Friday, January 23, 1998
Required courses take away choice
DIVERSITY: Celebration of culture should be up to individual’s
interests
By Nathalie Esteban
In this age of "political correctness" it is fashionable to
study the cultures of previously ignored/overlooked groups, such as
women or minorities. There is nothing wrong with this. What is
wrong is that some people are talking about making ethnic/gender
studies mandatory.
The concept of a university is to allow intellectual freedom so
that we can study everything we desire about any area we are
interested in; that is why we have double majors, minors and
specializations. That is why we have courses that cover every area
and group under the sun and are open to everyone.
One of UCLA’s best assets is that it allows students to study
absolutely anything, regardless of how widespread their interests
are. For example, this year the university created a Lesbian, Gay
and Bisexual Studies major for those who are interested in taking
courses in that field. You can major in geography, take a whole
year of Armenian, minor in classical civilization and specialize in
African studies, if that suits your interests.
I enrolled in a western civilization course once, and the
professor spent half of his first lecture talking about the debate
over whether western civilization should be studied at all, because
there are some who believe that it somehow "puts down" or ignores
other cultures. There is, however, a world history series that
studies all parts of the world, not only Europe. But for some, that
is not good enough.
What about GEs? The purpose of general education is to "broaden
one’s perspective of the world," or as many of us view it, to add
an easy "A" to our transcript, while filling a gap in our schedule.
However, there are no specific courses that we are required to
take, with the exception maybe of English 3. If you have no
interest in math, for example, you can still take a couple of
astronomy classes and a course in earth and space sciences and
fulfill the physical science requirement. Foreign language is
required, but there is no specific language that we have to study,
and we are certainly not forced to take a course in "languages"
that will cover every major language there is. If you feel French
is too "European," you can take a year of Chinese. We are used to
this freedom of choice regarding our intellectual pursuits. To
suddenly force people to take a course or more on a specific field
violates such freedom.
Instead of a course in diversity, maybe we should have a new set
of general education choices under a label like "Cultural Studies,"
with several options from every department: African-American
studies, Latin American studies, LGB studies, Classics and Near
Eastern Languages and Cultures, to mention a few. If it includes
every branch of ethnic, cultural and ethnic studies in the
university, then maybe it would not be a bad idea, as long as it
allows us to choose which group we want to study. But it must be
kept as a choice, not a requirement. The university does not
require students to take history, why should any cultural studies
be required?