03-24-2021, 10:55 AM
The problem is this point of view:
That's not what higher education is about. And this isn't just picking on you, Brad, this attitude is prevalent all throughout our society. I have long blamed Bill Clinton and the push during his administration's years for pushing more and more people to go to college. Higher education is about a liberal arts grounding. It is about understanding the world we live in and understanding humanity. You specialize in something but you learn how to connect it to other things. The problem is that the push for everyone to go to college has changed the way we operate our universities. They have become glorified trade schools. Instead of treating universities as places of research and scholarship we are treating them as nothing more than the next step after high school where students get out a bit of partying, try to learn something, and find themselves insulated from the real world for a few more years before striking out on their own.
I've long been an advocate of a more European, or specifically German, education system. There, if you aren't studying for a degree in a field that requires that liberal arts model, then you don't have to do that. We're trying to fit square pegs into round holes by making students in business, information technology, or nursing take humanities classes that they often resent. There is a value in the liberal arts model, I believe strongly in it, but I didn't need it for my accounting degree. My BS in Public Policy degree? Absolutely, but not my BBA.
(03-23-2021, 04:01 PM)BFritz21 Wrote: High school is supposed to give you basic knowledge of things like history, math, and English to prepare you for the basics of life, but then college is supposed to prepare you to make a living, and how many classes do they force you to take that have no relevance to your job or even real life circumstances?
That's not what higher education is about. And this isn't just picking on you, Brad, this attitude is prevalent all throughout our society. I have long blamed Bill Clinton and the push during his administration's years for pushing more and more people to go to college. Higher education is about a liberal arts grounding. It is about understanding the world we live in and understanding humanity. You specialize in something but you learn how to connect it to other things. The problem is that the push for everyone to go to college has changed the way we operate our universities. They have become glorified trade schools. Instead of treating universities as places of research and scholarship we are treating them as nothing more than the next step after high school where students get out a bit of partying, try to learn something, and find themselves insulated from the real world for a few more years before striking out on their own.
I've long been an advocate of a more European, or specifically German, education system. There, if you aren't studying for a degree in a field that requires that liberal arts model, then you don't have to do that. We're trying to fit square pegs into round holes by making students in business, information technology, or nursing take humanities classes that they often resent. There is a value in the liberal arts model, I believe strongly in it, but I didn't need it for my accounting degree. My BS in Public Policy degree? Absolutely, but not my BBA.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
