Many UCs offer a small number of unique classes that focus on specific and unconventional subject areas. Many argue that these classes prove to be of no real use after graduation.

We say keep the boutiques coming. You never know if you will graduate to work as a cartoonist for “The Simpsons” or become the primary tractor operator on your family farm. Everyone needs a class worth talking about that they look forward to attending weekly, in between copious amounts of biostatistical organimicrogeochemistry homework.

I was disturbed to note that your Oct. 18 editorial entitled “Learn How to Bike, Seriously” provided incorrect instructions for hand signals.

Seriously.

According to the DMV Vehicle Code Section 22111: All required signals given by hand and arm shall be given from the left side of a vehicle in the following manner:

1) Left turn – hand and arm extended horizontally beyond the side of the vehicle.

2) Right turn – hand and arm extended and bent upward beyond the side of the vehicle, except that a bicyclist may extend the right hand and arm horizontally to the right side of the bicycle.

3) Stop signal – hand and arm extended and bent downward beyond the side of the vehicle.

Also, bicyclists should not “pretend” to be vehicles. The DMV considers bicycles to BE vehicles — which means that we bicyclists are subject to the same rules of the road as cars. So in addition to using hand signals, bicyclists must stop at all stop lights and stop signs  — even if no cars are in sight.

Thank you for your attempt to keep the students safe, but please make sure you have all the facts correct next time.

— Cynthia Weller
Staff member of Department of Neuroscience, Physiology & Behavior

Mister Chang:

I write in response to your article entitled “Major Issues,” about how wonderful it is to major in English. Your article lacks any modicum of support for your assertions and is both explicitly and implicitly counterproductive to your cause.

You attempt to convince people of the value of majoring in English by stunning your audience with dick-jokes and innuendos? Two years of studying and that’s what you can come up with? Essentially, it is bad and you should feel bad.

After your lengthy introduction, in which you treat us to the master storytelling techniques taught exclusively to the master-race of English majors, you state, “Fewer people pursue a degree in English, and consequently, the field’s not as competitive as it could be.” Am I to conclude that English majors are not “lazy and intellectually inferior” from this?

You continue, “The nature of the English curriculum is also more conducive to strong academic performance, as the grading scale is more subjective.” This statement is a non-sequitur. Let’s analyze your logic here: A: Grading in the English department is subjective, therefore B: studying English is conducive to strong academic performance.

B does not follow from A.

I cannot see how subjective grading leads to strong academic performance unless you are sleeping with your instructor or other unprofessional behavior is taking place. I dare suggest that this strong performance is caused by the field’s lack of competition that you mentioned earlier. A more parsimonious argument, don’t you agree?

I do hope that your logic is not typical of the “multiple equally valid arguments” made in English class; it is unfortunately typical of this article.

You argue that studying English engages you in constant critical thinking, that it makes students better “writers, thinkers, and communicators.” Science and mathematics teach those qualities as well.

Technical subjects encourage students to analyze statements by following the lines of logic used as support. Terms are defined rigorously and specifically in order to reduce ambiguity. Implications and doubts are investigated. As a science major I find myself filled with a passionate curiosity about the world and how it works. When someone makes a questionable statement, I seek out the evidence.

Perhaps reading literature helps you better understand motivations and subtlety (and teaches you to “become better at lying,” apparently), but studying science helps me discover truths about the world not limited to the transience of language and humanity.

The perk of better job prospects after college is just that, a perk. You easily discard the entire field of statistics in order to ease your jealousy of this, but I don’t mind.

Your article reeks of desperate insecurity in your choice of majors and I implore you to come to peace with your decision. Lashing out with lame jokes and whining about people being critical is not the way to win hearts nor minds.

English is a fine field of study and yes, people sometimes jump to conclusions. Don’t help them. Persuade them with maturity and eloquence, not by waving around your literary cock. A person’s life decision is nobody’s business but their own and I do not place judgment on anyone for studying English.

You don’t make it easy, though.

I can clearly recall getting back a math quiz from my first grade teacher that had red marks all over the place. My parents tried to solve my difficulties by tutoring me in their spare time. Unfortunately, they both had work, leaving only a bit of time at night and on Saturday mornings.

One day, my dad came home with a game called Math Blaster and taught me how to play. From then on, I’d come home every day and spend 30 minutes playing through Math Blaster on the computer. The best part for my parents was that I could do this alone. I won’t claim that my math quizzes at school suddenly came back with big gold stickers, but there were definite improvements.

I was learning.

Trying to learn arithmetic sitting in a classroom or being tutored by my parents wasn’t working for me and was just making me hate numbers. Math Blaster, though, was a game — not a quiz or a test. It engaged me and encouraged me to actively try to do well at math.

The funny thing about kids is that they’ll actively engage in almost anything, as long as it’s presented the right way. In today’s public schools, it’s hard to get students engaged and interested. Not all students happily lose themselves in pure learning. But games can engage and teach in ways that sometimes parents and teachers cannot.

Traditionally, classrooms focus primarily on auditory learning. However, games can bring together elements of visual and kinesthetic learning to teach the students who normally slip through because they learn differently. This potential for improvement of learning is especially true for kinesthetic learners, who need to learn by doing.

A game offers the unique opportunity of letting a student experiment without concern for material costs, equipment concerns and sometimes safety concerns. A game could have students design a building while forcing them to keep in mind structural integrity. Upon the design completion, the game can model various natural disasters, allowing the student to test for practicality in an environment where failure is acceptable.

Frequently in classrooms, mistakes are stigmatized. Students know that if they mess up, if they do poorly on one thing — there will be huge consequences. They’ll get a bad grade, or their teacher will be upset or they’ll break something. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it teaches caution and makes students more careful, but too frequently it leads to students being too afraid to try.

Games, however, encourage trial and error. If you mess up in a game, you only have to restart. You haven’t actually lost anything and you are free to continue experimenting.

There are innumerable benefits to video games in an educational situation. Games are designed to engage their players. They can be adjusted to fit people who learn differently. They can simulate cause and effect and encourage experimentation. They provide a safe place for students to learn what it takes to succeed.

People might say that using video games as an educational platform will be extremely expensive. There’s no doubt about that. You’d have to outfit every school with computers capable of handling the programs, while also acquiring the programs themselves. And then the schools would have to deal with the bureaucratic nightmare of incorporating video games into their curriculum and obtaining permission from parents and figuring out how exactly to use the games to teach.

People worry about the costs of education and politicians love to cut education funding all the time, but they don’t seem to consider how important education is as a long-term investment. Of course educating an entire nation is expensive. Of course it’s easier to leave it as is and not fix it.

The basic idea is that in the future, it pays off huge dividends. And it does. And it will. But it needs help to do it.

Tell DERRICK LEU your favorite educational game at derleu@ucdavis.edu.