I've spent most of my college and post-college life trying to dispel the idea that English 101 classes are useless or only need to be paid attention to if you're planning on being an English major. It's really disheartening to talk to college kids who think "I'm going into Business so I don't need to write anything!" (which is nonsense because business and communications and history and the sciences all have writing assignments). They're the ones who graduate and get jobs and then become the people I work with, who write incoherent emails and memos and get mad when you can't decipher their gobbledegook.
I was in the enviable position of being able to work for several semesters in my university's Writing Center before I was awarded a graduate assistantship when I was in the MA program, so I had plenty of evidence to support my argument to my students that yes, writing is important and you will have to be able to express yourself IN WRITING at some point in your life, and that, for the benefit of people who will be deciding whether to HIRE them that it might help if that writing can be deciphered by other human beings
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mo, anyone going into business or a scientific field should be required to take English 101 AND at least one more course in business or technical writing.
I think business schools are starting to agree with you. I recently returned to the university I graduated from mumble-mumble years ago, and I'm enrolled in their business school. When I was exploring the possibility, the academic advisor assigned to me gravely warned me that "writing is really important these days, so we require several writing-intensive courses." She then asked if I thought I'd be able to manage.
As I struggled not to laugh, she glanced at my transcripts, slapped her forehead and said, "Riiiight. You did English and Journalism. Well, uh, you might be in for a shock in the opposite way. But at least it'll be a breeze!"
She was only half right. I had to un-learn a lot of what I'd learnt previously (because business communications need to be even more concise than news stories, according to my instructors*), but I was sort of surprised that a lot of my younger
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I had an advanced creative writing course where the teacher had to explain things like they're/their/there and how to use quotation marks. Everyone in that class was in their third or fourth year of college and taken at least one writing class.
I went to McGill in Canada, and Quebec's education system, from what I understand, is still such that you can gain admission to all kinds of graduate/professional programs that we just assume require bachelor's degrees, with only a certificate from a junior college. (To be fair, their education system is high school until grade 11, and then 2-3 years of junior college for EVERYONE before admission to bachelor's degree programs.) Most RNs that I met while I was there had no degree, and you could get into medical or law school with no degree.
Even in the US, being a lawyer used to require passing the bar exam, nothing else. Obviously, undergrad and law school better prepared you to do that, but the degree itself wasn't required.
"I am also a graduate of Duke Medical School. I went much earlier than Dr. Paul, but at least in the 1950-60s, Duke did indeed accept people after three years of college. And this is what hasn’t been said: The first two years of the medical school basic science courses were considered the completion of an earned bachelor’s degree. That may not have been true when Dr. Paul attended, but it was when I did."
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I think business schools are starting to agree with you. I recently returned to the university I graduated from mumble-mumble years ago, and I'm enrolled in their business school. When I was exploring the possibility, the academic advisor assigned to me gravely warned me that "writing is really important these days, so we require several writing-intensive courses." She then asked if I thought I'd be able to manage.
As I struggled not to laugh, she glanced at my transcripts, slapped her forehead and said, "Riiiight. You did English and Journalism. Well, uh, you might be in for a shock in the opposite way. But at least it'll be a breeze!"
She was only half right. I had to un-learn a lot of what I'd learnt previously (because business communications need to be even more concise than news stories, according to my instructors*), but I was sort of surprised that a lot of my younger ( ... )
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Even in the US, being a lawyer used to require passing the bar exam, nothing else. Obviously, undergrad and law school better prepared you to do that, but the degree itself wasn't required.
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"I am also a graduate of Duke Medical School. I went much earlier than Dr. Paul, but at least in the 1950-60s, Duke did indeed accept people after three years of college. And this is what hasn’t been said: The first two years of the medical school basic science courses were considered the completion of an earned bachelor’s degree. That may not have been true when Dr. Paul attended, but it was when I did."
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