In Friday’s Sept. 24 edition of The Reflector, Dustin Barnes asserts that MSU should keep the speech requirements in the core curriculum.
I agree with Mr. Barnes’s assertions that the job market requires a certain level of personal and professional communications among potential employers, co-workers and sometimes require presentations of material.
I disagree with Mr. Barnes in that the traditional speech class is the answer. The requirements of speech should be integrated with the traditional English composition courses that are still required.
Furthermore, upper division courses frequently require projects and materials (both group and individual) that are to be presented in class, further reinforcing the basic tenants of speech. Students then gain the personal confidence of presenting such material related to their chosen disciplines.
This is what employers are looking for: both technical (as in job-specific) writing skills and presentation skills. If anything, upper division writing and presentation skills should be embraced by the faculty as a service to their students while lowering the core requirements external to the major chosen.
As for the lowering of science and math requirements, American students are severely lacking behind the rest of the industrialized world in science and mathematics. This is evident in the basic geology labs in which I take part and the non-technical semi-professionals that I have hired. The math and science principles should be strengthened, not cut away, especially for the future education, non-science, non-engineering and business majors.
Leonard Rawlings is a graduate student in geosciences.