
‘Oh, My God, Where Is This Going?’ When Computer-Science Majors Take Improv - Vaslo
https://www.wsj.com/articles/oh-my-god-where-is-this-going-when-computer-science-majors-take-improv-11557846729
======
lol768
It's kinda odd to see these sorts of "gen-ed" requirements from the UK. US
college degrees seem to be lengthened a year and required to be partially
filled with what appears to be a bunch of irrelevant classes. I'd be pretty
annoyed given the cost of tuition if, as an adult, I was expected to do a
bunch of drama, or humanities, or languages classes prior to graduation... for
a CS degree.

To me, and I suspect most people in Europe, the primary purpose of going to
university is to specialise in one particular course area and gain a higher
qualification. Of course, there is space to ensure students practice e.g.
public speaking, working within a team, project management and technical
writing within these constraints. But generally, all of the classes will be
relevant to the subject area you are studying unless you _wish_ to take a
module from a different degree course as an option. The idea of depriving an
adult from being able to make that decision for themselves is disheartening.

Most students would surely have already worked through and experienced a great
deal of other classes in high school in order to receive a well-rounded
education _prior_ to attending university.

So sure, if you want to get outside of your comfort zone, take an optional
class or sign up for a society. But this whole concept of forcing it into an
unrelated degree is odd.

~~~
zapzupnz
Indeed. If they wanted CS grads to come out of their shells, then a mandatory
communications course might be more in order. That would cover all multitudes
of communication: face-to-face, telephone, written, email, etc.

Not "Communication for Dummies" but "Communication for the Workplace", and
maybe a few boundaries could be pushed within that class, but not to the point
of irrelevance.

------
kerng
Not a bad idea I think. I had a voluntary communications class that I signed
up for over 2 years in school. It helped a lot in preparing for interactions
and presentations in the business world, but also life in general.

It was also very uncomfortable for me.

------
Lowkeyloki
This feels like it's leaning pretty hard on a stereotype.

------
fenwick67
Theatre can help you get over stage-fright, there's some real value there. I
took 3 semesters of theatre in high school and that was the biggest gain for
me.

------
pbhjpbhj
Paywalled.

Would be nice to have a tag or something to show that

~~~
jtbayly
Agreed.

