“At least I don’t have to worry about finding a job for the next six years,” one student said.
Photo by Jack Yang
Last Tuesday, during a brief presentation on future improvements for the undergraduate experience across departments, the UCSD administration announced their plan to merge the Revelle and Eleanor Roosevelt colleges together in an effort to increase the number of general education requirements — a move that many claim has been made to create more spots in the department of Computer Science and Engineering.
The presentation outlined a strategy to combat overpopulation in the CSE department by making it more difficult for students to combine their major requirements with the general education requirements of the proposed merger college. According to the administration, the move will encourage students to switch to different majors in different departments.
“Seeing how computer science students in Revelle and Roosevelt colleges often have a hard time combining their college requirements with their major requirements, we decided to capitalize on it and expand the opportunities it provides us,” said spokesperson Jill Turner during the keynote speech.
The new college, to be dubbed Revelle-Roosevelt, will reflect the philosophy of “Living in a Pre-Computer Era,” an idea that focuses on academic fields and aspects of the society which do not rely on computation. “With the invasiveness of technology in today’s world, we wanted to create a college that completely ignores computers and goes back to the classics,” Turner said. “We even made it so the writing classes will require the use of typewriters, with the hope that professors will eventually require hand-written essays using the good ol’ quill and parchment.”
The most notable difference in the new college will be the added amount of general education requirements. Instead of creating a new GE plan, the administration combined the current amount of required classes for Revelle and Roosevelt colleges, for a grand total of 35 course requirements. Additionally, when requirements overlap, they must be satisfied by taking two seperate classes. “We understand that students might find this course load quite challenging, but just remember how much harder it was back in our day!” Turner explained, speaking in a Zoom call from her home, which the Turner family has owned for centuries.
Following the presentation of the new college, students in Revelle and Roosevelt college were sent a survey to gather public opinion on the intended change. The results showed overwhelmingly negative responses, with only one generally positive response that was later discovered to be given by a UCSD admin employee. Most students expressed concerns that the new requirements would be unbearable and make the pursuit of most majors impossible. The provost of the future college, Mark Porter, addressed these claims by announcing the plans to roll out a new major: a Bachelor of Arts degree in General Education, the requirements for which copy those of the Muir college. “This way, we could create the ultimate college system experience for UC San Diego students, making the pursuit of general education subjects as easy and smooth as possible,” Porter stated in an email newsletter concerning the survey responses.
After the merging process is successfully completed, future plans for improving the college system include adding a minor requirement to Sixth College, skydiving classes to Warren College, and integrating the entirety of UC Merced campus as Ninth College with the general education requirements making the students receive an additional bachelor’s degree from the institution.
