Roy Tang

I have friends who are faculty on both sides of this issue, but the Engg side seems underrepresented online so I’ll present some of their points here:

• First, re: K-12/SHS. The idea is that some of the GE stuff would be covered by the additional two years of senior high school

• Re: K-12 again, another concern is that with students entering college two years later than before, having a 5 year course would be an unnecessary burden on students (who should already have a more rounded education given the +2 years from senior HS), thus they’ve been looking at cutting 5 year courses to 4 years

• there seems to be some assertion that the changes are being railroaded, but one of my friends involved with the process (although she was not unable to attend the actual vote on the issue) tells me that they’ve been studying the options available for ~2 years now (starting from when K-12 was announced.)

I understand the concern from the humanities side, of course, and the perception that lightening the load will make UP more of a “diploma mill” (whatever that may imply). Personally, I am not convinced the engineering courses need to be cut to four years. I would prefer they remain appropriately difficult. I do however support the argument that with the +2 years from SHS, we should consider reducing the GE load since this may create redundancy (meaning unnecessary expense) for the students. By how much that load needs to be reduced? ¯\\(ツ)/¯