I am upset, angry, and disappointed. Not only that, I am irritated, annoyed, and vexed. Also, I am off-put, displeased, and irked. Oh, let us not forget about being ruffled, riled up, and slighted.

Why you may ask? It’s simple: General Education requirements. Why is the GEP (General Education Program) important? 

Can another fellow student explain to me why all of us students are required to take courses that are really just to fill the most basic of requirements? 

As an English and Interdisciplinary Studies double major, with minors in Gender & Women Studies and Music, why am I forced to learn about math? 

Why am I forced to learn about ecology? Why should I inherently care about business? And again, why math?! 

I can do simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. That’s easy. I aced the bejesus out of Trigonometry in high school.

If some type of math problem is extra, extra, extra hard, I can just use a calculator; all the Math majors use calculators. 

I can understand the importance of learning about science, since global warming is a thing, but all this knowledge can be acquired through simple search engines. 

Why business? I can roughly understand people needing this knowledge in case they want to run their own businesses, but I am not one of those people; I do not ever see myself wanting to go down that route for a career.

Why must I, or any student, waste money to learn these subjects when we all have our rightful majors and minors?

I would have vastly preferred to take a few more English courses, or Music courses, or even more courses that apply directly to my Gender Studies Minor, in my final spring term at BU. 

Why am I forced to take classes that I know are forever going to be irrelevant to the rest of my life?

As a fourth-year student, I am enrolled in many courses that I am only taking because BU is requiring me to complete them. 

In my mind, in place of these headaches, I could be taking more courses that apply directly to my majors/minors.

I could learn more in my home base. I have learned more in my rightful major and minor courses. I can acclimate to the need of garnering worldly experience through these courses.

However, I have gathered these worldly experiences through my major and minor courses. I do not need the helping hand of Math 101, Business 101, etc.

Jose is a senior English and Interdisciplinary Studies major and a Staff Writer for The Voice.