The difference between schools that require a large number of courses in several areas (e.g. hard sciences, social sciences, math, humanities) most of which do not convey information that is directly applicable to the workplace, and schools that focus on skills which will be used on the job (e.g. EJBs, .NET, Cisco, auto repair, accounting) lay in how that school views higher education. Some are adament about the value of a liberal arts education, others are adament about providing "real world" skills.
I tend to prefer the liberal arts education model, although I'm glad that both types of programs are availible to students. I loved the fact that I had to take classes in so many different subjects, I discovered passions for fields that I previously had no interest in. The main reason why I got into IT was because I took a CS course to fulfill a math/science requirement and found that I was pretty decent at programming, and (more importantly) I loved doing it.
Now really, how useful would a CS course have been to an International Relations Major (like I was). But if it hadn't been for that Math/Science requirement I would probably not have gotten into IT.
Maybe some of the people who take that calculus requirement discover that they enjoy math more than CS, maybe they discover that they want to do more scientific/academic computing than standard programming. Having that exposure is important for some.
Also, College is supposed to improve one's ability to think critically, and develop analytical skills. One of the best ways to do that is to use those skills in multiple displines, as opposed to one subject matter. I was in nirvana when I saw concepts from my
philosophy class that related directly to my CS class, which related directly to my psychology class, which related directly to my foriegn language study.
I really am becoming a big fan of the idea of a 4 year liberal arts degreee where one is required to take classes in a variety of subjects, followed by a specialists degree of some sort (similar to a MD, MBA, or JD) where one focuses on studying in the career they want. Although this is probably impractical for most people.
Later,
Jon