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Liberal arts education why is it important
Liberal arts education why is it important
Importance of the liberal arts
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All though “The New Liberal Arts”, Sanford J. Ungar uses seven misconceptions about liberal arts on why learning the liberal arts. And explain why is still relevant and will be for coming years. The first misperception that he advocates is that a liberal arts degree is no longer affordable. Vocational training is better alternative to liberal arts in today. In this recession it is a financially wise decision to obtain a career oriented education instead. Students may not able to find jobs in the field that they are training after graduate. Ungar argues that especially collage students find it harder to get good jobs with liberal arts degrees, which is not the case. Which is the second misperception is that graduates with liberal arts degrees
James V. Schall’s, “A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning” wants us to understand that the nature of the universe gives us opportunities for different things. He addresses that the universe allows us to gain new knowledge in any place that we might be. In Schall’s “A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning,” he mentions “one that is capable of altering us to intellectual riches that are almost never found in universities or in the popular culture.” From this I understood that the universe always gives opportunities to acquire and learn new knowledge. The universe allows us to learn different things. For example, things that might be facts or simply random things that are interesting.
According to Gregory Mantsios many American people believed that the classes in the United States were irrelevant, that we equally reside(ed) in a middle class nation, that we were all getting richer, and that everyone has an opportunity to succeed in life. But what many believed, was far from the truth. In reality the middle class of the United States receives a very small amount of the nation's wealth, and sixty percent of America's population receives less than 6 percent of the nation's wealth, while the top 1 percent of the American population receives 34 percent of the total national wealth. In the article Class in America ( 2009), written by Gregory Mantsios informs us that there are some huge differences that exist between the classes of America, especially the wealthy and the poor. After
The Student Guide to Liberal Learning encourages apprentices to consider the significance of what is truth? James Schall, explains the nature of the universe as an open door to seek guidance through the knowledge of the great thinkers as an attempt to better comprehend the ultimate truth of our reality as a whole, to understand how things perfectly align with each other and how to find the ultimate truth that humanity continuously seeks. Furthermore, Schall states that: “…the truth comes from reality itself, from what is. Truth is our judgment about reality.” Schall lays out the initial quest as form of “clear knowledge of truth” while he persuades to stimulate and spark the curiosity of students to seek his or her own truth of reality through a two-step process:
Since high school and now through my second year of college I have had one goal for my future, that goal was to graduate college with a degree in criminal justice. Not being interested in math or science, I was discouraged by the fact of taking classes that had nothing to do with my career choice. Thus being said, many people that I talked too felt the same way as I did. Which constantly led me to question what the importance of a liberal education was. After reading an essay called The Liberal Arts Are Not Elitist by Martha Nussbaum and relating it to an essay by William Cronon called The Goals of a Liberal Education, my perspective changed. An education is more than just a degree in your field of study, but an overall basic knowledge in which will inspire people to be the absolute best they can be.
Even since I was young, I constantly prided myself in thinking in what I considered a mature and logical system. I was never captivated by the social trends that my peers always seemed to hold in high regard. I would collect and store random bits of information from the various works that I read, and then turn that information into something useful be it a story or a school assignment. I was always extremely focused on myself due to my introverted nature, but as I grew older I began to question other people, why they did certain things and why they thought the way they did. It’s a complicated thing the human mind, extremely complex and difficult to understand. Every human who has ever lived on this Earth has never been the exact same, always
When students say that their majoring in “English” or “History” I can’t help but think that they might be misguided and be making a big mistake. In his article “The Evils of a Liberal Arts Education” Steve Tobak , thinks that we need to do a better job of showing to young Americans what the job market will look like for them before they go and get these degrees. Tobak says “we at least owe it to them to provide some counseling in the realities of supply and demand and the basics of personal finance. At least then they’d know what it takes to pay off their debt, have a fulfilling
Imagine a cardiovascular surgeon about to crack the sternum of a dying patient; tension is high while the clock of life ticks desperately slower and softer for the poor soul on the cold steel table that saw death the hour before. Is it logical that at that moment the purveyor of life is contemplating whether his freshmen philosophy class back at SMU has thoroughly prepared him for what he is about to do? Not likely. In higher learning institutions, liberal art classes like philosophy are not meant to be directly applied to one’s life or career; however, they are structured and devised to be a strong base that the individual can expand upon through scientific learning and experience. This is precisely the reason colleges and universities require and place much emphasis on these classes; nevertheless, there has been a shift away from the liberal arts towards the direction of highly specialized areas of science and business because of their growing integration in everyday life. Although people need a limited number of liberal arts classes to attain a basic understanding of ourselves and our evolution, state universities are aptly moving towards technical education, because, in this fast paced world, many people don’t have the time or money to spend studying the humanities alone.
In the 1997 article, “On The Uses of a Liberal Education: As a Weapon In the Hands of the Restless Poor,” published by Harper’s Magazine, the social critic Earl Shorris described how political power could be achieved by a rather non-vocational educational discipline, the humanities. He emphasizes on how the knowledge of a liberal Education can be used as a form of weapon within the lives for the poor.
In 1959, C. Wright Mills released a book entitled ‘The sociological’. Imagination’. It was in this book that he laid out a set of guidelines of how to carry out social analysis of the data. But for a layman, what does the term ‘sociological imagination’ mean? actually mean.
In Stanford J. Ungar’s article “The New Liberal Arts,” he claims that the misperceptions about a liberal arts degree has affected current views when it comes to seeking this particular degree. One misperception that Ungar states is that it might be too hard to find a job with a degree in this path. “It is no surprise, then, that a growing number of corporations, including some in highly technical fields, are headed by people with liberal-arts degrees.” (228). Succeeding in a specific field (liberal arts degree) can have its pro’s and con’s. Many students cannot find a job, while most have the possibilities of running a company. It is much better for college students to explore and receive a wide range of knowledge because of the many job options
In Charles Murray’s essay entitled “Are Too Many People Going to College?”, he discusses the influx of Americans getting a college education. He addresses the topic of Liberal Arts education, and explains that not many people are ready for the rigorous challenges a liberal-arts degree offers. In addition, Murray explains that instead of a traditional degree more people should apply to technical schools. He believes that college should not be wide spread, and that it is only for those who can handle it. These viewpoints harshly contrast with Sanford J. Ungar’s views. Ungar believes college education should be widespread, because a liberal-arts degree is, in his opinion, a necessity. He argues that a liberal-arts college is the only place that
It should not be a surprise that many people believe that a college degree is a necessity in today’s world. We are taught to believe this at a young age. The average citizen will not question this statement due to how competitive the job market has become, yet does graduating college guarantee more success down the road? Peter Brooks is a scholar at Princeton University and publisher of an essay that questions the value of college. He obviously agrees that college can help securing a job for the future, but questions the humanities about the education. He uses other published works, the pursuit of freedom, and draws on universal arguments that pull in the reader to assume the rest of his essay has valid reasons.
In the article “America’s Most Overrated Product: The Bachelor’s Degree” by Marty Nemko, the author argues several different views on why higher education may be very overestimated. For starters, the author shares his opinion more than anything else due to him being a career counselor. The purpose of this essay is to explain to the readers that most people start off with the idea of living the American Dream. Which is practically going to college to have a better life and career. But over the time the idea of working very hard for a Bachelor’s degree has become very dimmed. Furthermore, for some people, when they think of the American Dream they think of hope for bettering themselves and also helping their families. Unlike the author, Nemko feels that even the thought of trying to pursue to get a bachelor’s degree is overrated. The audience of this passage would most likely be teenagers going into college and parents. Nemko states that “Colleges are quick to argue that a college education is more
Michael S. Roth, “Why liberal arts matter”. CNN. CNN. 21 May 2011. Web. 05 March 2014.
A college education can broaden one’s career horizons and help them achieve stable employment. Through education one can expand their intellectual capacity along with financial scope. “ The median person with a bachelor 's degree earns about $48,000 per year, compared with $27,000 for a high school graduate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau” (Haltom 14). A college education should allow one to thrive both internally and externally, whilst progressing society along with them into the ever-changing world. These statistics represent the aspired