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A Response to the Cynical Student. When are you ever gonna use this? Often.
James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | March 10, 2023 | Art Carden

Posted on 03/12/2023 8:44:13 AM PDT by karpov

You’ve heard the complaints: When am I ever gonna use this? How is this relevant to the real world? How is reading Shakespeare going to make me a better banker?

I don’t run into this kind of thinking as frequently in the economics classroom, but I hear my students’ complaints about their other courses pretty regularly (and maybe professors in those courses hear students’ complaints about mine). Why, they wonder, are they expected to study art history? Or biology? Or “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”? Or Mesoamerican mythology? When are they ever gonna use this stuff?

My answer? Literally every time they make an important decision.

The ideas you encounter, consider, and adopt shape the kind of person you become. Liberal education is not about helping you sound impressive at snooty parties. It’s about you becoming a particular kind of person: reflective, analytical, and capable of sound evaluation and sound judgment. To this end, college means a few years marinating in the best that has ever been thought and written by the greatest minds our species has produced.

That is the ideal, at any rate. A lot goes sideways between vision and implementation, and it’s the rare person who makes the most of a golden opportunity. Some of us find ourselves lamenting, with the bald man telling George Bailey to kiss Mary in It’s A Wonderful Life, that “youth is wasted on the wrong people.”

But we all have time to repent and turn from our wicked ways. College students have more of it. The book of Proverbs implores its readers to surround themselves with wise counselors offering wise guidance.

(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...


TOPICS: Education
KEYWORDS: college; godsgravesglyphs; liberalarts; shakespeare; woke
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I don't think many colleges are offering the liberal arts education the author advocates. Even if they did, only a fraction of college-age students would want it.
1 posted on 03/12/2023 8:44:13 AM PDT by karpov
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To: karpov

When I asked that question of my physics professor, he had this to say: If you go to a party and try to talk physics, the chances are that you will go home alone.


2 posted on 03/12/2023 8:49:31 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: karpov

Or “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

Oh! That is creepy! I just read this yesterday!

I recommend it.


3 posted on 03/12/2023 8:50:38 AM PDT by Celerity
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To: karpov

The old Abbot and Costello joke comes to mind regarding current college “students”.
Abbot: Didn’t you go to school stupid?
Costello: Yea. And I came out the same way.


4 posted on 03/12/2023 8:52:36 AM PDT by allendale
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To: karpov

You may well be right about the first part, about not offering the education the author advocates. If you are right about the second part, that is unspeakably sad. The point of a liberal arts education was to make you a better person and citizen.


5 posted on 03/12/2023 8:54:38 AM PDT by CatHerd (Whoever said "All's fair in love and war" probably never participated in either.)
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To: GingisK

“If you go to a party and try to talk physics, the chances are that you will go home alone.”

In today’s society, when did intelligent conversation about anything become the social meter of success as a human? And if you find the right person, you not only will not go home alone but they will stay for breakfast (or make it) and maybe beyond. Luring is predatorial. Of course, leave it to a college instructor with his/her background of success and that’s what they expect...animals they tend.

wy69


6 posted on 03/12/2023 8:56:41 AM PDT by whitney69
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To: karpov

A healthy symbiosis between teacher and student demands curosity and discipline on the part of both.


7 posted on 03/12/2023 8:57:54 AM PDT by Fester Chugabrew (/s)
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To: karpov

A STEM education is essential for most jobs in 2023.

But if you know only STEM you will never be more than a worker drone. To be in management you need to understand people. History, literature, and art are essential for that.


8 posted on 03/12/2023 9:01:50 AM PDT by Renfrew (Muscovia delenda est)
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To: karpov

I’ll bet not one “equity” or “gender” studies student will ask this question. And they should.


9 posted on 03/12/2023 9:01:59 AM PDT by AbolishCSEU (Amount of "child" support paid is inversely proportionate to mother's actual parenting of children)
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To: karpov; All

In many places the “liberal arts education” no longer exists. A corrupt clownish inferior version masquerades in its place.

Much of or a least a foundation of your “liberal arts education” should come from the “high school experience”. It does not for the same reason stated above.


10 posted on 03/12/2023 9:02:48 AM PDT by Reily (!!)
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To: karpov

I have been teaching Music Appreciation in college to nurses for at least a decade, and I was teaching a history of ethics to nurse wannabes for at least two decades before that.

It’s been my job to get them to believe two things: first, that Beethoven/Aristotle will help them be better nurses, and second, that Beethoven/Aristotle will help them to live fuller lives as educated beings. For the students that cared, this has been my calling. For the students that didn’t givadam, so be it, they were no worse off, and my bills got paid. It’s like the sower in the Lord’s parable.


11 posted on 03/12/2023 9:06:56 AM PDT by chajin ("There is no other name under heaven given among people by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12)
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To: karpov

The original seven liberal arts were the trivium - Grammar, Logic and Rhetoric - and the quadrivium - Geometry, Arithmetic, Astronomy and Music. Since then it seems like the math and science parts have been elbowed aside.


12 posted on 03/12/2023 9:10:22 AM PDT by KarlInOhio (Gain of Pfunction. Gain of Pfunding. Gain of Pfizer. Now in control of Project Pferitas.)
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To: karpov
Changed my tagline this morning due to SVB. Hemingway, Sun Also Rises.

There’s tons of wisdom available. Every atheist should be tricked into reading the Bible just based on wisdom.

13 posted on 03/12/2023 9:10:23 AM PDT by ConservativeInPA ("How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked. "Two ways," Mike said. "Gradually and then suddenly." )
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To: karpov

Hillsdale College.


14 posted on 03/12/2023 9:10:52 AM PDT by epluribus_2
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To: Reily
When I was in High School I was told this very bizarre story, written by some old Greek dude named Plato.

All these people were being held prisoner in a cave, you see, and the people who ran the cave made shadows on the wall.

Man, was that ever some crazy hsit or what.

Now here I am later in life, wondering why no one ever warned me about the mass media, or conformity in general.

Anyway all that philosophy stuff that got started by all those old Greek dudes is still just bullhsit.

15 posted on 03/12/2023 9:11:21 AM PDT by OKSooner (Fredo doesn't know that he's stupid.)
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To: karpov

“Liberal education is not about helping you sound impressive at snooty parties.“

But c’mon, it helps!


16 posted on 03/12/2023 9:12:39 AM PDT by TalBlack (We have a Christian duty and a patriotic duty. God help us.)
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To: Renfrew
A STEM education is essential for most jobs in 2023.

But if you know only STEM you will never be more than a worker drone. To be in management you need to understand people. History, literature, and art are essential for that.

I had a friend back in the 1980s who worked as a recruiter for IBM in the Northeast. One of his favorite places to recruit was Union College in Schenectady, NY, because the STEM program is integrated into a liberal arts education, and as a result, STEM majors were better prepared to communicate their knowledge both verbally and in writing.

17 posted on 03/12/2023 9:14:21 AM PDT by Labyrinthos
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To: karpov

I graduated from William and Mary in 1977 with a degree in ‘physiology of Marine Science,’ essentially the best undergrad marine biology curriculum on the east coast. It was very heavy on cell physiology, pathways and systems and organic chemistry.

At the same time W&M REQUIRED all students to complete a “liberal education.” So courses in foreign language, literature, history and sociology were required to graduate.

It was a genuinely balanced college education.

Since then W&M has gone full Progressive/Woke and is no longer and educational institution worth considering.


18 posted on 03/12/2023 9:17:03 AM PDT by Blueflag (Res ipsa loquitur: ad ferre non, velit esse sine defensione)
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To: whitney69

My professor was being funny at the time. Some people, like myself, make merriment of society.


19 posted on 03/12/2023 9:21:09 AM PDT by GingisK
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To: Blueflag

“...Since then W&M has gone full Progressive/Woke and is no longer and educational institution worth considering....”

I hope when they ask for money from you, you tell them that!


20 posted on 03/12/2023 9:21:15 AM PDT by Reily (!!)
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