Looking at my life before college, I honestly thought when I got to college I would be able to focus on the classes I would need to graduate within four years.

What I found out as I was signing up for classes my freshmen year was that I couldn’t take any classes relating to my major until I took these general education classes.

I understand the purpose of having these general education classes for incoming students who are undecided, but when I was in high school I already knew what I was going to study in college.

I always thought that in college I would take the classes that would help me in my field right from the beginning, but that wasn’t the case.

I went to a small, private liberal arts school my freshman year well before I transferred to Eastern.

What I discovered there was that I had to take a bunch of these general education classes before I could even get into my major’s core courses.

To me, my first two years of college felt more like two extra years of high school.

The first time I was able to take a course that actually related to my journalism major was my first semester when I transferred to Eastern last year.

I spent roughly two years taking these entire courses that had nothing to do with what I wanted to study.

To me, it doesn’t make any sense. I mean, I get it, there are some students who go to college and they have no idea what they want to study, and general education course are a great way to help them decide what they want to study for their major.

To me, I just don’t really see the point of a general education course.

If I was not required to take these courses, I would have just gone right into studying the material I would need to cover in relation to my major.

Of course, you can also argue the fact that students sometimes go ahead and decide that they want to change their major halfway through their college careers.

Since they took a general education course, they have an idea of what else they want to study.

Again, I am only speaking from my personal experience in regards to general education courses.

I understand the positive effects the courses do have, but at the same time, I feel like these courses are also just time wasters.

If students who have already decided on their major and know for a fact that is this is the major they want to study then why should they have to worry about fulfilling some other requirements before their major requirements?

If they were able to, these students could already begin to study their major course, and perhaps they can even learn more about their major in four years than just whatever they can cover on top of general education courses.

Luis Martinez is a senior journalism major. He can be reached at 581-2812 or at lpmartinez@eiu.edu.