>>12439111well it's good to be able to focus just on your particular field of study, but in my experience that's a separate issue from being able to choose the specific topics within a field you find interesting. when i was studying computer science for example i really enjoyed taking my web design and software development classes but i would've shot myself in the head if i were forced to take cyber security and database administration classes.
similarly with japanese i'll end up being able to take stuff like translation, linguistics, and advanced language classes which wouldn't at all be a similar experience to taking classical japanese literature or culture
at the end of the day it might be better to split this stuff into separate degrees like software development, cyber security, japanese linguistics, and japanese culture but ultimately if someone with a software development degree and someone with a cyber security degree apply for the same entry level position then whoever has a better portfolio/interview skills will get the position regardless of which degree is more relevant, so it makes a lot of sense to just make one generalized degree for a whole field that includes a few core lower division classes and let people essentially "build their own degree" from a general upper division hour requirement.
this of course opens up the possibility of students making themselves schedules that aren't reasonable, accidentally increasing the amount of time it takes them to graduate, or unwittingly leaving themselves with over/under specialized sets of skills for what they plan to do but any halfway competent advisor should be able to spot these things from a mile away and steer people away from those mistakes
