On Sun, 13 Jul 2003 00:19:01 -0400, "Bill Sohl"
wrote:

Ask a lawyer about that one. Hey I
want to be a BSEE, why do I have to take History classes ????

You don't have to take history classes in some schools
to get a BSEE.

Correct...but, in my opinion, still misses one major point, namely
that an amateur radio license and a BSEE are entirely different.

A BSEE is a degree awarded at the *end* of an academic pursuit for the
purpose of recognizing successful completion thereof and to certify
that the recipient has acquired significant knowledge in the field. By
the time you get a BSEE, you're supposed to have forgotten more about
electrical engineering than most people have ever learned. It'll get
you a decent job even if you bluffed your way through and really don't
know shinola. It's supposedly proof of an accomplishment, that being a
well-rounded education, with particular emphasis in a specialized
field. That's why most (not all) institutes of higher learning require
classes in things like history, literature, and other stuff that would
seem unrelated.

If I were Larry Roll, I'd lament that I've seen so many people with
college degrees that still couldn't fill out a job application
properly, that the requirements for a college degree must have been
seriously dumbed down over the past thirty years, but I'm not, so I
won't. Nevertheless, I have worked with people who held engineering
degrees yet could not compose a coherent memo for circulation in their
own department.

An amateur radio license is a document awarded at the *beginning* of
one's participation in the hobby for the purpose of granting operating
privileges and to certify that the recipient has demonstrated entry
level knowledge at the class of license thus received. It won't get
you a job bagging groceries. As for the accomplishments, those come
afterward when you actually start to make use of the privileges the
license conveys by putting Qs in your logbook. It is not, and is not
intended to be, comparable to a college degree...no matter how much
some people would like it to be so.

73 DE John, KC2HMZ