Cultural diversity: a noble idea that doesn't really work

General education requirements for graduation have taken a lot of heat at Penn State.

Why do the engineering majors need arts credits? Why do the English majors need science courses? Why would a journalism major need gym class?

As far as I'm concerned, all of you can stop whining. The purpose of general education is to make well-rounded students and citizens, and if that's not what you want, then you should have gone to trade school.

The biggest attacks of all, though, have been launched at one particular facet of General Education: cultural diversity requirements. Many students are upset that they have to spend their time and their parents' dollars learning about someone from a different background than themselves.

Cultural diversity, then, appears to be another of the University's attempts to get us all to like one another. Along with "tolerance" (the buzzword of the decade), cultural diversity is another chance for Penn State to pat itself on the back and say, "My, what wonderful, enlightened, brainwashed young people we're churning out here."

However, the problem with that view is that cultural diversity really isn't that bad . . . in theory.

I must admit that I had precious little exposure to people unlike myself before I came here. I can only remember ever seeing three black people in my high school (out of approximately 2,200), one or two Asian people and no Hispanic people.

Therefore, I would be the archetypal perfect target for the mind-expanding wonder that is cultural diversity. And in fact, I have gained a greater amount of understanding of other cultures while at Penn State. But it has come more from my cultural anthropology and sociology (both for general education, by the way) classes than from cultural diversity.

To fulfill my diversity requirement, I took Religious Studies 1: World Religions during my freshman year.

As an amateur student of other religions, the class really didn't tell me a whole lot that I didn't know already. But I imagine that it would hold vast potential for learning for someone who had not previously studied the subject.

This scenario highlights a problem: If the class was general enough to not really teach me (who had studied some, but not a whole lot, of the subject matter before) much, then what kind of understanding could it hope to bestow on the uninitiated? And if the class tried to delve deeper (necessitating a narrowing of the focus), what kind of broad-based understanding could be achieved then?

The answer is that there is no answer. Some cultural diversity classes are so broad that their students barely garner any knowledge worth mentioning.

Others are so specific that the term "well-rounded" could scarcely be applied to those who complete them.

So there's the problem. Any appreciable study in cultural diversity could never realistically be contained within the confines of a 3-credit class. And the constraints of other graduation requirements almost preclude the possibility of further study should one, God forbid, desire it.

Penn State's intentions are the most noble. I think it's great that the university wants its graduates to be the kind of enlightened individuals of which it can be proud. Unfortunately, cultural diversity classes seem to have little of the effect desired.

I am grateful to my experiences here at Penn State for opening my eyes about a great number of things. This would certainly never have happened had I not come to college.

But that just brings up another point: The only way to truly understand people is to be around them and talk to them.

I learned about other people by listening to them, not by reading a book.

Not that I'm turning into an idealist here. I'm merely stating that while the University's policy on cultural diversity classes looks great on paper to incoming freshmen ("Sure, this is a great place to come to school. We want everyone to get along."), in practice it falls short of its far-reaching goals.

Do I have a solution? No. But that's why I'm not the one deciding what classes you people take.

I'm not sure that there even is a better way to do it. But isn't that the spice of life? Uncertainty: It transcends cultural boundaries.