CUNY Pathway devalues our education

As of today all Baruch students are required to complete 45 credits in order to gain entrance into one of Baruch's schools.

These 45 credits are comprised of arts and sciences courses, apart from the required Tier III minor and the 30 electives chosen by individual students.

However, all of this is about to change due to the CUNY Pathways proposal. This proposal seeks to devalue students' education in the following three ways.

The first way it seeks to devalue student's education is by reducing the amount of credits in the core curriculum to 30 credits and an additional 12 college-optional credits.

This does not only devalue the education but it is unfair to students who have completed 90 credits or more in the arts and sciences.

The passing of this proposal could mean that students will be less well rounded and will not have the right education to cope with the outside world after graduation.

While CUNY Pathways promises a better transfer experience to students from two-year colleges with the 30-credit "Common Core," which its name implies will be the same for all CUNY students, the math is simply there.

There will be fewer classes, less education and still the same amount of money paid by students. However, this not only affects students but it affects professors as well.

Second, CUNY Pathways will also affect departments in the humanities. One department that is definitely at risk and is currently a concern is the foreign language department.

As colleges will only have 12 credits to work with, it is highly unlikely that one of their chosen requirements will be a foreign language.

As a requirement for Weissman, students have to take two semesters of a foreign language.

However, with this proposal it is unlikely that this requirement will survive.

Each school has merely four classes as a requirement for students and it is nearly guaranteed that they will choose courses which they feel are more important than a foreign language.

With globalization, learning new languages has become essential and gives students a competitive edge in the job market.

Finally, the third way that CUNY Pathways devalues students' education is the negative effect it will have on professors.

As the classes get reduced, professors will struggle, to get students into their class and save their departments.

It is not farfetched to predict that professors may make classes easier for students in the hopes that they will get the numbers they need to keep their department alive.

While fewer classes may be good news to students, it is not beneficial as the lack of education will be transparent on every transcript.

To interviewers, it will be clear that 30 credits are not enough to produce a highly educated and skilled student.

Especially, in this day of age  in which graduates are competing with people from all around the world, we cannot afford to lose any edge.

In effect CUNY Pathways seeks to "dumb down" the schools under the guise of making it easier for transfer students.

The arts and sciences are at risk in every CUNY college. Ironically, the person behind CUNY Pathways, Benno Schmidt , the chair of  CUNY Board of Trustees, is not in favor of an intense arts and science curriculums in the CUNY system. Schmidt is also the chair of a private school called Avenues, The World School.

On their website (Avenues.org), Schmidt's profile promptly states the following; "Benno recently received national recognition as the recipient of the sixth annual Philip Merrill Award of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) for outstanding contributions to liberal arts education."

The irony here is clear,  as Schmidt is behind the proposal that will destroy student's liberal arts education here in Baruch College but clearly supports it in other schools.

It will truly be a shameful if high school students from private school had higher skills and a well-rounded education compared to CUNY graduates.

Currently CUNY Pathways is being discussed and debated by students and professors.

There is still time to act against this proposal that will render Baruch College's education laughable.

Baruch currently has an excellent reputation and is due to the rigorous curriculum that CUNY Pathways will get rid of.

If students would like to take control of their education one of the ways to do it is to start a petition on Change.org.

It is also recommended that students be informed about CUNY Pathways in order to be prepared for the effect this will have on the value of a Baruch College diploma.