Bicycle Bill wrote:Gob wrote:received a BA in Africana Studies
WTF?
From the Cornell University website —
http://www.asrc.cornell.edu/undergraduate/index.cfm:
The Africana Studies undergraduate major and minor programs prepare students for a broad range of academic and professional careers relevant to both the public and private sectors. Africana has a history of shaping students' intellectual discipline, creativity, and social and political awareness. Africana also assists students interested in advanced graduate study for:
teaching and research
law
medicine
public policy analysis and administration
social work
community development
international affairs and development
Each semester, Africana offers approximately 23 graduate and undergraduate courses concerning the African, African-American, and Caribbean peoples, in the areas of history, sociology, political economy, Swahili and Yoruba language, music, literature, visual arts, education, and gender studies.
So it's a next-to-useless liberal arts degree on a par with 'Womyn's Studies'
(and yes, that's how some schools insist on spelling it) that would satisfy the requirement that one have a BA or BS if you're trying to get into something else and would look good on a resume since it means that you might already have developed 'multi-cultural sensitivity', but doesn't seem to have any application on its own in the real world.
-"BB"-
Since I mentioned it, and have some more time now, Africana studies is a program within the College of Arts & Sciences at Cornell. Here are the requirements for graduation from that College (each college has its own requirements for graduation, but the degree is granted by the University):
Overview:
http://courses.cornell.edu/content.php? ... avoid=2194
The College of Arts and Sciences is a community of about 4,300 undergraduates and 650 faculty members in over forty departments ranging from anthropology to economics to physics. Engaged in cutting-edge research and scholarly and creative work, the College’s faculty members teach their students to analyze critically through various disciplinary lenses – an approach that shapes the ways in which our students perceive and creatively solve problems, not only as undergraduates, but for the rest of their lives. The deep and wide-ranging knowledge they acquire in their classes enables them to deal effectively with complex problems they encounter both here and in the world.
Students are able to acquire such knowledge through the extraordinary richness of the Arts and Sciences curriculum: choosing from over 2,000 courses, undergraduates engage in the depth of a major and take courses over the breadth of the liberal arts and sciences. By completing the major, distribution requirements, and electives they choose, Arts and Sciences students learn to think critically and analytically, to communicate effectively, to write well, and to consider problems from many different angles in order to solve them in the most optimal ways.
Students and faculty members here are fortunate not only to be part of the intellectual community of the College of Arts and Sciences, but to be part of the larger University community as well. Because the faculty members here teach core theoretical knowledge, most of the 13,000 undergraduates at Cornell take courses in our college at some point in their careers here. This wider community provides depth and diversity of applied and professional studies beyond what a college of the liberal arts and sciences alone can offer. We are proud that the abundant variety and outstanding quality in many fields, including interdisciplinary fields, and emphasis on individual academic freedom and responsibility give the college and university their distinctive character.
Specific requirements:
http://courses.cornell.edu/content.php? ... avoid=2087
Summary of Requirements
1.First-year writing seminars: two courses. (See “John S. Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines.”)
2.Foreign language: completion of one course taught in the language at the nonintroductory level or above (Option 1) or at least 11 credits in one language (Option 2). For a list of language offerings, see “Language Study at Cornell.”
3.Distribution: nine courses (may overlap with courses counting toward a major).
4.Breadth: two courses (may overlap with courses for distribution, major, or electives).
5.Major (see individual department listings for major requirements).
6.Electives: four or five courses (at least 15 credits) not used to fulfill other requirements (other than the breadth requirements) and not in the major field. Elective courses may be used to complete a minor.
7.Residence: eight full-time semesters, unless a student can successfully complete all other requirements in fewer than eight semesters and meet the additional criteria to accelerate graduation. (See “Acceleration” below.)
8.34 courses: a 3- or 4-credit course counts as one course. A 2-credit course counts as half a course; a 1-credit course does not normally count toward the requirement; a 6-credit language course counts as one and one-half courses. (See “Courses and Credits” for some 1-credit courses in music, dance, and theatre performance that can be cumulated to count as one-half course.)
9.Credits: a total minimum of 120 academic credits, of which a minimum of 100 must be taken in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell. (See “Noncredit Courses” below for courses that do not count as academic credits or courses.)
10.Physical education: completion of the university requirement (passing a swim test and two 1-credit nonacademic courses). Note: Physical education credit does not count toward the 120 credits needed to graduate or toward the 12-credit minimum required for good academic standing each semester.
11.Application to graduate (see “Graduation”).
Undergraduates are responsible for knowing and fulfilling the requirements for graduation and for alerting the college to any problems with their records. To check on their progress toward the degree, students are urged to consult their advising deans in 55 or 172 Goldwin Smith Hall and to check their DUST (Distributed Undergraduate Student Tracking) reports at data.arts.cornell.edu/as-stus. The DUST report is updated after each semester to reflect the student’s progress in college requirements. To check on their progress in the major, students should consult their major advisors.
So yes, complete waste of time, in a useless field, at a crappy institution that only cares about collecting its tuition checks and churning graduates.
(In case it is not obvious, I am a proud alumna of Cornell where I received an incredibly vigorous education in academia and in life. I would place it against any other undergraduate education available anywhere else in the world)
