<p>If your student is considering Skidmore college please know this: A Liberal Arts Education really means a liberal education. Your child will be immersed in liberal thinking on every facet of life from politics to religion. Conservatism has no home at Skidmore. At the end of four years your child will no longer think or believe anything you might have taught them about God, politics, sex, drugs, or the judeo-christian world view. Also, my graduate and all of her friends that graduated with a Liberal Arts degree are currently working in $10 per hour jobs at depatment stores and coffee houses...that's what $50k per year has bought me.</p>
<p>It sounds like Skidmore has done the job most liberal arts colleges seek to accomplish: they teach varying views (admittedly more “liberal” given their leanings and eager audience) and encourage students to THINK. The conclusions students come to (vs., indoctrination, for example) are theirs alone. Our college-age sons engage in great debate with us around the dinner table and have a very black-and-white view on certain aspects of politics and society. We understand and encourage their passion, but also encourage them to listen to all sides of an argument. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. We have faith in their intellect and the effects of maturing and experiencing life on their eventual world views. </p>
<p>My oldest son graduated with a liberal arts degree from another liberal arts school and has a good job. Many of his friends do too, though many of his friends are, like your graduate, employed in the great minimum wage working world. It is, most likely, not the college that has caused this, but the economy. There is a great thread here on CC discussing the pros and cons of a “liberal arts” education and its affect on students’ abilities to find lucrative careers immediately post-grad.</p>
<p>I find it amusing you expected your child to come out of college believing what you taught them about God, politics, sex, drugs, etc. Especially a liberal arts college. Perhaps if you had sent her to a conservative religious school, it would be different. I am a bit upset that my D has a more conservative view than her parents, but she is her own person.</p>
<p>“If your student is considering Skidmore college please know this: A Liberal Arts Education really means a liberal education. Your child will be immersed in liberal thinking on every facet of life from politics to religion. Conservatism has no home at Skidmore. At the end of four years your child will no longer think or believe anything you might have taught them about God, politics, sex, drugs, or the judeo-christian world view. Also, my graduate and all of her friends that graduated with a Liberal Arts degree are currently working in $10 per hour jobs at depatment stores and coffee houses…that’s what $50k per year has bought me.”</p>
<p>Sounds to me like the OP spends too much time listening to talk radio.</p>
<p>If you are afraid that your kid might pick up scary ideas in college, you probably wouldn’t want your child to go anywhere. </p>
<p>I find it strange that many parents (and students) want a place where the student will never be challenged to think through one’s assumptions in the company of those who may believe differently from the home crew. This indicates insecurity about one’s convictions. If you’ve taught your children well through both precept and example, it’s highly unlikely that they will depart from your core values in adult life.</p>
<p>If the OP really feels that way, perhaps credit is due for not pulling the plug because this could not have been a surprise sprung in the last year. Lots of college graduates with degrees in the sciences are not getting high paying jobs either. I hear that the job market has not been favorable lately.</p>
<p>My S graduated from a typically liberal LAC and ended up being far more conservative than his parents. Isn’t it annoying how kids actually have minds of their own?</p>
<p>My S is only a senior in HS and he already doesn’t follow the religion and ideas he was brought up with. He has his own ideas about the philosophy of life. I have no doubt that his thinking will change yet again once he gets to college and again after he graduates. </p>
<p>Really, are any of us the same as we were 20 years ago?</p>
<p>I guess Skidmore is doing its job.</p>
<p>I hope my children leave college thinking something different than when they entered. Whether they agree with me or not after these formative four years seems less the point. I’ve had several talks with my recent LAC grad and am both surprised and impressed by the ways in which he now is suspicious of my views on some issues and respects my views on others. Point is, he’s thinking on his own (somewhat) and his thinking is rigorous. I’m happy.</p>
<p>I feel your pain regarding the challenging job market for recent graduates. Skidmore is acutely aware of this and is putting a tremendous amount of effort into the Career Services office as well as other networking tools (Skidmore Business Network on LinkedIn, regional networking events, alumni adviser network, etc) to give its alumni the best possible opportunities in a broadly tough environment. As an alum I’m on many of the school’s mailing lists, and I see various events and other opportunities to leverage the Skidmore community for the benefit of alumni job seekers.</p>
<p>“Conservatism has no home at Skidmore.” - very true. Sorry that you didn’t pick up on that before your child decided to attend. Took me one tour of campus to realize this. Second and third child won’t even get the tour. Of course the fact that they weren’t ready for us when we showed up (despite showing them the confirmation e-mail we received for our tour) didn’t start us off on the best foot. Beautiful environment/college town, though.</p>
<p>I’m fascinated by the OP’s choice of monikers. “Tragedy”? Really?? I’m sorry if your student indeed met a tragic end. But if the “tragedy” consisted of having sex and discovering the ability to think for him/herself, as would appear to be the case from your posts…well, I can’t get too worked up about it.</p>
<p>Well. loved the skidmore website but looks like a scratch off the list at this point. Another thread warned of excess alcohol there. 89 percent freshman retention I saw</p>