<p>“What I really want,” said his father, Alan Hastings, “is for him to find out who he is and what job he was meant to do. And I can’t think of any better place to do that than here.” </p>
<p>Lucky kid. He couldn’t ask for a more understanding father.</p>
<p>And if he has a hard time in the world of work he won’t have anyone to blame but himself.</p>
<p>These days, Business Majors at accredited schools have to take 50% of their courses outside of business, and have stronger distributional requirements than many liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>^I just looked up what the business program requires at UMich…</p>
<p>3 of these 4:
Humanities Distribution (HU) = 9 credits
Natural Sciences (NS) and/or Mathematical and Symbolic Analysis (MSA) = 9 credits
Social Sciences (SS) = 9 credits (excluding Econ 101 & 102)
Foreign Language Proficiency = Fourth-term proficiency in a foreign language</p>
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<p>How does someone who defends a liberal arts major defend private LACs specificly? Do they really offer much more for 20K a term than a state school does for 6K? Seems more like that’s what’s attacked in the article than the liberal arts majors themselvers.</p>
<p>
more education =/= different education</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone needs to “defend” anything. Graduates from LACs do perfectly well for themselves, and they have no need to rationalize their choices. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>LACs are no more expensive than their OOS public counterparts. Less so, in some cases.</p>
<p>I don’t see the need to judge anyone else’s choices.</p>
<p>For instance, there really isn’t anything as “liberal artsy” as an English major, and as an English major I spent time on tasks that I think some posters here would consider unworthy, such as reading the entirety of THE FAERIE QUEEN.</p>
<p>Of course for me, that was one of the many rich rewards of my major.</p>
<p>That said, I don’t think I’ve ever been without someone wanting to hire me for my writing skills. I have been asked to write things as different as the training manual for people planning to get arrested at a Shoreham Nuclear Power plant protest to the Guidelines for doctors who were members of the Oxford Group.</p>
<p>I had to reject the latter assignment because although it was very well paid, it violated my morals and ethics. Doctors got points and perks for refusing to recommend specialists and tests, if when warranted.</p>
<p>I accepted the Shoreham assignment but couldn’t charge money because the goals were too close to my own, although I declined to be arrested. Shoreham Nuclear Power plant was to be on Long Island, a far too populated place to ever be evaculated, especially considering it’s an island with limited access to bridges and tunnels. My joke was that someone wouldn’t even be able to get off her driveway.</p>
<p>The outcome? Shoreham never went on line and has been officially decommissioned; it is the only nuclear plant to be abandoned because of public protest.</p>
<p>The Oxford Group? Hired someone else and are probably doing very well.</p>
<p>I have also been paid (salaried job) to write testimony for NYS Senate and the US Congress on victims’ rights.</p>
<p>Most times I have earned a living as a educator simply because I enjoyed it more, but I certainly could have supported myself as a writer.</p>
<p>And I really did love the FAERIE QUEEN but not as much as TROILUS AND CRISEYDE by Chaucer. Best of all? GRAVITY’S RAINBOW. I did my dissertation on that.</p>
<p>“I don’t think anyone needs to “defend” anything. Graduates from LACs do perfectly well for themselves, and they have no need to rationalize their choices.”</p>
<p>Your answer is that an answer is unnecessary?</p>
<p>Okay, let me rephrase the question. How would you convience someone to attend a private LAC over an instate public of equal calibre?</p>
<p>I wouldn’t. Different strokes for different folks. I agree that an instate public is a great option for many students.</p>
<p>My daughter wanted to live in NYC. As she put it, “I don’t want to go to college. I want to start my life.” We have no instate public in NYC. </p>
<p>S is very reserved and modest. He might have gotten lost at an in-state public. Only one of our publics have a Classics department, which is S’s major, so he is much better where he is.</p>
<p>But I would not offer a argument for a LAC education for a student who is happy with her options at an in-state public.</p>
<p>I guess I’m still not putting my intended question into words too well…</p>
<p>What advantages (other than that the school is smaller, which is a possible advantage for some) are there to the private LACs over liberal arts at state schools which really make it worth so much extra?</p>
<p>Basicly all I’ve ever heard was that they are smaller, and offer more support.</p>
<p>There are often more research opportunities and more opportunities of working with professors at LAC’s when graduate students are present. That’s one advantage.</p>
<p>A lot of education is mentoring. A smaller student body often results in more faculty investment in each individual student. This can become important for internships and other opportunities.</p>
<p>A smaller environment is ideal for kids who tend to “get lost in the sauce.”</p>
<p>Clubs etc. provide more opportunities for leadership when there are less students. There may be more opportunity to play a sport or play in the orchestra (depending on the recruitment and level of the player.)</p>
<p>An individual department may feel more investment and work harder to find opportunities for particular students.</p>
<p>Of course, none is this is true in all cases. Some people have spectacular outcomes from in state public universities with research opportunities and close relationships with faculty.</p>
<p>I would just like to say, thank God for colleges like St. John’s College. It’s not for most kidsprobably not for minebut an institution devoted to learning purely for learning’s sake is a beautiful and rare thing in today’s money-driven world. We need such places in order to preserve the part of our humanity devoted to pure intellect. All the emphasis on jobs, jobs, jobs makes me nauseated.</p>
<p>“How does someone who defends a liberal arts major defend private LACs specificly? Do they really offer much more for 20K a term than a state school does for 6K?”</p>
<p>That’s easy. My state flagship would have cost my family 17,500 a year. Spending another 2,500 dollars annually so that I can attend a premiere LAC therefore seems to be a sensible and worthwhile investment.</p>
<p>That is, state schools have a strong appeal for middle and working class families because of their low price tag, but the top private LACs offer financial aid packages that make attendance just as affordable–and, in some cases, even less financially burdensome–for these families.</p>
<p>mantori.suzuki: Well said. I agree.</p>
<p>FYI from the St John’s website:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They do take Math and Science or should I say - they “discover” it. They do learn Calculus, they way it was discovered by Newton (or what it the other guy?).</p>
<p>The classes are very small and each classroom has a huge wooden table that everyone sits around for discussion.
You cannot graduate from this school without being able to read well, speak well, write well and understand the disciplines of math, biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy.
Oh yes, they also learn to read the Greek Classics in Greek. Same for French classics.</p>
<p>One of mine applied here and we visited. She found it too “quirky” for her, but it’s a fascinating school.
The have had some financial difficulties over the years and some years back had to sell some land to the Naval Academy. I hope they stick around. This school is not for everyone but they fill a niche.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Leibnitz. 10 char</p>
<p>
The antiquated science education at SJC is actually by far its weakest component and the one most frequently criticized.</p>
<p>I think by far the best combination for such people is a place like Columbia or Reed, with a combination of a core curriculum and many options for specialized study.</p>
<p>That’s what I was wondering mythmom, thanks.</p>
<p>My pleasure.</p>
<p>^^That’s exactly why I crossed off SJC off my list actually. I do appreciate the point of a Great Books college but it strikes me that there great books are a bit too sparse for the 20th century (yes i know that they have some stuff, but not enough IMHO).</p>
<p>Every time I run onto a person or group who is passionately involved in the study of some esoteric, obscure topic I think, “I’m glad I live in a world with those people in it.”</p>
<p>Even if I don’t choose to read the classics in their original language I believe our world is much, much richer because there are people who DO want to do that. My personal belief is that we should materially support those people for that reason. I also believe we should generously support the arts, museums, colleges in general, and other such endeavors that don’t (on the surface) appear to have a “profit value.”</p>
<p>Life is not all chrome and concrete.</p>
<p>Skyhook: I agree with you as well. And the argument can be made (and has) that each generation needs those who will continue to study the Classics in their original languages so contemporary interpretations can be discovered. Homer, the Bible, Ovid, Vergil, these never will get old, and if only older interpretations and translations are available they will soon become irrelevant.</p>