HSS 120, also known as Introduction to the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, is a class meant to introduce all new humanities first-years to academic life and community. It sounds like a relatively enjoyable and fun class, but experience says otherwise. Over this semester, I’ve heard a lot of discontent from my own classmates in HSS 120. So I set out to see if other classes had a similar sentiment to my own class through a small simple random survey.
I asked a small sample of sixteen HSS 120 students to respond to a few opinion questions regarding HSS 120. The first two questions asked if students were overall satisfied with HSS 120, and if they believed HSS 120 to be sufficiently educating them in the CHASS departments and opportunities offered at NC State. The results weren’t so hot. 68.8% of respondents felt some level of overall dissatisfaction (25% felt strongly dissatisfied, 43.8% felt somewhat discontent) with HSS, and 18.8% felt neutral about their current experiences.
Sufficient education, unlike overall satisfaction’s negative results, mostly fell in the neutral category (43.8%), but positive opinions on HSS 120 still remained relatively low (25.1%, with only 6.3% expressing strong positivity) when compared to the larger percentage of dissatisfaction.
Dissatisfaction proved even stronger when it came to personal enjoyment of the class. When asking students if they agreed with the view that HSS 120 was an enjoyable class, a whopping 56.3% disagreed, followed by a strong disagree of 25%. Neutral came in at 12.5%, and Agree popped up at 6.3%. Nobody strongly agreed with the statement. So what gives? Why is HSS 120 experiencing such disapproval?
Before we talk about reform, it’s important to mention that this isn’t a particularly scientific discovery. One could certainly call into question the methodology of sending classmates a link to a Google Forms survey, so take these numbers with a grain of salt.
Having addressed that, without any other more extreme examination, I think this does a decent job of providing an insight into what several CHASS students think of their introductory course to their respective college. Plus, it’s a whole lot better than simply relying on the reputation of HSS 120, which is notoriously negative, but only well-known within the CHASS community.
It seems to me, and the students I got data from, the overall problem with HSS 120 is class structure. In its current state, HSS 120 is served as two large lecture classes, each having approximately 80 students. If HSS 120 was set up as a smaller, more discussion led and interactive class, there’s a likely chance students would enjoy class more. I proposed the idea in my survey, and 75.1% of respondents agreed (with 43.8% strongly agreeing). Only 6.3% of respondents disagreed, and no one responded that they strongly disagreed with the statement.
From my personal experience with HSS 120, it seems clear to me that changing the class to a smaller, more discussion-led and interactive class would likely benefit both class involvement and enthusiasm. Smaller class sizes create a more welcoming environment during discussions, and HSS is a class focused on personal discourse. For example, I would feel much more willing to share my experiences and opinions on topics such as diversity, campus engagement, and socioeconomic issues if they were not under the uncomfortable situation of a cornucopia of peers staring at you under an echoing lecture hall.
To counterargue, many would call the demand for reformation ‘entitled’ and ‘immature’. After all, many of us have to slog through taxing classes such as English 101 or Calculus. However, those classes are usually required GEPs. HSS 120 is a class many of us freshmen were signed up for (93.8% of respondents stated HSS 120 was already in their schedule when signing up for their first semester) but is not required. In fact, the bottom of the HSS 120 Moodle page has a class evaluation link that will open up later in the semester. NC State wants us to express our opinions on Introduction to CHASS, and it’s only fair that we help them improve.
