Free choice of items

Now Russian higher education has begun to borrow some things from the West. Many borrowings are very controversial, but there is a very useful idea in Western universities - free choice of subjects.

The specialty has a set of basic subjects (physics, mathematics) that must pass everything (in order to somehow understand modern knowledge or at least make fun of xkcd ). The rest of the items you choose yourself.

Each subject has a set of credits (for example, in the IT direction, history will receive less credits, and AI or more functional programming). Students in order to receive a specialty must pass all compulsory basic subjects and collect a certain amount of credits.
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Pros:

• If a student has already decided what he will do in the future, then he can study the subjects he needs.
• When a student chooses a subject himself, his motivation will be higher. “Inevitability creates resistance, choice causes responsibility.”
• Getting a deuce is not equivalent to a deduction - you can pass the item just next year. So teachers do not need to pull students into the top three in non-core subjects (such as psychology in the IT direction).
• By the number of those who chose the course, the university will have feedback on the relevance of the topic and the skills of the lecturer.
• The student immediately learns to choose, rather than go with the flow.

For the planned economy of the USSR, the free choice of subjects was definitely not needed and the architecture of higher education was completely sufficient. Basically there were large enterprises for which requirements for specialists and a plan for graduation from institutions were drawn up. Further in educational institutions specialties were formed and the number of places needed by the economy.

But now we live in a market economy with a large number of medium-sized firms. Plus, in modern times, new professions began to appear faster than a student ends in studying. So, I believe that the old rigid system is outdated and free choice of subjects would be very useful for the Russian economy.

But, for example, my university SPbSPU is trying to follow the old way of cooperation with large companies: we have Microsoft and Sun user groups, a Motorola laboratory. This, of course, is also a path, but personally I have the feeling that the institute is bending more under the commercial requirements of monopolists than it is preparing the in-demand specialists.

However, in contrast to the introduction of graduate and undergraduate programs, the introduction of a free choice of subjects is much more difficult from the organizational side. The whole architecture of our higher education is not designed for it. But you could start at least like this:

1. increase the number of electives;
2. not to tie a specific group to them, but to post an elective advertisement on the department;
3. to attract students, to make electives on well-paid practical technologies (web development, Java / C #).