I teach at a university that focuses on the liberal arts, asking students to take (hopefully) challenging classes in a wide range of disciplines, making them think in ways that are not innate to them, taking them into realms they have not even considered before. For some of them the number of hours they have to take outside their major discipline, or even broad categories (e.g. sciences, or humanities, or creative arts) is very uncomfortable. For some it is so uncomfortable that they get defensive or even angry.
I know what it is like -- I have known the temptation to avoid classes I am intimidated by. I made the decision not to take Anthropology 101 because the huge stack of books for the class horrified me as a freshman. I took the second half of the survey two years later and have never regretted that introduction to cultural anthropology and anthropological theory. If I had it to do over again I would take at least one class in Statistics and Chemistry (I loved Geology and took a second year of it), and I would probably pick up another language or two.
The fact I made these decisions made to get out easy, to value the higher grades of a less-challenging class than the learning opportunities of a difficult one, is something I lean on as I advise students when they are getting ready to register for a new semester.
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