It’s a Great Day to Die Early Due to a Heart Condition Associated with High Levels of Chronic Anger and Stress: my official letter of complaint about 200-level CTI classes

This article initially appeared in a print edition of the Hilltop Monitor published on Oct. 6, 2025.

We all like to complain about our classes. There are too many readings, the professor is unpleasant or has high expectations, the material is boring or too complicated. I think we all know deep down that most of the time we do this it’s not because the class is actually that dismal or draconian, but because we just need to complain as a way to cope with things being what they are.

Not me.

I have rage in my heart against the CTI system that Jewell has put in place, and I have an absolutely clear and unbiased view of the way things work. Thus, everything I say about CTIs here today is not just a “rant,” no mere expression of personal frustration, but the pure, unadulterated truth, and I expect things to change around here.

Disclaimer: I’m not talking about 100-level CTIs. Gen-ed courses are a pretty normal college requirement, and I think 100-level CTIs do a great job of giving people the background they need to think critically in their other classes. My beef is with the requirement of three different 200-level courses in three different disciplines. I haven’t experienced a CTI Capstone yet, so I can’t directly speak to them, but if you have, feel free to leave a comment about your experience and whether my frustrations apply there as well.

First of all, why is William Jewell College on a different system than the rest of the known universe in terms of CTIs? I have so many friends, and I’m sure you know these people too, who have either tried to transfer out of Jewell or into Jewell and realized that they are an entire semester or even year behind because CTI credits don’t count towards your degree anywhere but here. People who want to receive an education partially from Jewell and partially elsewhere are directly harmed by our current CTI system and have difficulty graduating on time, which I believe is something we should be trying harder to avoid.

Second, 200-level CTI requirements can be overly burdensome and sometimes, frankly, ridiculous for those of us in more intense or unusual degree programs. For example, I’m a double major, and one of those is music – I’m always at the 18-credit limit and really should be doing more. To go over that limit is to pay more, which I can’t really afford, and CTI 200-level courses are 4 credits each, keeping me from completing other courses related to my major on my preferred schedule since that space in my course schedule is already taken up. Not to mention the time, textbook price, and mental commitment each CTI saps from me. Perhaps some people have extra time and credit space in their schedules and want to take a class outside their major. Awesome. Do it. Personally, I don’t want to, and I especially don’t want to pay to, and I especially don’t want to be paying to do so at the cost of courses that I actually want and need to take. It’s an unnecessary burden on a very special and cool person (me).

Some people have told me that CTIs might be inconvenient, but they’re good for me and teach me critical thinking, so I should suck it up and stop being a little b**** about it. I will not. First of all, I think we’ve all experienced CTIs that certainly didn’t take any critical thought or inquiry, CTIs from which we learned only that the world is cruel and sometimes you have to get up at 8 AM for a class that teaches you a whole lot of nothing, where you don’t know anyone,you are hungry and sleepy for two hours and that’s just how it works, buddy. (Just imagine how complain-y I’ll be as an old person.) But also, aren’t all the courses at Jewell supposed to be teaching us critical thinking? Isn’t that what the multiple 100-level CTIs we took were all about? Why do I have to take a religion course (meh) or a political science course (disgusting and revolting) on top of my other courses in which I learn to think critically or else I can’t graduate? A liberal arts college should not try to mold people into its own image, but instead should remember that to a large extent, it is still a service that we, the students, select and pay for. If we lived in a utopia and had a good system to track CTI credits as well as unlimited time and resources to spend on education, the CTI system would be more likely to produce well-rounded citizens, but because of the issues outlined above, that’s simply not what’s happening. Therefore, the control of our higher education, to the largest extent possible, should be in our own hands, the hands of the consumer, not in the hands of the people who profit from my choices – or lack thereof. This is how services work; if you went to a Subway to build your own sandwich and they also made you pay for an extra drink and side that you didn’t want, it doesn’t matter how delicious and nutritious that extra side and drink are – you would feel cheated out of your money and suspicious that Subway is becoming authoritarian.

In summary, given that Jewell’s 200-level CTIs do not transfer credit either to or from other schools and that for many of us, CTIs limit opportunities within our actual fields of study by taking up time, energy, and credit space, my opinion is that they should not be a graduation requirement. I’m all for allowing people to take CTIs as electives, but for some of us, extra work just isn’t an option if we are to stay on track and really hinders our ability to get our majors completed. Since colleges and universities under capitalism are a service that the students consume, we should be in charge of our own educations and what goes into them as much as possible; CTIs are an extra expense on our receipt that we never added to the cart. I’m thankful that some CTI restrictions are lessening, such as the new addition that the three 200-level CTIs we take do not all have to be outside of our majors, but the current system is not useful for us and feels, to me, obsolete and authoritarian. Sometimes, you just need to vent to a good friend or perhaps the entirety of the Hilltop Monitor’s reader community, and then you realize that it wasn’t such a big deal after all. Not me. I am enraged and furious, and will probably die early due to a heart condition associated with high levels of chronic anger and stress. 200-level CTIs are dangerous, Cardinals. Be careful out there.