Not always. I went through an engineering degree and took exactly two non-engineering courses in my 4.5 years - and that was only because I loaded one of them on as an extra credit (damn near killed myself doing it too).

The way the college system works today, the "well roundedness" aspects are disappearing, and quickly. Don't blame the schools, blame ourselves - we're the ones balking at paying top-dollar for a hard science degree and then being forced to take "useless" liberal arts courses.

Whoa! really? Which school?

University of Waterloo, in Canada.

Same here, we had to take eight 3-credit humanities courses to graduate. I ended up taking history, literature, and some sociology. We even had to take physical education for 4 or 6 (I forget) semesters at 1 credit a pop.

heh. One of the things I found most amusing on applying to college was how my military service filled all my physical education requirements.

Brown?