@cgoodhistorian
yeah, this was something that came up in a focus group with students recently: the GE-level courses feel very superficial and unsatisfying, which is likely kinda inevitable when it’s something like “Introduction to Sociology”

@tkinias Right, and at the upper level they really get to dive in and do deeper analysis and real research. They bring stronger skills as juniors and seniors and there is just such a difference.

@cgoodhistorian
One question this raises, though: I occasionally have upperclass nonmajors take upper-division history courses to round out their upper-division elective credits, and they often find the courses very difficult because the work is so different from their majors (generally *lots* more reading than they’re used to and quite different ways of thinking).

So... to what extent can we expect senior engineering majors, say, to be able to jump into an upper-division course and do well?

@tkinias @cgoodhistorian my wife has been in charge of some aspect or another of multidisciplinary engineering (as well as engineering education) for years at Purdue and now FIU.

These students tend to, in my experience, be much more well rounded and ultimately more capable.

While it may be a lot to expect engineering majors to do well in UD classes, it says something about THEIR home majors that they'd have trouble in these classes.

@tkinias @cgoodhistorian inversely, for a moment, I do think the humanities has managed to hide from any form of mathematical thinking, which too often is dismissed through magical thinking, as an inherent trait rather than a honed skill. Humanities majors, including historians may not benefit from UD Engineering courses but they probably would benefit from an upper division math class, which is a logic based skill that is so practically valuable.

@philip_cardella @cgoodhistorian
I’m going to be introducing a digital/quantitative methods component in our new research methods course for history majors next year. I expect some howls of terror.