Wrapping paper, neckties and people that watch unboxing videos on YouTube: There are many useless things in life, but none more annoying than the number of unnecessary classes students must take to earn their degree.
Many of the freshman-level courses are tedious and simply rehash material taught in high school. Going over old material for half of a school year leads to disengaged students.
There’s no reason that a public relations major needs to know about biology. The knowledge from that class will never come up in that student’s day-to-day life. Knowing how to identify the phylum and genus of an organism only serves to let other people know that you went to school once every five years when a biology-related subject came up.
The only scenario where any non-scientist would use biology in daily life is if someone is choking on a lobster in a restaurant, and it’s a hidden camera show where someone has to name the kind of lobster to save their life. Currently, no such show exists, and until it does, there’s no reason for anyone not studying science to take biology.
There’s no reason a psychology major needs to know trigonometry. No one has ever gone to therapy and explained that they will continue to be depressed unless the therapist can use sine, cosine and tangent to find the missing side length or angle of a triangle. 
Music majors don’t need to know geology. The ability to classify rocks is only useful to geologists, prospective geologists or students who just need credits. There’s no secret melody to be uncovered from knowing the difference between igneous and sedimentary rocks.
The thought that some classes are useless may be misguided. Perhaps in the future, criminals will ask people to describe the features of a pterodactyl and rob them if they fail. Maybe someday we’ll be able to pay hospital bills with knowledge about continental drift.
Students would be better off if classes that weren’t pertinent to them weren’t required. Non-STEM majors could be done with a bachelor’s degree of relevant knowledge after a year or two. 
A decrease in the number of hours required for a degree and the number of irrelevant classes would allow students to finish school and begin their professional careers faster. If the number of hours required for a degree stayed the same — giving students more choice as opposed to requirements — they would be free to learn about their interests and become more well-rounded.
Replacing some of the more gratuitous courses in favor of personal finance classes would also be a welcomed change.
The American system of higher education is bloated — every element of it, down to the required classes. Removing unnecessary gen-eds would go a long way in cutting the fat and making college more worthwhile.
Frank Kidd is a 21-year-old mass communication junior from Springfield, Virginia.