I spend countless hours writing essays for English, memorizing Spanish and studying math. The problem: I am an art student. 

I put hours of blood, sweat and tears into studying for classes that have absolutely nothing to do with my major. What good will knowing how to solve a logarithm be for my future career in the long run? Not much.

It is said that by taking all of these extra classes outside of our core curriculum, we are gaining a more “well-rounded” education, but wasn’t the point of elementary and high school to give us a base foundation in a vast number of subjects? We learn the basics of English and math we need to get along in life in high school. College is secondary education, therefore it should bend more to what we want to learn.  Universities should focus on honing in on the skills required by what major we plan on pursuing. This would allow for so much more time to be able to put all our efforts into what we are trying to gain a degree for. 

As an art student, I have to spend a lot of my time working on various projects. The time I take out to research for a paper could be used to perfect my pieces. It is unfair that my core classes should suffer because I cannot put my full focus on them. It is highly stressful to have to not only juggle several different classes and projects, but also to pay for courses that are ultimately useless to my career. 

It is bad enough that I am forced to take these extra courses to obtain my degree, but the classes are also difficult. The classes do not just teach the basics of their subject; they go deep into the topic. They demand much of your time and effort if you actually want to do well in the class and understand the topics the professor is covering.

The worst part is that if you don’t do so well in these other courses, it brings down your GPA. I could be the greatest artist, but due to the fact that I am not good at geometry or algebra, my transcript must suffer as a result. Should an aspiring biologist fail out of college because they have trouble writing an essay about Shakespeare? 

The well-rounded education system is flawed. It does not take into account that everyone cannot be a jack-of-all-trades. Instead of being somewhat good at everything, why not be great at the thing you came to college for in the first place?