03-08-2016, 03:00 PM
(03-08-2016, 02:40 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: The "well-rounded' liberal arts education is such a load of bunk. Technically my program was liberal arts, or a liberal art foundation, and most of those classes were useless and forgettable. You don't need to be mandated to take a class to "enrich" yourself when you can get pretty much the same thing for reading the book on your own.
What you want to advocate is not actual classes or majors in liberal arts, but to incorporate that "worldly" perspective and critical thinking into all courses. Many opportunities to cover largely the same material/concepts in a class focused on functional learning like econ, business, marketing, law, management, even engineering. It's even better because it's a real world application of that learning rather than some soft philosophical BS.
But why give all that to you in one class when the college can charge you for 2 or 3?
The problem is that the professors of those classes that are considered to be more "practical" aren't willing to include these things in their classes. I've seen discussions like this play out time and time again where the professors aren't willing to take the time in their course to go over that sort of material.
Though I will say this, if the ratio of time spent working in the field vs. time in academia is more favorable tot the time spent in the field for a professor, they are more likely to want to include these things in their class as it is the real world. The problem is that professors in those courses of study that were successful in their field prior to academia are few and far between because they get paid peanuts in academia in comparison to what they can make in the field. We see it primarily in business and nursing faculty right now.
