Liberal arts education?

[ParAlum]

<p>To be competitive in the modern world of “hard” sciences, it is a definite advantage to have had a liberal arts undergraduate education before beginning vocational training in grad school. Why? Whether in the private or public sector, one must be able to write clearly and carefully articulate funding requests and research reports.</p>

<p>The statistics for tenured science faculty do not suggest that undergraduate educations at technical schools are an advantage. In contrast, doing your vocational training (graduate education) at these technical venues, does have a clear advantage!</p>

[vonlost]

<p>

I’ve tried explaining to him how a liberal arts education is a dead end. … I’ll support him in whatever he decides, but I don’t want him to ruin his life.

He might be more receptive if you don’t lie to him. If you want to deceive him, don’t let him read things like this: </p>

<p>

In surveys, employers say the liberal arts skills are the ones they value most in applicants. Many top CEOs have liberal arts backgrounds, and the most prestigious companies — Goldman Sachs, Google, McKinsey & Co. — all recruit aggressively at prestigious liberal arts colleges.

[Liberal</a> arts tweaked for careers - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-08-31-liberalarts_N.htm]Liberal”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2008-08-31-liberalarts_N.htm)</p>

<p>

IT IS ALWAYS A PRIVILEGE TO HELP MAKE THE CASE FOR UNDERGRADUATE SCIENCE EDUCATION. YOU might find it strange that here I will focus my attention on the liberal arts colleges. After all, I have spent every single minute of a now fifty-three-year academic career in one research university or another. But I think we have reached a critical stage in the evolution of how we teach science—one that challenges all of the institutions in which we educate undergraduates and has special impact upon the many smaller colleges of high quality that have always trained a disproportionate share of our future scientists. [former president of Stanford Donald Kennedy]

<a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20030720151309/rescorp.org/Annual_Report/kennedy_2.pdf[/url]”>http://web.archive.org/web/20030720151309/rescorp.org/Annual_Report/kennedy_2.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>

When you consider that only three percent of college grads come from liberal arts colleges, the fact that eight percent of the nation’s wealthiest CEOs and nineteen percent of United States presidents graduated from liberal arts colleges supports the notion that liberal arts colleges take education and a personal success seriously.</p>

<p>Here are some more interesting liberal arts college statistics:</p>

<p>Between the years 1960 and 1998, twenty-three percent of the Pulitzer Prize winners in drama were graduates of liberal arts colleges.</p>

<p>In a recent two-year period, students from liberal arts colleges made up 20 percent of Phi Beta Kappa inductions.</p>

<p>The percentage of liberal arts college graduates who go on to obtain a Ph.D. is almost twice as high as the percentage of university graduates who do so.

[What</a> Is A Liberal Arts College? - Liberal Arts College Review](<a href=“http://www.liberalartscollegereview.com/article_what.php]What”>http://www.liberalartscollegereview.com/article_what.php)</p>