<p>Why is everyone making the assumption that a practical major precludes courses in intensive reading and writing. I don’t think that this requires exclusivity. You can have both the practicality of a vocationally oriented major AND intensive training in reading and writing.</p>
<p>Moreover, I am not sure that everyone needs the intensive liberal arts training. If a kid gets solid grades in high school and has super SAT/ACTs, do they really need broad based gen eds in order to be a qualified reader and writer?</p>
<p>^Taxguy, Would you please elaborate more why you put business at CMU at the same level as Wharton. Kid waitlisted at Wharton but accepted at CMU Tepper. After reading their courses in undergraduate, they are very basic. While the business in MIT is much stronger. We almost decide to go to PSU honor in business as there are at least $120000 difference in 4 years. I just can not justify the big dollar difference for the comparable business school (Tepper vs PSU honor).</p>
<p>How about the shocking idea of embracing college as a fantastic opportunity to become educated rather than as a trade school?</p>
<p>I think embracing liberal arts is an even easier choice these days, since regardless of major most will need a grad degree of some type anyway to achieve careers that were more commonly available simply with a BA or BS (haha, I’ve always loved the double entendre of the BS degree) back in the day. </p>
<p>Jobs and careers will sort themselves out. Other than mental health issues or serious character flaws, I can’t think of a single person I know of any intelligence who has not found their way in the world.</p>
<p>The drudgery of the daily grind will come soon enough; why so eager to strap on the yoke before one must?</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, what exactly is thinking critically?</p>
<p>A couple of post have referenced it and gone back and forth about how it is something you pick up in either humanities major’s, math and science major’s, or even both, but what I am confused about is what is it exactly? Is it like learning how to use calculus, or learning how to properly read into a text? From your posts, my speculation is that it is a a learned trait. However, my confusion comes because I thought it was an attitude or a divulsion of ideas and problems. You know, something that results from immersing yourself in schooling and trying to get an education, not a degree.</p>
<p>Critical thinking is a pretty broad definition. Good critical thinking would be like taking a whole set of information and processing it to give a clear conclusion to it all or maybe figuring out the exact solution to a problem. It looks easy but it takes a lot of mental training and schooling to be good at it. </p>
<p>I don’t know why a lot of people look at non liberal arts degrees as boring, dry, etc. Maybe they are but that doesn’t mean non liberal arts majors can’t be liberal artsy through their personal hobbies. </p>
<p>The trend in decreasing liberal arts degrees is pretty much common sense. Employers want less and less of liberal arts majors and more of something more practical. Lament the loss of “culture, life, flavor, etc” or whatever but people can still do that with a minor or through personal studying if they really enjoy it. When people say that liberal arts majors are useful, its not ALL liberal arts majors. Majors like math, chemistry, biology, or other tough majors give students the brainpower and capacity to solve problems. Majors like asian studies, classical studies, latin, or other leisure studies…these don’t do much. When you tell students that liberal arts majors give people marketable skill sets, your going to give many the wrong impression that something like american studies is as good as something like a math major.</p>
<p>^ OK Yakyu, go get your job. It is the right choice for someone who clearly doesn’t value the opportunity to get a life. I doubt you’ll be visiting that free library anytime soon.</p>
<p>In the past, people with a philosophy degree would be doing many of the jobs that people with other, recently-created degrees are doing now. The creation of a lot of new practically-oriented degrees (most of which are simply unnecessary, but help colleges bring in more money because they can market these degrees to people who have no interested in college other than getting job training) has done more than anything else to make degrees like philosophy seems like a waste of time and to urge people who want to get a job into niche majors rather than broader traditional liberal arts ones.</p>
<p>By Bosskey</p>
<p>What I’m going to describe may not be what people think now, but it’s what was supposed to be.</p>
<p>The idea behind the “university” was a “universal” education. That’s why they call it that. You’re not supposed to just take medical school or financial management classes. You also take English, art, philosophy, etc. to round you out as a person, to make you something more than an automaton who knows everything about how to be a cog in the economy and that’s it.</p>
<p>But these days universities are used as white-collar trade schools and places to get an MRS degree, and people forget why universities were invented in the first place.</p>
<p>So many people have focused entirely on the $$$ career and years later they realize something was missing, because they neglected their own humanity. They make their money, they take the family to Europe and Asia, and when they finally get to the historic buildings and museums and plays they realize they don’t understand why they are important, they can’t explain to their family why they came out there. They skipped the art classes and never got the grounding to understand their own civilization. That is sad. If you get political leaders who don’t understand the value of the civilization, you get people who have no problem obliterating your literature and art.</p>
<p>If you just want to take classes to get a job, go to DeVry.</p>
<p>I laugh at people who lives the typical life of struggling to get into a prestigious college, graduate, get a job with decent pay, rise through the ranks (feeling on top of the world for a few moments), few marriages in between, children and ultimately thinking they have lived a good life.</p>
<p>Anyone who claims that a liberal arts degree is a good financial investment or provides superior critical thinking skills than a math/science/engineering degree is simply deluding themselves. 150k will do much more for you in the stock market than your useless Medieval Literature B.A. Let’s face it, folks, college IS an investment. Invest wisely, and you will get a return. Invest poorly, and you won’t be able to pay off your exorbitant student debts for decades.</p>
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<p>This is for people who can manage to afford a universal education just for education’s sake. The vast majority of us cannot, so college becomes an investment. If employers didn’t expect all their applicants to have B.A.s, us practically minded folks would look elsewhere.</p>
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<p>Oh, I wasn’t aware that one needs to acquire a liberal arts degree to live a good life. What a foolish implication.</p>
<p>I don’t think I implied anywhere in my post that a liberal arts degree is needed to live a good life. In fact, you can get a liberal arts major at a very prestigious college, land a decent paying job and still lead a typical life.</p>
<p>You know… that’s really funny since math and science ARE liberal arts degree. So how can a degree be “better” than itself? </p>
<p>I think you need some more liberal art training for those reasoning abilities ;). </p>
<p>PS: Hope you never need a lawyer… I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell the person defending me that I think they have lower critical thinking skills than myself.</p>
<p>I was under the impression that you were mocking Mr. Payne’s post. Excuse me if I’m wrong.</p>
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<p>Let’s not argue semantics. Most people consider liberal arts degrees to be the english/history/literature/sociology type deal. Don’t pick at the minutia and ignore the bigger idea.</p>
<p>Lawyers have professional degrees. That’s a completely different issue.</p>
<p>So what your saying is people who get non liberal arts degrees have no life? A lot of liberal arts majors and supporters look at non liberal arts majors disdainfully because they aren’t “artsy” or “philosophical” or give “life lessons”. The truth is, saying that ethics, responsibility, honesty, and other characteristics that you can “only” get from a LA major is nonsense. Those humanity traits are up to the individual, not the individual major. A non liberal arts major can enjoy other things to and vice versa. Like others mentioned, why do a lot of people imply that you NEED a LA major to enjoy life? Don’t people pick their respective major BECAUSE they enjoy it?</p>
<p>From a common sense standpoint though, saying that something like classical studies gives you the same critical thinking skills/analysis as a physics major is just being delusional. Liberal arts majors have their advantage for those who are pursuing graduate studies; not so much for those who want to end their education at the undergrad level.</p>
<p>I don’t really see this as an “either/or” dilema, more of an “And/And…” personally.</p>
<p>There are real benefits to a liberal arts education for those who choose to pursue it, and the downside to this is highly overstated. Also, there are real benefits to a professional program pursued at the college level, and the academic downside to this is highly overstated, as well. Most kids, even pre-professional, will take some humanities…most kids, even liberal arts, will take practical math and science classes.</p>
<p>Education is always good, imho. It is always the right way to go.</p>