writing skills - why can't people write??

I'm almost sure my art college didn't care about GPA's either.  Nor did it care much about SAT scores.  My art portfolio was the main consideration.

Yup. I don't think that's unusual at all. 

I think a Bachelor of Fine Arts is different from a normal Bachelor of Arts, though.

I agree with Professor Potts that things like Oedipus and basic Freud are important to understand, but I suspect that is because they are things that greatly interest me.  Someone else may feel I am uneducated because I don't know how to build a stone wall or how to plant vegetables.

You could use that argument to excuse people for not knowing how to write well 

I think a Bachelor of Fine Arts is different from a normal Bachelor of Arts, though.

Mine was a normal BA ... or AB as we called it (my university liked to be different). Of course we were expected to know how to write, but that would have been demonstrated through an application essay or writings submitted along with an application - not through standardised tests. As for math and science, I think the feeling was that by age 18 you should know more or less which path you intend to follow. If you want to be a molecular biologist, maybe learning about literature isn't so important - at least, not to your career. Likewise, math and science weren't really important to me. Having said that, my university did encourage people to learn subjects outside of their concentration by offering any class on a pass/fail basis, instead of for a grade. That way, learning was fun rather than a dull requirement.

I think a Bachelor of Fine Arts is different from a normal Bachelor of Arts, though.

Of course it is. Again, though, it depends upon where you get it. A BFA at a uni/college is probably going to require more classes in subjects outside your discipline. Whereas a BFA at an 'art school' won't. If I recall correctly, you can get both BAs and BFAs in art at Penn State.

I'm lost with where this thread has ended up ... what is the correlation between knowing the plot of Hamlet and being able to write well? Or knowing certain Greek myths? I don't think schools in the US are any better than those here or vice versa in teaching writing skills.  I had a friend who was educated in the US, she used to write me great long letters with no punctuation in them at all, heaven knows how she managed to graduate from college with a BA in political science but she did.

I'm lost too, but maybe for different reasons.

I think that writing skills are influenced by a variety of factors including how much/what you read and the type of primary education you had. I'm not sure your uni education can do a whole lot for you if you arrive there with weak skills. That's just my opinion though.

I have a BS in Cytotechnology. I did 2 English courses which was the bare minimum that I could get away with. I was way too busy with my other requirements to take any more. Am I less conversant in the topic? Hell yes. Does it mean I can't write? Well, I'm no editor, but I don't think my skills are THAT bad. 

I'm lost with where this thread has ended up ... what is the correlation between knowing the plot of Hamlet and being able to write well? Or knowing certain Greek myths?  

Because depending on what you plan to do with your life, none of them might be of obvious practical use.

I think it depends on the school you go to and your track in high school. In high school I had to take either a psych or sociology class, but I'm not sure the people on the voc. path had to take it, I was college prep.

I think what you're required to take at college is different depending on your school. I did my first year at a small teacher's college and they didn't have as much variety as my second school. We still had to take a science, math, art, etc...but the content of the courses were different. I had to do a double major because of education, I think I had about 30 credits for each of my majors, I can't remember what for my gen. ed. courses, but I think it was about the same number of credits.

Both of my schools went more with GPA than SAT scores. I didn't have to take the GRE at all for my master's.

I think that writing skills are influenced by a variety of factors including how much/what you read and the type of primary education you had. I'm not sure your uni education can do a whole lot for you if you arrive there with weak skills. That's just my opinion though.

I think that's spot on. I had to read 1984 in high school and I was the only one who made a connection between that and Ayn Rand's Anthem because I had to read that book at a different high school. The other students in my honors class did well, but mine just had that extra layer of insight because of my background knowledge. It's like how your background knowledge can help you to better understand something you read.

The other students in my honors class did well, but mine just had that extra layer of insight because of my background knowledge. It's like how your background knowledge can help you to better understand something you read.

That was my original point.

Schools can't teach everything.

What mine managed to do was to give me a grounding in the essentials - reading, writing, spelling (sort of!), basic maths, basic algebra, how to speak correctly (more or less!), how to structure a formal letter, how to behave like a decent civilised person, how to interact with my peers and elders.  It also introduced me to how to conduct a civilised debate, the beauty of the English language through Shakespeare, Dickens, Austin et al, the history of Europe and the US, the reasons for miscellaneous wars, etc.  As I studied English, History and Politics at A level, when exactly was I going to learn Freud?  We did Brownian motion and Newton's third law (I think) at GCSE, but there is no way a school can go in to depth on these things.

The main point, in my opinion, of an education is to teach the life skills which I mentioned above.  On top of this, a good school, combined with good parenting, will give a child the thirst for knowledge which makes them go out and read about Quantum Physics and Tudor History when their major is 20th Century political history, as mine was. 

With regard to your collegues who didn't know about Oedepus, I wouldn't worry about their lack of education.  I would worry why, then they have heard the phrase 'Oedepal complex', which they must have at some point in their lives, they never had the inclination to look it up.


Vicky

My wife is on an access course at the moment and she is amazed at the levels she receives, but when she looked at some of her class mates work and they got higher levels she was amazed (she is achieving level 3's) and her work is presented well and looks and sounds good yet some of the students paste and copy the night before and she spends the weeks and weekends working on her work, she sorts out the children runs the house helps me and lots more in between, it has made her quiet disheartened.

She has been told she is in advance of some area's of her work and her knowledge basis is wide and varied, she is always coming home with new books from the library.

So who knows these days.

I think it depends on the school you go to and your track in high school. In high school I had to take either a psych or sociology class, but I'm not sure the people on the voc. path had to take it, I was college prep.

I very much agree that it depends on the school you go to. My high school didn't offer psych or sociology. Or "tracks". Or AP classes or the SAT. It did offer multiple years of agriculture courses.

Point is, there's good American education, and there's crap American education. It's impossible to generalize about such a huge and diverse country. I'm glad that some of you had an excellent experience in American public schools, but that certainly wasn't the case for all of us.

I very much agree that it depends on the school you go to. My high school didn't offer psych or sociology. Or "tracks". Or AP classes or the SAT. It did offer multiple years of agriculture courses.

Point is, there's good American education, and there's crap American education. It's impossible to generalize about such a huge and diverse country. I'm glad that some of you had an excellent experience in American public schools, but that certainly wasn't the case for all of us.

I think the same can be said for any country.

I think the same can be said for any country.

I agree. But I wasn't talking about a broad spectrum of people across an entire country. I was talking about a small group of people who were all university educated and in lower-middle management positions. I would expect them all to have been on an "academic" track.