SMU should replace Wellness II
We’ve all heard it a million times. Graduating from Southern Methodist University requires 120 academic hours and an additional two hours from the Wellness category.
What is Wellness? According to the SMU course catalog Wellness 1101: Concepts of Wellness “focuses on issues of attitude, change, adaptation to change, personal responsibility and happiness. In general, the course content increases awareness of the relationship between thoughts and lifestyle choices and how they relate to health, fitness and effectiveness as well as an improved sense of meaning, purpose and well-being.”
The other required Wellness course is Wellness II, which allows students to enroll in classes such as Yoga (I highly recommend Bryan Robbins!), jogging, weight training and badminton.
According to the National Health Care Survey 64 percent of Americans are overweight or obese. With this gross statistic, I think SMU’s heart is in the right place implementing healthy living standards among their students, but I don’t know where in the hell their brains are!
Wellness 1101 is in essence a health class for college students, and since I attended high school in the state of Texas, where health is a requirement, this was a waste of $1,058 (the cost per hour at SMU). There are radical changes that need to happen to SMU’s Wellness program, or I should receive a refund check!
Home to one of the best business schools in the nation, SMU whisks its business students away to a secret world of financing and stock market analysis that the rest of us lowly Dedman and Meadows students are kept away from. What does business have to do with Wellness? Well, instead of spending one class doing a “relaxation tape” (couldn’t I have just relaxed by staying in bed another hour?), students should have the exposure to basic investing and accounting principles.
Wellness shouldn’t be solely focused on healthy living, we are a generation that has heard all of this rhetoric before, and SMU is certainly a health-conscious campus! Check out the gym anytime of day and it’s full. For Wellness 1101 to be worth my time and money it should be more life-focused instead of health focused. Wellness II gives students the proper chance to focus on their health.
Recent college graduates everywhere are so out of touch with basic business skills, business schools around the nation (including SMU Cox and TCU’s Neeley School of Business) are charging big bucks for summer cram courses in accounting, marketing, finance, operations, economics, entrepreneurship and business law. SMU’s Summer Business Institute is a 4-week, intensive program that costs students anywhere from $6,495-$8,495! Wasn’t I supposed to be employable with just my degree? Now I need to get these extra certifications? This tells me undergraduate programs everywhere are failing to prepare their graduates with the real-world information they need.
As a Dedman student, I have little to no understanding about basic financing, accounting and the stock market. Is this my responsibility to learn outside of my studies? Sure, I could go to Barnes and Noble and pick up Investing for Dummies, or SMU could quit wasting my time with relaxations and lectures about healthy relationships and teach me about basic business practices.
Talking to fellow Mustangs (Cox students included), I have found a common consensus: few of us know the basics of financing a home, something we all plan to do! That’s scary! I save a part of my paycheck every 2 weeks, but I know if I were more business savvy I could get a better return on my investment if I knew about the stock market or IRA’s or Roth IRA’s or one of the other billion investment acronyms.
If SMU insists that Wellness 1101 stay health-focused, then at least open a few of the business classes to the rest of us. Cox students can take English and anthropology courses, why can’t I take basic accounting? Not that accounting is what I dream of doing on a Friday night, but just the little exposure I’ve had to the business world, they expect you to know basic accounting skills, something SMU won’t let you learn unless you want to sit through that dreaded set of business pre-requisites.
Dedman College has taken the initiative in at least one department. Markets and cultures majors are required to take accounting 2300, a basic accounting class just to get you through life. But none of the other 84 majors in Dedman are given this luxury.
Wellness 1101 should be revamped to include subjects like how to search successfully for an apartment or home, basic financing of large purchases like cars and homes, stock market basics, finding a job that fits your major along with how to have a healthy relationship and staying fit.
If Basics of Ceramics is something SMU thinks I need (GEC requirement), but they don’t think I need to know how to do the above, mentioned things, then they really do need to “Get out of the bubble!”
I appreciate SMU’s efforts to make me a more balanced, happier, healthier student, but I think they do that already with all of their wonderful programs that acclimate first-years to college life like AARO, WOW, Mustang Corral, etc. For the excellent reputation SMU holds among employers and the Dallas community, I think they owe it to their students and themselves to make us the best employees possible. And with our basic degree, not an additional $7,000 program!
Elizabeth Weddell is a sophomore CCPA major. She can be reached at [email protected].
