DLSU and SM Experiencing the same degradation.

[lneliouchiora]

Just because we have subjects like Art and Literature it doesn't automatically mean we are being given a holistic education. It's how the subjects are taught and the curriculum they come with that matters. Unfortunately it seems DLSU added these subjects to the curriculum just to say they are providing a "holistic" education even if the subjects are hollow on the inside. Heck even philo, sociology and even psych to some extent was useless. I don't know if it's the curriculum, the professors or both. TRED is a given.

It's very evident that professors are given a free hand on how to go about these types of subjects and I'm pretty sure I don't speak for myself when I say walang kwenta at wala kang matututunan ang mga subject na iyan sa DLSU. It's a totally different thing when you say philo or literature in Ateneo. The problem with Ateneo is the overemphasis on the humanities subjects. So I still prefer how UP does things, you choose what you want to learn. In DLSU, you don't know how things will turn out and whether or not you will actually learn something from the minor/floating subjects. The determining factor on whether you graduate as a "holistic" student or not sadly depends on ALL your professors.

There's something very wrong with the entire DLSU philosophy on a quality and holistic education.

I did say that I have reservations as to HOW professors teach the courses against your original premise that the Humanities/floatings were crap and that, without them, tuition wouldn't be so high.
I would also include the attitude of the student with regard to these courses as a determining factor, concurring with what statespace said.

Also, DLSU just didn't put them there just to say we have a "holistic" education, it's a CHED requirement. Although, I agree with the electives thing. It's something the university should look into provided, IMO, that the Humanities (philo, lit, crithin) should be standard in all colleges and Philosophy of Religion should be included again.

[lneliouchiora]

Commoner, you seem to be very knowledgable about DLSU. Did you study there? what year?

While it may be true that over-all quality has declined, it may also be true because of the dramatic increase in numbers. Yet, the university continues to produce oustanding alumni.

I'm on the same page with you when it comes to student quality. Yes, we must only get the best. And that's why the university has embarked on a massive scholarship campaign. Did you know that the1Billion One La Salle Fund campaign was easily achieved? In fact it only took them a little more than half the time it was scheduled to be rolled out such that by the end of the campaign period, they almost doubled the amount!

Isn't the 1 Billion Scholarship fund for all La Salle schools in the Philippines and not just for DLSU? Because if it is, the effect of this endeavour to DLSU would be lessened as compared if it is solely for the benefit of DLSU.

And that's why if you may have heard, the university is actively engaging valedictorians and salutatorians from public schools to enroll in their engineering and science programs. This is on top of the Star Scholar program which has been existing the last 10 years.

While we see or hear students being accepted via the back-door, it also is true with ateneo and UP. They have programs to be able to do this.

My daughter recently got accepted in the top 3 schools via their dreaded programs. Economics in UP diliman, Mangement Eng in Ateneo and ECE in La Salle. Yet she decided to remain "green and white". Although she jusy applied a change in course from ECE to Eco-Accountancy. 8 of her batchmates in high school who were honor grads have decided to remain green as well.

Every university has a problem. We may have one. And yes, the alumni is watching. I just recently spoke to Dr. Tereso Tullao who used to be Chair of the Dept of Economics (now called the DLSU School of Economics). Quite frankly, he berrates the "impression" with regard the declining quality but is also quick to cite efforts to "strengthen" the program. The establishment of the DLSU School of Econ is surely a step towards that. Notable alumni from both the private and government are scheduled to join the faculty. As a a side note, did you know that the current NEDA director general Dr. Cayetano Paderanga and former NEDA director gen Dr. Felipe Medalla were products of the La Salle economics program? Did you know too that there are 5 eco alumni teaching at the prestigious UP School of Econ? These guys are slated to teach initially on a part-time basis but eventually is part of a sustainable program to re-define the school's influece and participation in nation-building via its papers and researches for public policy crafting.

Additinally, the Gokongwei School of Engineering is set to start as well this school year with the biggest donation ever to any school in the philippines at P 250M. This is going to finance the Gokongwei engineering scholars aside from the needed infra projects and labs for the college.

The Ramon del Rosario School of Business and Economics is also designed to preserve the school's decades-long contribution to the country's aspiritions in joining the world's emerging economies. Under this wing is the DLSU School of Economics. It will now offer Finance (as in heavy quantitative finance) distinct from the usual business courses. This is going to produce immediate CFAs instead of the usual CPAs the school is known for.

Lastly, we need to believe that the School of Law would soon be a major contributor to all of this. Let's wait until 2015 when the first bar results involving our own grads have already come out.

For the meantime, we in the alumni are watching. And we would be very active in puruing this.

Any word for C.L.A, CED and COS?

COS is good but they are very quiet. C.L.A. really needs some boost from the admin. If they want COL to be competitive in the future, they should really support C.L.A.
And.. I don't know anything from CED. They should look into the development of these colleges too.

[statespace]

I have nothing against scholarships as long as the paying students do not carry the bulk of the funding of these scholars. It is always nice to hear X % of students are scholars but at the same time the tuition fee of paying students keep increasing drastically. I can't help but connect the 2 in some ways. It's also OK to pay more as long as you get quality professors. Unfortunately, out of the 45+ subjects I took in DLSU, only around 10-15 had professors that knew how to teach, had the passion to teach and the ability to inspire the students. Plus there's too many fresh grads teaching in a school where majority of the funds go to the professors.
[/I]

Regarding the scholarships, I'm not sure how they plan to use the One Billion Scholarship Fund. Is it something that will be used directly for scholarships while the fund is replenished every year through donations? Would it be an endowment fund handled by investment managers where the proceeds are to be used for the scholarships/projects? The same goes for the Gokongwei group's donation or any other donation for that matter.

Regarding the faculty, the reality is that in every university, there will always be professors who are crappy teachers. Some are really better at research. Some are great at both things. Some are neither. Since DLSU strives to become a good research university (DLSU is a lot better than ADMU in this respect), it still makes sense to keep those who have great publication records despite poor teaching evaluations. It's a matter of providing them with the proper training to improve their teaching abilities. You'd be surprised to find professors who could be extremely helpful in your thesis although they weren't as good in class.

Students often complain about having fresh grad profs sometimes even in major subjects. We can't blame the students because they want teachers with both pedigree and experience. We can't blame the fresh grad profs either because most of them are working towards an MA or PhD while teaching since they'd need some form of livelihood to survive.

I can't remember if I've mentioned this before, but DLSU can address this issue by altering the way classes are conducted. The problem is that the full-time faculty are required to have a load of 12-units a term. Now, a prof can do this by teaching the same subject to 4 separate sections. But this is a wasteful way of doing things because the prof can be doing research or consultancy or teaching a different subject. H/She doesn't have to repeat the same lecture to each section every week.

Instead, the senior faculty can be tasked to deliver the lecture in one big master class. Then, that big class can be broken down to separate discussion sections where a junior faculty would facilitate say the problem solving or the recitation component of the class. That way, most students can take the lectures from a "star" prof whose section would otherwise be full. At the same time, the junior faculty or the fresh grad profs can still teach while gaining enough experience in handling classes. Of course this can't be done in every single class especially the major subjects. But this can work for the floating subjects.

Just my 2 cents.

[dashingdevonair]

Unlike Ateneo, a "holistic" education doesn't fit quite well with La Salle. Ateneo is generally a humanities school hence it fits their curriculum. La Salle meanwhile is a more technical school, and you need a lot of technical subjects for technical courses. Kaya medyo "nadapa" ang Ateneo sa ECE program nila, dahil pinilit na isingit ang core curriculum sa ECE program.

I'd think this is the reason why UP doesn't impose a "more-than-necessary" general education subject on all of their students. Having diverse programs from music, to engineering, they're probably aware that one simply can't impose a "one size fits all" core curriculum on the students. General education subjects are very useful, but you have to tailor these subjects according to the course.

The performance of COS is good, but to make it famous you need a competent medical school, the same way you need a law program to make your political science program well known. The DLSU HSI is performing well but it's still not as popular as UST, UP or even the newly established St Lukes College of Medicine. That's the price La Salle has to pay for not offering the MD program under the DLSU-Manila name and opening a campus in such a far place. If I were La Salle I'd partner with Asian Hospital and open a medical school under DLSU-M in alabang and make DLSU-HSI a satellite campus.

[statespace]

^It's still possible to have a well-rounded core curriculum even if La Salle offers the more "technical" degrees. Consider MIT. They have arguably the best engineering program in the world yet, "there are some classes which all MIT students, whether they major in Biology or Music, must take, though there is some degree of choice for each of the required pieces." It's called their General Institute Requirements which in no way constrains the students' freedom in taking subjects they want. It's just like UP's RGEP. The only problem is that DLSU must satisfy the darn CHED regulations.

EDIT: Caltech, another engineering powerhouse, also has a core curriculum.

A Caltech education requires not just the depth of an option (major), but also considerable breadth in basic science, humanities, and social science. Caltech’s core curriculum prepares students for the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary research in science and technology and positions Caltech graduates for leadership roles in academia and industry. Significant study in the humanities and social sciences is an important component of Caltech’s core curriculum, giving our alumni the ability to navigate the societal, political, and economic factors that influence (and are influenced by) their work.

[dashingdevonair]

Siguro one difference is that engineering and accounting students in the Philippines have to take a board exam, and the board exams here try to cover a lot of subjects, even beyond the basic knowledge required by the profession. Yan ang hindi naconsider ng Ateneo nung ginawa nila yung curriculum ng ECE program nila.

[commoner]

I have to agree that DLSU is indeed good at the core subjects of the courses but really lags behind in the humanities. And I also agree that ADMU's engineering programs and even the IT programs are still not at par with DLSU (assuming the intellect of the student is the same for both programs).

Why does DLSU have to adhere to CHED requirements while UP does a US-style of choosing minor subjects?

Aren't top-rated PAASCU schools supposed to be given autonomy?

I'm sure subjects like "Saliksik" and "Persef" are not part of the CHED requirements so instead of asking students to mandatorily attend subjects like these whose effectivity and purpose are highly debatable, why not let the students choose what they want to study. Yes there are a couple of "Free electives" but even these free electives are limited to a bunch of courses your college is offering. Why impose these restrictions?

[statespace]

Yes, indeed my major subjects were far superior than the general education classes. The trimestral system to spread the classes which were otherwise crammed in a semestral system. For instance, Math majors would take calculus in four terms (Math 113 - 116) while other universities will usually cover it in three semesters.

The UP Charter exempts it from CHED regulation although the CHED commissioner chairs the UP Board of Regents. In DLSU's case, even if we're given autonomy, we still need to satisfy CHED's General Education Curriculum circa 1997. See this link from DLSU's website. An autonomous status just gives perks like being able to confer honoris causas, to readily offer new degrees without CHED's approval, control over tuition and fees etc.

Allowing students to take free electives would be good for the university revenue-wise. I'm not sure why it's not being done.

For the COB students out there, you may find this WSJ story on the need for business majors to have a solid liberal arts education.

[dashingdevonair]

I'm not fond of Ateneo's core curriculum but they're one of the very few universities in the country that has an underdeveloped "minor" program.

For me if you want a tailored holistic education for each student, that's the best system to implement. This is very prevalent in US universities and for some odd reason the practice hasn't reached Philippine shores yet.

Management majors would be able to take a minor in Chinese studies or Computer Science majors would be able to take a minor in Marketing. You can imagine how much more competent your graduates will be when they are free to take a minor. Management graduates would be able to speak conversational Mandarin while IT majors would have the skills to market their services or apply marketing concepts to their projects.

Such a system would be far better than the expensive and time consuming LIA-COM program or making "chopsuey" courses

You retain an expertise in a particular field, you are allowed to explore another area of interest and it doesn't cost you as much time and money. That's "holistic education", not just forcing students to take random and shallow introductory courses

....and the school has all the reason in the world to offer such a program since it would mean more revenue to them

[gablorenzo]

^^^ If that's the case, yayaman ang C.LA at COB. They have the most "minor-able" courses.

[baby_jee]

selling bustier clothes.. highly fashionable! visit http://babyjeee.multiply.com/products

[12th~angel]

Obviously, people here blab without thinking. Br. Andrew Gonzalez, your "best" DLSU President, was a bachelor of arts graduate. He also pursued literature in the graduate school.

Here's an article on the benefits of critical thinking inherent in the humanities, I quote: "The undergraduate degrees focus too much on the nuts and bolts of finance and accounting and don't develop enough critical thinking and problem-solving skills through long essays, in-class debates and other hallmarks of liberal-arts courses."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/wealth...ess-major.html

Moreover, the literature program of DLSU is a Center of Excellence. It was assessed by the ASEAN University Network, and obtained the highest score among DLSU's candidates which were chemistry and psychology. Prior to that, the school of economics was also assessed. Only few departments are chosen and qualify to be nominated for an assessment by the AUN.

Also, don't be entirely susceptible with university rankings. A credible academic source claims that Ateneo paid/pays to be included in certain institutional "rankings."

[12th~angel]

^ They are good in "projecting" they are good. Image is the one crucial factor that shapes mindsets, and that's where DLSU - Manila fails among several other things.

[irradiation]

Oh, the ECE, CE, and IE programs of DLSU have received Level IV Status from PAASCU, the first of its kind in the country. Congratulations!

[LOLOLOLOL]

yung management engineering kaya?

SSSSSH no bashing!!!

[gablorenzo]

yung management engineering kaya?

SSSSSH no bashing!!!

LOLOLOLOL

[lneliouchiora]

I hope someone from the admin is reading this. They should seriously consider the points raised and defended here for the sake of improving the school further. If none, I hope the alumni here can raise and suggest this to DLSAA and then the admin.

[jevilei]

Oh, the ECE, CE, and IE programs of DLSU have received Level IV Status from PAASCU, the first of its kind in the country. Congratulations!

really? that would be a good advertisement for the future DLSU STC.

"Level IV Engineering Programs in a World-Class Campus"

[LOLOLOLOL]

la salle still has the level 4 (or whatever highest level) from the paascu, right?

[lneliouchiora]

^ They are good in "projecting" they are good. Image is the one crucial factor that shapes mindsets, and that's where DLSU - Manila fails among several other things.

i-quote ko lang.

I hope STRATCOM gets a clue soon. First up, hiring a new design team for school merchandise!!