SUU confuses
requirements

SUU students earn more credits than students at other Utah schools in order to receive a bachelor’s degree, the Journal reported in Monday’s edition.
We believe the reason SUU students have the highest average credits to graduate is poor communication between advisers and students, poor communication between advisers and staff and overloading students with requirements that have little to do with their fields of study.
We think just determining what is actually required to graduate at SUU is a challenge. The catalog is notorious for giving false information about major requirements. Many departments do not have a professional adviser but instead ask students to talk with individual professors about what classes count toward requirements.
Students are often advised to contact the Student Development Center, but every time we called asking about the additional science requirements for the bachelor of science degree, all the advisers were unavailable and we were asked to call back or make an appointment. The earliest available appointment was three days away.
We believe students should have all the information they need to determine what is or is not required, but this isn’t the case at SUU.
The requirement we asked about was the math or science credits required in addition to the general education requirements in those areas. The bachelor’s degree academic planner includes the requirement for at least 12 semester hours in math and science. Under the eligible science courses there is an asterisk explaining that labs are required for some classes. We asked if a specific class required a lab.
While our question should have taken a just a moment to answer, we were still required to make an appointment to see an adviser. There is apparently no document that explains what classes will be accepted without the lab.
We scheduled our appointment but went to other sources for an answer. We went to the advisement fair, but there was no representative from general education or bachelor requirements. We talked to one of the people who set up the fair, who told us to talk to our advisers, who weren’t at the table and probably don’t know anyway. Major advisers apparently have no idea what type of general education or bachelor degree requirements will or will not work. It has been our experience that they send students to someone else who

 

doesn’t know.Why do SUU students graduate with an average of 25 more credits than they need? Because they either have to trust people who admit they don’t know what their talking about, or guess which published information is correct.
In addition to the fact no one knows what the other departments are thinking or telling students, we believe SUU’s requirements make it difficult for students to take classes they enjoy while still graduating on time.
In order to get a bachelor of arts degree, a student has to have 16 credits in a foreign language. We don’t think whether or not you practically have a minor in a foreign language denotes a major as art or science.
Finally, what if students want to take classes they enjoy but aren’t required for their major, minor or degree? Should they be forced to add a semester to their college career because they are excited to learn? Is that what SUU wants from its students?
Are SUU’s requirements set in order to better students’ education and prepare them for the work world? Maybe, but we think the result is tacking on months filled with classes that have little to do with students’ fields of study or they took thinking it would go toward their major when it would not.
The opinion expressed above is the collective perspective of the University Journal’s editorial board. The editorial board meets every Wednesday at 11 a.m. in Room 172 of the Sharwan Smith Center. Visitors are welcome.