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- A life education is just as important as classes taken
- Living in the age of misinformation
- News in brief - Oct. 6
TOPICS: education
As a new school year begins, and as I meet the new people I will live and work with for the next nine months, I begin to realize again how strangely rare it is here at Virginia Tech to find someone who is not resistant to getting a liberal education.
So when I tell them that I am a philosophy and history double major, and I am not studying to be a teacher, I get stares of amazement and that special look that says, "So what are you going to do with your life then?" And when I speak with my friends who are engineering and science majors, as I am destined to meet them here, I realize that few people at Tech are getting a liberal education. Most students seem to find a way around it, but do engineers really have a choice?
A liberal education is defined by the Association of American Colleges and Universities as "an approach to learning that empowers individuals and prepares them to deal with complexity, diversity and change. It provides students with broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g. science, culture and society) as well as in-depth study in a specific area of interest."
While Tech does make a strong attempt to widen students' views of the world by requiring them to take classes in all seven core areas, we still find a way to get out of the classes that we don't want to take. These are the hard classes, such as philosophy, history and English; classes that require one to write and state one's opinion in papers. These are classes that challenge what we believe and enlighten us on the implications of what we do. I find avoiding these classes to be a very unfortunate trend, because getting a liberal education is just as important as doing well in one's chosen major.
One of the most important aspects of getting a liberal education is widening one's view of the world to dispel ignorance and open our minds to new ideas. They are also meant to broaden understanding the social, political, environmental and other implications of what we do and learn.
While Tech requires us to take classes in these areas, such as Area 2 and Area 7, we still try to avoid them. Instead of spending a semester questioning if humans have free will or the ethical consequences of capital punishment, we take Music Theory or Introduction to Acting. We avoid classes that do not interest us or seem difficult, and while these classes may be challenging, they are for our benefit. They open our eyes to new ideas, traditions and methods of thinking. They are classes that will not necessarily help us learn what we will do at our future jobs, but they are the classes that teach us how to live.
These classes make us think long and hard about how what we do matters, as individuals and as a society. They make us search for the truth and then, once we think we have found it, question it.
I am not saying that engineering and the sciences are not vitally important to our society, and I do not know what I would do without their benefits.
However, many students from these majors do not realize the importance of receiving a liberal education. So, next time you have the option of taking a class that you can clearly blow off or a class that challenges what you believe - try the latter. You never know; you may even enjoy all that time you spend writing papers.
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"They make us search for the truth and then, once we think we have found it, question it." I would say this is much closer to a description of science and engineering.
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and if you've found the truth, why do you question it? and writing an opinion on paper doesn't really make a class hard. and if the dolts that take these classes think there is a truth in philosophy and sociology god help us. id also like to add that "political science" needs to change its f'ing title. nothing scientific about it
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There is nothing more 'enlightening' and 'challenging' then engineering. Engineering requires an understanding of sciences and real world issues. It applies a student's knowledge of scientific facts to ordinary situations. It is the bridge between idealism and realism. Engineering is what you claim Political Science to be. Oh PS, you go to a TECH school...
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I'd much rather take the easy A in Music Theory and use the spare time to have an enlightened discussion over a few pints at The Cellar. Some of the most enlightened ideas and philosophies are born in the pub!
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@Engineer A POLYtechnic institute actually.
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Who the heck is this author to slam music theory and acting? What a jerk face. Slapping a dumb ass opinion on paper doesn't take very much effort. I'm doing it right now and I could get 3 credits for my lib ed requirements probably.
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The engineering curricula at just about any university are not a "liberal education" in any sense of the term. The comments posted here so far simply reinforce the author's argument. And VT is Virginia Polytechnic Institute AND State University. The sciences have been a long-standing part of a liberal education, but not engineering, which cannot be described as "searching for truth." As valuable as engineering is to our society, it is not a liberal education.
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The truth is that Virginia Tech is not built as a power house in liberal arts. Though it has many qualified Faculty in the many non-technical education areas, the bottom-line is that Virginia Tech is not well equipped to teach these subjects. This is reflective of challenging introductory arts classes such as Fine Arts 2004... Virginia Tech is just that... a TECHNICAL institute, built around the development of technical foundations for students and adapting its curriculum to further challenge its students in those fields. If VT wants to be a serious contender in Liberal Arts fields, it needs to be prepared to make the investment into bettering those colleges.
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I don't like it when columnists use words like "us" and "we" as if the student body is one collective mass of idiots trying to weasel out of classes that are difficult because students have to write down an opinion. Speak for yourself. Not everyone is the same. In lib ed terms I think what Gabbi is doing is called projection.
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Maybe its the company you keep that makes it a rare occasion to find somebody not resistant to learning lib ed. I've taken several classes in fields not related to my major. But there are other ways to get a liberal education other than sitting in a classroom. Experience can be a good teacher and just reading books from a bookstore I've heard can help people learn also. Liberal education doesn't have to be done holding hands with a professor.
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If you search a little deeper, you will see that VT is a powerhouse in the liberal arts. Its Philosophy Department is regularly ranked near the top (second recently) for its undergraduate program, and the MA program has placed graduate students at Northwestern and other excellent schools. Look also at Political Science, History, and Science & Technology Studies (and there are others)--these departments have some of the top people in their field. And yes, most people in the liberal arts are proud of VT's excellence in the sciences, engineering, architecture, business, etc.
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What you miss in your argument is that providing "students with broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g. science, culture and society) as well as in-depth study in a specific area of interest" is not limited to a liberal education. Regardless of a technical or non-technical degree, one's ability to apply what one has learned to world and challenging norms is limitless. Furthermore, dispelling ignorance can be initiated with classroom instruction. But the idea only transcends if the student willingly internalizes the information.
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What you miss in your argument is that providing "students with broad knowledge of the wider world (e.g. science, culture and society) as well as in-depth study in a specific area of interest" is not limited to a liberal education. Regardless of a technical or non-technical degree, one's ability to apply what one has learned to world and challenging norms is limitless. Furthermore, dispelling ignorance can be initiated with classroom instruction. But the idea only transcends if the student willingly internalizes the information.
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Am I the only one who read this and started thinking, "What IS this author going to do for a job?" It's hard enough to find a job now days without having a useless 45K dollar education.
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