Val, that reminded me of my DH's experience back in the early 1980's as a high school student and good athlete-- he was awarded a football scholarship to a well-respected SEC school with a competitive football program.
When he expressed a desire to major in "Chemistry or maybe physics, plus Business" he was told in no uncertain terms that this was NOT going to be possible if he intended to be a scholarship athlete. Business, they conceded, they would consider-- but preferred 'easier' courseloads than that. Certainly NOT a double major. Chemistry or physics? Unthinkable.
He instead went to a UC school
sans scholarship, happily played baseball, and earned a double degree in Chem/physics. With honors.
I was often chastised by my college's dean that I needed to make more allowances for students that were ill prepared to learn the material in one of my courses. The problem? Apparently this course was the "weeder" class for another department's majors. I needed to lighten up so that they could graduate. Oddly enough, I felt that maybe THEY needed to change their requirements instead, since OUR majors didn't seem to have trouble with the course, and in fact, we were teaching it as recommended by ACS, and that doing so was pretty much "not optional" if we wanted to remain accredited by them.
I routinely taught general education courses that my daughter could have
aced by the time she was nine. Granted, she isn't your average kid, but still. I'm
still astonished that not all of the students in those courses earned A's. Not only that, I'm a little mortified that I was pressured into developing and teaching a course that had no business as anything but a GT workshop for middle schoolers, or a community ed course. But it was apparently held up as a "shining example" of what a general education course SHOULD be-- university wide.
