Michael+F’s+OpEd+Article

VC GEs: Legally Cheating//__** by Michael Fickenscher
 * __//[[image:http://www.venturacollege.edu/apply_enroll/catalog/vc_cat_09-10.jpg width="215" height="291" caption="The Most Work These People Do"]]

When I think of college classes, I expect to find something like hell on Earth, something that can make even Mr. Geib's class look easy. When the focus zooms in on community college classes, I still expect AP level difficulty, as classes there are supposed to keep students from taking them again when they transfer to a higher university. I have had the privilege of taking a few community college classes over he past couple of summers. Before my first class, I further focused my thoughts on college classes: when it got down to General Education classes at a community college, I did not really know what to expect. Obviously, I thought they would be easier than the core classes there, since these classes are basically the random ones that people take because they have to, even when the chance of a single person pursuing that field is slim to none. However, I still expected some difficulty. These classes were worth the same as an Honors class here, so it would have to be somewhat stressful, right?

Well, two years later I find myself disappointed with the rigor of the VCGEs (Ventura College General Education). Maybe it was due to the fact my parents tried to scare me with stories of their college experiences, or maybe it just had to do with VC itself. Needless to say, those classes have been some of the easiest classes I have ever taken in my life. Out of the 3 classes I have taken, there has been only 1 that I actually needed to try at to get an "A" in the class.

Okay, I did drop 1 class. But the teacher encouraged free thinking, yet he took points off if you didn't agree with what the book said. It could have been the easiest class of all the ones I took, the professor just annoyed me to the point of... well, I'll let you fill in that blank. He was a philosophy teacher who seemed to think Socrates was an idiot. And it was an online class, so I couldn't argue my points effectively.

But I digress. The class that I actually needed to try at was Sociology, and its rigor made it the most entertaining class I took, even though my previous personal interests favored the other 2. The easiest was Music Appreciation, where I really only needed to read the study guide and show up to tests to get an A. It was pathetically easy. I also took online Statistics, which had some busywork (because it was online) and a couple major tests. Here's the thing: the teacher gave me everything that I would have studied for otherwise on the back of the test questions. I didn't even turn in an assignment worth 5% of my overall grade and still got an A in the class.

Something is up with the VCGEs. There are too many of them that are taught like the students are in special ed (okay, maybe some of them are, but I don't want to claim something I don't know for a fact). The effort required to succeed in those classes was not worth 5.0 points toward my GPA. It was worth the standard 4, some possibly even 3, as each of those classes was worth 3 units of credit. And guess what, that music appreciation class counted towards my art in the A-G requirements. Colleges will look at people like me and see the college classes associated with them and say, "That person is clearly challenging himself. We really should get them to come to our university," When really they could have loafed the entire thing and gotten into a university they didn't deserve to go to.

But if people aren't willing to change, then perhaps this is an opportunity everyone should be taking advantage of. I mean, who really has time to take any extra classes now anyways? Especially when prestigious universities practically require students to be valedictorian, make the Olympics, win the Nobel Prize for a new invention, or take all of these college classes beforehand. Even though we can try for the first three options, the chance of succeeding is highly unlikely (especially if we know our chances for valedictorian are nonexistent). Well, with VCGEs, we can fill the fourth option with little change to our current schedule. I mean, who wouldn't want to get all of those A-G requirements out of the way with no effort? It's the miracle pill for getting into college! It's cheating without breaking the rules! I mean no one has a problem with such a great problem, then why not take full advantage of it? media type="file" key="michaelf-muckraker-0910.mp3"