It is simply business as usual in American higher education today that one can major in history without taking a course in American history. It is only to be expected that a college will, like Bowdoin, jettison almost all traditional requirements but insist students take a first-year seminar whose subjects include “Affirmative Action and U.S. Society,” “Fictions of Freedom,” “Racism,” “Modern Western Prostitutes,” “Women in the European Union,” “Globalizing India,” etc. It’s the same with Speak About It, a student play about sex on campus. Bowdoin dispensed with its general education requirement as long ago as 1969, but it requires all students to watch the play. The take-away: “Whatever you decide you want your relationship with sex to be about there are opportunities out there. Whether you want to have sex or you don’t, you’re looking for love or a one-night stand, you’re gay or straight or somewhere in between, it’s all possible. And whatever happens remember to be safe, get consent, and watch out for your friends.” No wonder it costs nearly $60,000 to attend Bowdoin—that level of educational irresponsibility costs a lot to maintain.
My concern is not with Bowdoin nor for higher education in general; I've been a chaplain at a college and a university, plus three of the so-called "feeder" schools that provide their students, so I'm not shocked at the cult of diversity and how much it costs the parents of the students and, via student loans, the students themselves to pay for avoiding a real education.
What gets me is the attitude that permits this nonsense to continue, when it is obvious that it is doing little more than producing a generation of unrealistic, and barely employable, narcissists. My academic exchanges with this generation usually reveal incredible holes in their knowledge of literature, history, and philosophy; and don't get me started on their ability to effectively use the English language, even in casual conversation.
No wonder they can't conceive of any being greater than themselves.
Related: A Classic Text on Gender--And It's All Wrong
Also related: Recent Graduate Paradox: Overqualified and Underprepared