Expanded Universe (63 page)

But, since these students are the upper 8% and each has had not less than three years of high school English, it follows that only the exceptionally unfortunate student needs "Bonehead English." That's right, isn't it? Each one is eighteen years old, old enough to vote, old enough to contract or to marry without consulting parents, old enough to hang for murder, old enough to have children (and some do); all have had 12 years of schooling including 11 years of English, 3 of them in high school.

(Stipulated: California has special cases to whom English is not native language. But such a person who winds up in that upper 8% is usually—I'm tempted to say "always"—fully literate in English.)

So here we have the cream of California's young adults; each has learned to read and write and spell and has been taught the basics of English during eight years in grammar school, and has polished this by not less than three years of English in high school—and also has had at least two years of a second language, a drill that vastly illuminates the subject of grammar even though grasp of the second language may be imperfect.

It stands to reason that
very
few applicants need "Bonehead English." Yes?

No! 

I have just checked. The new class at UCSC is "about 50%" in Bonehead English—and this is normal—normal right across California—and California is no worse than most of the states.

8% off the top—

Half of this elite 8% must take "Bonehead English."

The prosecution rests.

This scandal must be charged to grammar and high school teachers . . . many of whom are not themselves literate (I know!)—but are not personally to blame,
as we are now in the second generation of illiteracy.
The blind lead the blind.

But what happens after this child (sorry—young adult citizen) enters UCSC?

I TELL YOU THREE TIMES I TELL YOU THREE TIMES I TELL YOU THREE TIMES: A student who
wants
an education can get one at UCSC in a number of very difficult subjects, plus a broad general education.

I ask you never to forget this while we see how one can slide through, never do any real work, never learn anything solid, and still receive a bachelor of arts degree from the prestigious University of California. Although I offer examples from the campus I know best, I assume conclusively that this can be done throughout the state, as it is one statewide university operating under one set of rules.

Some guidelines apply to any campus: Don't pick a medical school or an engineering school. Don't pick a natural science that requires difficult mathematics. (A subject called "science" that does
not
require difficult mathematics usually is "science" in the sense that "Christian Science" is science—in its widest sense "science" simply means "knowledge" and anyone may use the word for any subject . . . but shun the subjects that can't be understood without mind-stretching math.)

Try to get a stupid but good-natured adviser. There are plenty around, especially in subjects in which to get a no-sweat degree; Sturgeon's Law applies to professors as well as to other categories.

For a bachelor's degree:

1) You must spend the equivalent of one academic year in acquiring "breadth"—but wait till you see the goodies!

2) You must take the equivalent of one full academic year in your major subject in upper division courses, plus prerequisite lower division courses. Your 4-year program you must rationalize to your adviser as making sense for your major ("Doctor, I picked
that
course because it
is
so far from my major—for perspective. I was getting too narrow." He'll beam approvingly . . . or you had better look for a stupider adviser).

3) Quite a lot of time will be spent off campus but counted toward your degree. This should be fun, but it can range from hard labor at sea, to counting noses and asking snoopy questions of "ethnics" (excuse, please!), to time in Europe or Hong Kong, et al., where you are in danger of learning something new and useful even if you don't try.

4) You will be encouraged to take interdisciplinary majors and are invited (urged) to invent and justify unheard-of new lines of study. For this you need the talent of a used-car salesman as
any
aggregation of courses can be sold as a logical pattern if your "new" subject considers the many complex relationships between three or four or more old and orthodox fields. Careful here! If you are smart enough to put this over, you may find yourself not only
earning
a baccalaureate but in fact doing original work worthy of a Ph.D. (You won't get it.)

5) You must have at least one upper-division seminar. Pick one in which the staff leader likes your body odor and you like his. ("I do not like thee, Dr. Fell; the reason why I cannot tell—") But you've at least two years in which to learn which professors in your subject are simpatico, and which ones to avoid at any cost.

6) You must write a 10,000 word thesis on your chosen nonsubject and may have to defend it orally. If you can't write 10,000 words of bull on a bull subject, you've made a mistake—you may have to
work
for a living.

The rules above allow plenty of elbowroom; at least three out of four courses can be elective and the remainder elective in part, from a long menu. We are still talking
solely
about nonmathematical subjects. If you are after a Ph.D. in astronomy, UCSC is a wonderful place to get one . . . but you will start by getting a degree in physics including the toughest of mathematics, and will study also chemistry, geology, technical photography, computer science—and will resent any time not leading toward the ultra-interdisciplinary subject lumped under the deceptively simple word "astronomy."

Breadth
—the humanities, natural science, and social science—1/3 in each, total 3/3 or one academic year, but spread as suits you over the years. Classically "the humanities" are defined as literature, philosophy, and art—but history has been added since it stopped being required in college and became "social studies" in secondary schools. "Natural science" does not necessarily mean what it says—it can be a "nonalcoholic gin"; see below. "Social science" means that grab bag of studies in which answers are matters of opinion.

Courses satisfying "breadth" requirements
 

Humanities
 

Literature and Politics
—political & moral choices in literature

Philosophy of the Self 
 

Philosophy of History in the Prose and Poetry of W. B. Yeats 
 

Art and the Perceptual Process 
 

The Fortunes of Faust 
 

Science and the American Culture
(satisfies both the Humanities requirement and the American History and Institutions requirement
without
teaching
any
science or
any
basic American History. A companion course,
Science and Pressure Politics,
satisfies both the Social Sciences requirement and the American History and Institutions requirement while teaching still less; it concentrates on the post-World-War-II period and concerns scientists as lobbyists and their own interactions [rows] with Congress and the President. Highly recommended as a way to avoid learning American history or very much social "science.")

American Country Music
—Whee! You don't play it, you listen.

Man and the Cosmos
—philosophy, sorta. Not science.

Science Fiction
(I refrain from comment.)

The Visual Arts
—"What, if any, are the critical and artistic foundations for judgment in the visual arts?"—exact quotation from catalog.

Mysticism
—that's what it says.

(The above list is incomplete.)

Natural Science requirement
 

General Astronomy
—no mathematics required

Marine Biology
—no mathematics required

Sound, Music, and Tonal Properties of Musical Instruments—neither math nor music required for this one!

Seminar: Darwin's Explanation 
 

Mathematical Ideas
—for nonmathematicians; requires only that high school math you must have to enter.

The Phenomenon of Man
—"—examine the question of whether there remains any meaning to human values." (Oh, the pity of it all!)

Physical Geography: Climate 
 

The Social "Sciences" requirement
 

Any course in Anthropology—many have no prereq.

Introduction to Art Education
—You don't have to
make
art; you study how to teach it.

Music and the Enlightenment
—no technical knowledge of music required. This is a discussion of the effect of music on philosophical, religious, and social ideas, late 18th–early 19th centuries. That is what it says—and it counts as "social science."

The Novel of Adultery
—and this, too, counts as "social science." I don't mind anyone studying this subject or teaching it—but I object to its being done on my (your, our) tax money. (P.S. The same bloke teaches science fiction. He doesn't
write
science fiction; I don't know what his qualifications are in this other field.)

Human Sexuality 
 

Cultural Roots for Verbal and Visual Expression
—a fancy name of still another "creative writing" class with frills—the students are taught how to draw out "other culture" pupils. So it says.

All the 30-odd "
Community Studies
" courses qualify as "social science," but I found myself awed by these two:
Politics and Violence,
which studies, among other things, "political assassination as sacrifice" and
Leisure and Recreation in the Urban Community
("Bread and Circuses").

Again, listing must remain incomplete; I picked those below as intriguing:

Seminar: Evil and the Devil in the Hindu Tradition. 
 

Science and Pressure Politics
—already mentioned on page 433 as the course that qualifies both as social "science" and as American History and Institutions while teaching an utter minimum about each. The blind man now has hold of the elephant's tail.

The Political Socialization of La Raza
—another double header, social "science" and American History and Institutions. It covers greater time span (from 1900 rather than from 1945) but it's like comparing cheese and chalk to guess which one is narrower in scope in either category.

The name of this game is to plan a course involving minimum effort and minimum learning while "earning" a degree under the rules of the nation's largest and most prestigious state university.

To take care of "breadth" and also the American history your high school did not require I recommend
Science and Pressure Politics, The Phenomenon of Man,
and
American Country Music.
These three get you home free without learning
any
math, history, or language that you did not already know . . . and without sullying your mind with science.

You must pick a major . . . but it must
not
involve mathematics, history, or actually being able to
read
a second language. This rules out
all
natural sciences (this campus's greatest strength).

Anthropology? You would learn something in spite of yourself; you'd get interested. Art? Better not major in it without major talent. Economics can be difficult, but also and worse, you may incline toward the Chicago or the Austrian school and not realize it until your (Keynesian or Marxist) instructor has failed you with a big black mark against your name. Philosophy? Easy and lots of fun and absolutely guaranteed not to teach you anything while loosening up your mind. In more than twenty-five centuries of effort
not one
basic problem of philosophy has
ever
been solved . . . but the efforts to solve them are most amusing. The same goes for comparative religion as a major: You won't actually
learn
anything you can sink your teeth into . . . but you'll be vastly entertained—if the Human Comedy entertains you. It does me.

Psychology, Sociology, Politics, and Community Studies involve not only risk of learning something—not much, but
something
—and each is likely to involve real work, tedious and lengthy.

To play this game and win, with the highest score, it's Hobson's choice: American literature. I assume that you did not have to take Bonehead English and that you can type. In a school that has no school of education (UCSC has none) majoring in English Literature is the obvious way to loaf through four years. It will be necessary to cater to the whims of professors who know no more than you do about anything that matters . . . but catering to your mentors is necessary in any subject not ruled by mathematics.

Have you noticed that professors of English and/or American Literature are not expected to be proficient in the art they profess to teach? Medicine is taught by M.D.'s on living patients, civil engineering is taught by men who in fact have built bridges that did not fall; law is taught by lawyers; music is taught by musicians; mathematics is taught by mathematicians—and so on.

But is—for example—the American Novel taught by American novelists?

Yes. Occasionally. But so seldom that the exceptions stand out. John Barth. John Erskine fifty years ago. Several science-fiction writers almost all of whom were selling writers long before they took the King's Shilling. A corporal's guard in our whole country out of battalions of English profs.

For a Ph.D. in American/English literature a candidate is not expected to
write
literature; he is expected to
criticize
it.

Can you imagine a man being awarded an M.D. for writing a
criticism
of some great physician without ever himself having learned to remove an appendix or to diagnose
Herpes zoster
?
And for that dissertation then be hired to
teach
therapy to medical students?