An interesting article on a college that stays true to “antique” notions of a liberal arts education. The plan is ambitious, but will it lure more students? Could the past become the future? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/opinion/contrarian-college-stjohns.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Loved this article. I hope it draws more people to the school who might never have heard of it otherwise. Brave (and refreshing) move to buck the “prestige pricing” trend, too. Thanks for posting.
St Johns was the second college I visited with my kid. I have a high school friend who graduated from there and still speaks of it as the best possible education for the right sort of mind.
Quirky doesn’t even begin to describe the Johnnies I’ve met but it’s the closest word I have. They would probably come up with better words, they’re all eruditer than me.
The school curriculum is fascinating and, IMHO, is a fabulous base for anything you ever might want to do in life. It is refreshing to see a college put the emphasis on learning… for learning’s sake… instead of grooming people for specific jobs later in life. The college alumni do end up in every walk of life, from medicine to government. I suspect the only career that might be difficult to pursue might be engineering.
Quirky is correct. Maybe the tuition drop will attract a more well-rounded population. If that could be achieved, it would be an even more amazing school. Great article by Bruni. And nice work by the school lowering tuition. They have also already raised more than half of their new capital campaign amount, and that was before it was even announced!
You cannot be an engineer having attended this college, which offers no engineering or apparently even hard science degrees, unless you were to attend an actual engineering school afterwards. Engineering like any profession requires learning a specific body of knowledge of theory and practice.
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Not sure what you are responding to, @Engineer80 . I don’t think anyone would pretend this is a school you’d choose to go to if you were interested in engineering. The intent of my original post is to discuss if this college is moving in the right direction or not, and if their actions will have a ripple effect on other colleges.
@Engineer80 It COULD be done, but not without extra education from an engineering program at a different school. But, then, if engineering were your goal, I suspect this school wouldn’t even be on the radar. My point was that, if you were to attend this school, your options for careers are not severely limited.
The fact that many other schools only prepare most students to pursue a singular path, is why this school is a fantastic choice for people who are interested in many things. Education becomes the goal, as opposed to a job afterwards. If you are educated well, there will always be opportunities.
It is a worthy endeavor and it is nice to see they are staying true to their mission while also doing their part to make it possible for as many people who want to attend, to be able to do so.
@Lindagaf I suspect @Engineer80 was responding to my comment that SJC is appropriate education for many careers with the possible exception of knowledge-specific options such as engineering. It was not the main point of what I said… but there you go.
Was referencing london203 who said " I suspect the only career that might be difficult to pursue might be engineering".
@london203 - One would need more than just a little “extra education” - that is, start from ground up in an engineering school and get an actual engineering degree.
What profession or occupation isn’t knowledge specific? Accountants, architects, pharmacists, medical technicians, etc. all require specific knowledge. Medical schools today require a year each of physics with labs, general and organic chemistry with labs, biology with lab, a semester of biochemistry, and a year of English. Competitive medical school applicants have more than just that minimum as well. From what I read about this college it does not provide all of this preparation for example.
By “moving in the right direction”, do you mean the reduction in list price tuition?
It is not like it is radically changing its curriculum, since it has had a “great books” core curriculum that is the entire curriculum for a long time.
I suspect the tuition drop was more in line with what @Lindagaf wanted to talk about. The fixed curriculum has been that way since the 30s and they seem to be pretty happy with it.
[quote] Engineering like any profession requires learning a specific body of knowledge of theory and practice.
What profession or occupation isn’t knowledge specific?
[/quote]
A lot of them. Professions that do not require specific undergrad courses: pretty much everything out there in the world that you didn’t name - Attorney, business person/executive, software engineer (using that in the sense that tech companies do, not actual engineers), publicist, fashion designer, politician, activist, writer, journalist…many thousands of careers require an educated mind that can easily pick up the specific skills needed for the careers they want to pursue.
Our concern, when one of bff’s sons was interested, is the total number of freshmen is small and about 20% leave before soph year. It’s fair to say the curriculum doesn’t suit all. Of about 150 in MD and less in NM, that can be a lot of friends and classmates. But those who remain have a good grad rate.
@ucbalumnus , by right direction, I mean is it going to lure more students with its strong emphasis on reading? Will more students come with the drop in tuition, even if they aren’t sure they can handle the fixed curriculum, as @ninakatarina states?
@lookingforward brings up a good point too. The freshman retention rate isn’t great, though it’s a little above average. Is this college a dinosaur? Or, as I asked in my original post, can the past (the way St. John’s has always done it), become the future? Is the trend in higher ed still geared towards pre-professionalism? I guess I’m wondering if St. John’s can survive. I hope so.
I sure hope so, too, @Lindagaf. SJC’s emphasis on intellectualism and education for its own sake is the definition of education in my book. I agree that this type of program appeals only to a certain type of student, but I am so glad SJC is there to provide those students with that gift, and I think our society would be much richer if SJC were not the outlier. I doubt SJC’s example will affect the current trend of college-as-vocation-training but, in my book, there is no higher ROI than the investment in the mind. I think SJC has it exactly right.
@OHMomof2 - Engineering, accounting, and many others require specific undergraduate preparation. Even for medicine and law, there is no real need for a general undergraduate preparation. Medical schools for example could if they wanted to make the medical program 5 years in which the first year is devoted to the fundamental science courses that one would take as part of a four year undergraduate degree. They don’t, however, to raise an artificial barrier to entry. In some nations, students enter medical schools immediately after high school and the medical school provides all of the necessary preparation for example. Incidentally, one does not fail to gain an education by attending an undergraduate professional major instead of a liberal arts major, as you imply.
All of the software engineers in my company for example are actual, degreed engineers or computer scientists. We don’t hire hobbyists.
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While some who work in software self educated the necessary technical skills and knowledge (whether they have an unrelated degree or no degree), that is far less common than those who learned the needed skills and knowledge by studying computer science in college.
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@Engineer80 is wrong about accounting. It does not require specific undergraduate training. It does require that you pass accounting certification exams, and undergraduate training probably helps enormously in doing that soon after graduation. But I was offered a job with what was then a Big 8 accounting firm with nothing more than a one-semester introduction to accounting under my belt. Their view, at least then, was “We know how to teach accounting. What we don’t know how to teach is analytic ability, writing, and intellectual confidence.”
I don’t think anyone can become an architect based on undergraduate training, and I don’t think there are many undergraduate prerequisites to architecture school. As I understand it, though, there’s a fairly long professional apprenticeship required before someone can get certified as an architect.
St. John’s does offer programs that subsidize students taking courses they need to meet medical school application requirements (and other career development requirements) during college summers.
@JHS - I think at least here in NJ for example one must take 60 credits of undergraduate accounting courses to sit for the CPA exam. Having a degree in accounting or apparently a degree at all isn’t required though I suspect most accountants have a degree of some type. One can also call themselves an accountant without a degree or being a CPA, you just cannot use the moniker “Certified Public Accountant” in holding out the public unless you are actually a CPA. There are many non-CPAs that advertise as “Accountants” or “Public Accountants”.
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@Engineer80 I don’t think anyone is arguing against the fact that certain professions require specialized education and training. But, then again, I don’t think this was what the OP began the thread to discuss. Since it was part of my initial comment that got this thread heading off track, I will “agree” with you in hopes that we can get back to the original discussion!