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Essay regarding liberal arts education
Summary of sanford university the new liberal arts
The importance of liberal arts in higher education
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In Sanford Ungar’s essay, The New Liberal Arts, he dismisses the doubts of a liberal arts education with ease. He does this by listing out seven misconceptions of a liberal arts education, followed by his explanations of why these thoughts are exactly what he calls them: misconceptions. Misconception one claims that a liberal arts education is a luxury most people cannot afford, and instead they should focus on career education. He combats this by saying career education is a one way route, that eventually comes to a dead end, but that a liberal arts education opens up many new pathways, some that may not even exist yet. Misconception two states that college graduates can barely get a job with a liberal arts degree, he then goes on to say that most employers want …show more content…
I think the way he structured his essay was definitely the most effective way, instead of making it one continuous text, breaking it up into bullet points makes it easier for him to get his point across and for the reader to understand his points. One thing that made me step back and say, “wait what,” was when Ungar was discussing liberal arts for low income students in misconception three. Ungar says, “It is condescending to imply that those who have less cannot understand and appreciate the finer elements of knowledge- another way of saying, really, that the rich folks will do the important thinking, and the lower classes will simply carry out their ideas.” (228-229) But he later goes onto say, “They catch up quickly.” (229) I understand that Ungar probably didn’t mean anything negative from this statement, but the way I interpreted this was him saying that all poorer people start out stupid, but with the miracle of a liberal arts education they just might become smart. Ignoring this, I do agree with a lot of things that Ungar talks
According to Gregory Mantsios many American people believed that the classes in the United States were irrelevant, that we equally reside(ed) in a middle class nation, that we were all getting richer, and that everyone has an opportunity to succeed in life. But what many believed, was far from the truth. In reality the middle class of the United States receives a very small amount of the nation's wealth, and sixty percent of America's population receives less than 6 percent of the nation's wealth, while the top 1 percent of the American population receives 34 percent of the total national wealth. In the article Class in America ( 2009), written by Gregory Mantsios informs us that there are some huge differences that exist between the classes of America, especially the wealthy and the poor. After
All though “The New Liberal Arts”, Sanford J. Ungar uses seven misconceptions about liberal arts on why learning the liberal arts. And explain why is still relevant and will be for coming years. The first misperception that he advocates is that a liberal arts degree is no longer affordable. Vocational training is better alternative to liberal arts in today. In this recession it is a financially wise decision to obtain a career oriented education instead. Students may not able to find jobs in the field that they are training after graduate. Ungar argues that especially collage students find it harder to get good jobs with liberal arts degrees, which is not the case. Which is the second misperception is that graduates with liberal arts degrees
The formation of the Africana Studies Project includes Knowledge, Power, and Humanity. This insurrectionary intellectual formation examines the worlds of meaning, thought, and expression of Africans, reconstructing new meanings and possibilities for humanity. Development of African American Studies has increased awareness of the contribution of African Americans to the civilizations of the world, using its many themes and concepts, while also displaying many issues. One main issue of this, is the lack of Africana knowledge. For African American discipline to advance, its focal point must be the production and utilization of knowledge, to develop solutions to various issues in our society.
Analysis of Mis-Education of the Negro The most important aspect for a teacher to understand is that every student that comes through their door has their own experiences, history, and point of view. Mis-Education of the Negro is about how the euro-centrism-based learning has, in one way or another, crippled the African-American community and their pursuit for an equal opportunity in our society. Written by Carter Godwin Woodson in 1933, this African-American studies book is written so that everyone can understand what society has done and what they can do to correct their wrongs. Author Carter Godwin Woodson dedicated his life to studying African-American history and fought so it can be taught in schools and studied by scholars.
In “Hidden Intellectualism,” Gerald Graff pens an impressive argument wrought from personal experience, wisdom and heart. In his essay, Graff argues that street smarts have intellectual potential. A simple gem of wisdom, yet one that remains hidden beneath a sea of academic tradition. However, Graff navigates the reader through this ponderous sea with near perfection.
Liberal educations benefit students in the long run, long after students have paid their loans. People are able to be informed on national topic, while also being able to be self dependent. Two qualities that are essential in the modern society. I believe it is important to have such a basic understanding of education and knowledge, just like what Nussbaum agreed too in her essay. However, I also believe the curriculum should be centered around making students a better person. Institutions should try to produce good people with the right intentions instead of just focusing on testing intelligence, similar to what Cronon focused on in his essay. If we can incorporate both of these important features into our liberal education system, then and only then, will we be thriving as a society. Graduates will have a good understanding of knowledge from an array of different fields, as well as having important traits that will carry on for the rest of their
But the best argument against a liberal education is perhaps the simplest. When students go to any college, they choose a major and take classes that are related to that major. However to get to those classes they have to take courses in , reading, writing, and history. I don’t think that Zakaria realises this. By the time these students graduate, they will be able to understand all of the technical aspects of their field, as well as being able to express their thoughts and ideas clearly. All of this without a traditional Liberal
List three facts the author uses to support the main idea: Jencks included a lot of studies and charts into his article that helped his argument. One of the studies that he included is on the percent of household income going to the richest one percent. In this study it showed that in 1979 7.5% of household income went to the top one percent, and in 1997 it jumped to 13.6 %. Another fact from the article is a study conducted by Lars Osberg from Dalhousie University. It found that the poor in America worked more hours than their poor counterpart in Canada, Britain, Sweden, France, and Germany. The third fact that I think is relatively important is that since 1979 the tuition at America's public colleges has risen faster than most parent's income. Thus giving the poor even less of a chance to receive a higher education.
The commencement speech given by David Foster Wallace in the autumn of 2005, is a very deep speech that examines the whole idea of a Liberal Arts education at an extremely deep and intellectual level. In the 22 minute long speech Wallace talks about how higher education not only teaches you to think but “how to exercise some control over how and what you think.” (Wallace). Wallace later in his speech stresses the importance of this level of thinking by saying “if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed” (Wallace) What he means by saying this is that if you cannot think at a higher level and make sense of real world problems your life will become meaningless and you will become dead inside your head.
In Charles Murray’s essay entitled “Are Too Many People Going to College?”, he discusses the influx of Americans getting a college education. He addresses the topic of Liberal Arts education, and explains that not many people are ready for the rigorous challenges a liberal-arts degree offers. In addition, Murray explains that instead of a traditional degree more people should apply to technical schools. He believes that college should not be wide spread, and that it is only for those who can handle it. These viewpoints harshly contrast with Sanford J. Ungar’s views. Ungar believes college education should be widespread, because a liberal-arts degree is, in his opinion, a necessity. He argues that a liberal-arts college is the only place that
The article, Our Compassless Colleges, by Peter Berkowitz discusses the current challenges faced in liberal education in universities, how the current education is defeating the purpose of liberal education and the methods to solve the issue and the people who can solve the issue. Perter Berkowitz is former professor of Law in Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Berkowiz also taught political philosophy in the Department of Government at Harvard University and taught law at George Mason University School of Law. In his article, according to Berkowiz, university can be considered as the last chance for people to broadly and deeply read to understand the society they live in and also to study other cultures. However, he strongly believes that the universities are not providing a strong base for the students to learn comprehensive intellectual habits and to familiarize them with long-term ideas about culture, politics and social reforms.
Charles Wright Mills writes about the relationship between private troubles and public issues in The Sociological Imagination (1959). Within his writing Mills explains the importance of adopting a sociological perspective when attempting to analyze and understand the word we live in. He called this theory the sociological imagination. The sociological imagination can be used as a lens, to examine everyday mundane activities and how they are connected to the larger structure of our societies. Our current milieu is linked with the biographical and historical contexts of our societies and together they makeup our everyday life. This paper will use a sociological imaginative perspective to analyze why I was bullied for my own body hair as a young
In his op- essay titled, What is a Practical Education?, Mr. Murray leads the reader to believe that universities who narrow or exclude liberal arts and general education courses are on the path to producing workers for a specific job, in a specific field and will not be able to adapt to changes that will inevitably come. Although he himself is a professor and should have first-hand knowledge of statistics that would answer questions such as, What do students do when they graduate, did they find a job in their field, how long did it take students to find gainful employment? Murray does not answer these questions and essentially leaves the reader wondering what the data is that supports his opinion. Murray does not effectively use an appeal
Statement of Liberal Education by Association of American Colleges & Universities and Freire contradict each other on common conceptions. For instance, Freire illustrates that education has become an act in which the “students are the depositories and the teachers are the depositors” meaning that students are just receiving, memorizing and repeating the information they are processing. Although, the Statement of Liberal Education by the Association of American Colleges & Universities and Hutchins explains how being open-minded is the most important, but on the contrary it could turn out to be harmful because its just processing the information and not questioning it. Arts Liberals is the historical basis of modern liberal arts, which deals more with grammar, logic, and rhetoric. General Education is more of a curriculum, which is shared by all students.
In a time when human endeavor was being redesigned, as industries, philosophies, and sciences were growing and affecting the world, Newman wrote an essay explaining the ideas and goals for seeking a liberal arts education. He states in his thesis that the function of such education, “is that of training good members of society” (Newman, 1852).