By Matt Bisanz

In an unscientific poll of students on campus I have found one of the most hated aspects of university life to be that of the distribution classes. That is the four page section of the bulletin detailing the 30 or so required credits we must take in addition to our major.

They have common headings like Arts Appreciation, Creative Participation, and the like. They are required for almost every undergraduate major and very few actually apply to most majors.

The usual method of selecting a required class is to find someone in that department and ask them what the easiest class is. Several of my business school friends suggested doing away with the distribution to focus more on real world classes.

I must say I was rather surprised at this because while I won’t say I love my distribution classes, I also won’t say that I hate them. I think that the current list of distribution classes is flawed in that it is too traditional in nature. It focuses only on traditional entry level courses that present a rather generic range of topics.

For example under the literature requirement, almost all the classes are about reading classical books. While I know this is what makes it a literature requirement, I think it could be augmented to appeal more and be more relevant to the average student. For example, why not have an English class that does readings of the great management strategists. It would still be English in the sense of reading and analyzing literature, but would greatly appeal to business majors.

A similar change could be in creative participation. Instead of restricting it to classes in the field of fine arts, it could be expanded to include mock political settings, which require the same creativity, yet focused more towards political science majors. In the field of history, classes concerning the history of say Broadway musicals or that of computers could be added to gain a better interdisciplinary relationship.

One class that I took as a free election, Computing Ethics and Society, ended up greatly expanding my horizons as an accounting major, even though it was offered through the computer science department. Had I not selected it as a random class I would have never gained the immense benefit.

Along those lines I would also suggest the creation of new interdisciplinary requirements for majors. Already, the political science and business disciplines require certain additional classes outside the department to broaden one’s horizons. I say that should be expanded to more majors and more areas. For example there are 16 liberal arts classes relating to political science not in the political science department. These could be the basis of cross-departmental majors such as political philosophy or psychology of communications. This overlap is already present in many departments and could easily be used to greatly expand the major offerings of the university. I foresee such majors as business communications or sports psychology.

This would really bring the University up to a world class level as it would offer a major for every interest. I know that I, for one, would like to be able to incorporate my business english classes into some minor in the english department, but none is offered.

In the first universities, the schools were diversified through interdepartmental majors. This would greatly add to ability to attract students not only to their own majors but also to the courses required of the interdepartmental majors. Who knows? A student taking a class for a political philosophy major might decide to add a religion or public affairs minor. This would really be a change in which everyone would win in the university, and it could be done without abolishing the current distribution classes because they too would be incorporated into the interdisciplinary approach.