During decades of my teaching career, I have been informed that the majority of students dislike economics because the subject matter may be dry and dull when it is taught from the textbook and the workbook only. They seem to be bogged down with numbers with no relevance to the society. I am in favor of socio-economics to be applied to our society with data but data may be questioned with discrepancy or lag.
The highest enrolled course on the list is English composition. Would the English language have to do with Economics from the demands of business leaders? Liberal arts courses are designed to train students with broad and intellectually rich coverage of daily events that are related to economics. I have found out that most students lack their writing ability due to the existing format of multiple choices for exams. Employers need emplyees who are trained in good communication. Such thoughts and concepts are needed for economics students in USA and in China in the 21st century with global contacts via technology.
Social and moral questions surrounding the policies of the government through the prisms of virtue and ethics would come to the minds of students with intellect of critical thinking in social sciences. As educators,we are striving to have a literate population with a good balance of academic tradition and skills of creativity.
It is high time to require students to be exposed not just to quantitative data but to qualitative reasoning about happenings in the real world plus the need of learning critical foreign languages such as Chinese as a strategic one in terms of globalization of trade to validate the law of comparative advantage.
Francis Shieh a.k.a. Xie Shihao, a learner in the pursuit of compound-complex discipline i.e. economics. April 10, 2008 at 7.45 a.m.
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