From the Director of General Education
To Students Enrolled in the General Education Program
Introduction
Shun Takahashi, Director of General Education
General education courses, as the name suggests, are courses taken by students across all faculties. Depending on the university, they may also be referred to as liberal arts courses, and are offered at most universities.
After reading the course catalog and syllabi (documents outlining the course content), many of you probably felt this way: “I already know what I want to study, so why do I have to take courses I’m not interested in?”
Actually, I felt the same way when I started college. Since I was in the humanities, I felt it was a waste of time to have to take science courses. I remember thinking nothing but that I wanted to start studying my major as soon as possible, rather than learning those subjects.
However, I remember that biology class—which I had taken reluctantly—turned out to be incredibly interesting. It wasn’t a dry, rote lesson that simply followed the textbook; instead, the teacher weaved in his own experiences to talk engagingly about the “wonders of biology,” and that class broadened my horizons, even though I was a die-hard humanities student.
While it is certainly important to have a solid “field of expertise” or “major,” it is also crucial in research to maintain a perspective on how that field fits within the broader context of other disciplines. For example, my specialty is Chinese culture, but even though we refer to it simply as “Chinese culture,” it is connected to many fields—including literature and history, of course, but also economics, law, and even disaster prevention and the environment. Naturally, it would be impossible to study all of these fields (I haven’t managed to do so myself…).However, if you step back from your own specialty and view it from the perspective of a different field, you’re bound to make unexpected discoveries. When I participate in study groups or research meetings with people in the sciences, I find their way of thinking to be a great source of inspiration.
In the society of the future, coexisting with a diverse range of people will be essential. This means we will have to work and live alongside people whose ways of thinking are completely different from our own. Needless to say, it is not the case that “humanities majors” and “science majors” live separate lives. Everyone works together as one to sustain society. In this context, rather than confining ourselves to narrow specializations, cultivating a broad perspective will be an indispensable quality.
I encourage all of you to actively try taking classes in other disciplines during your general education courses. Up through high school, due to the nature of entrance exam subjects, it was probably difficult for humanities students to take science classes or for science students to take humanities classes. But university is different. You can “give it a try” as much as you like (though whether you earn the credits depends on how hard you work…).
Take the plunge and try taking a class you’ve been avoiding out of prejudice. I believe that is one of the key differences between high school and college.