major subject.

According to Berube and Nelson, general education requires that students pursue diverse and unrelated courses often from different faculties or departments (141), which make general education expensive, as it requires many different resources in terms of time and money to accomplish. In addition, it requires that a student spend more time learning the different subjects, which prolongs the duration of study in college and has financial implications. Finally, a combined course that includes many diverse elective units is difficult to grade.

Benefits of General Education

Despite the evident limitations of general education particularly on the student pursuing liberal education, it plays a role in molding students to be better citizens (Berube 43). General education provides a well-rounded training to student, which prepares them better to face challenges in the outside world. It promotes the student’s intellectual and cognitive skills by teaching them life skills. In addition, a general education primarily serves as a foundation for the students to pursue specialized study later.

The general education also provides valuable workplace skills including critical thinking and social skills, which allows people to act on reflection rather than on emotions. Some general education programs prepare students for the workplace through courses such as communication skills and work ethics. In addition, general education allows students to share a common intellectual experience and understand concepts between closely related disciplines.

Advantages Specialized Education

Specialized education focuses on a particular subject as opposed to the many diverse courses studied under a general education system. In a specialized education, the students study a specific subject of their choice making them better prepared for the workplace. Specialized education also entails students studying elective units that mould them effectively.

However, the number of elective courses under specialized education is fewer than in general education. Focusing on one major discipline means that the subject is studied more deeply as more time is available as opposed to the congested programs under a general education, which results to highly skilled professionals who greatly contribute to the development of the society.

In a specialized education, the workload for the student is less as compared to a general education. The number of units per subject is also reduced resulting to a reduction in the number of semesters covered to complete the program meaning that less resources and time are required to pursue a specialized training than a general training and thus affordable to majority of the students. In addition, the level of training is high in specialized training thus giving students an advantage in the job market.

In addition to the focused nature of the specialized educational programs, specialized education usually offers exposure on work-related experience to their students. According to Carnochan, the exposure allows the students to be better prepared for the work environment and gives them a competitive edge over their general education counterparts (112). Specialized education offers an opportunity to students to pursue their preferred profession without wasting time and resources learning unrelated courses.

In colleges, specialized training facilitates the administration of the courses and simplifies the learning process. The courses offered when a student majors in a particular subject are all from the same faculty and this promotes the learning experience, as the students are able to have a common and integrated learning experience, which contribute to better grades.

In addition, the grading and teaching process is simplified when the courses offered are from the same faculty unlike when the courses are diverse like under the general education system (Walvoord and Anderson 56). The specialized education offers a more focused training that helps to lay a foundation for graduate training in the same field. It also offers a wide range of specialized subjects that students can pursue at graduate level.

Transition to Specialized Education

In colleges and universities, general education is given more emphasis at the expense of specialized training. However, I feel that to promote economic development in the society, measures that promote specialized education are important. I think that leaving the student to choose whether to pursue a specialized education program or a general one will contribute to improved performance by students as the student is able to pursue a profession of his or her choice.

Allowing the freedom of choice will allow students to be more focused which will improve their chances of completing their course. By pursuing a specialized course, the students will increase the chances of reaching their full potential as opposed to learning many diverse disciplines. In addition, it will promote enrollment as students can pursue their dream courses without being forced to take unrelated elective courses.

Another approach that I would recommend towards reducing this disparity is the integration of the specialized education with related elective courses in order to produce a unified but diverse curriculum. Specialized training generates professionals such as scientists and doctors who contribute immensely to the welfare of the society.

This strategy will also help to reduce the cost of education associated with a general education. Incorporating work-related training in both specialized and general education will help produce skilled personnel suited for the workplace, which is particularly important for the companies that require professional employees such as oil companies.

Conclusion

General education entails a curriculum that focuses on many diverse courses in addition to the major course. It aims at providing skills to students in order to mould them into an all-round individual. However, general education fails to offer a chance to students to pursue their subject of interest in order to become professionals in a particular field. A specialized training on the other hand leads to skilled employees that contribute greatly to societal development.

Works Cited

Berube, Michael. What’s Liberal About Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and “Bias” in Higher Education. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2006.

Berube, Michael, and Nelson, Cary. Higher Education Under Fire: Politics, Economics and the Crisis of the Humanities. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Carnochan, Wrights. The battleground of the curriculum. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1993.

^Pascarella, Trevor, and Terenzini, Peter. “Studying college students in the 21^stcentury: Meeting the new challenges.” The Review of Higher Education 21.3 (1998): 150-156.

Walvoord, Barbara, and Anderson, Virginia. Effective Grading: A tool for Learning and Assessment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass publishers Inc, 1998.

Winter, Godwin, and McClelland, Dan. A new case for the liberal arts. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1981.

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