http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2011/06/19/time_to_kill_liberal_arts
I am not quite sure why it is the liberal arts that always get the focus. From the studies I have seen and the people I know, a person with a liberal arts degree is not any less likely to get a job after school than someone with a business degree. In fact, most studies show those getting marketing & management degrees studied less and learned not that much more to actually get them a “real” job.
The author comes closest to the truth when she almost stumbles upon what we at CSID have been referring to as “entrpreneurial humanities”
Of course, there are certainly plenty of B.A. holders out there who, wielding the magic combination of competency, credentials and luck, are able to land themselves a respectable, entry-level job that requires neither name tag nor apron. But for every person I know who parlayed a degree in English or anthropology into a career-track gig, I know two others who weren’t so lucky…
College education is simply not about career. Not to sound like the glazey eyed profs she describes here, but the degree should be honing your skills to follow through on whatever you take on. The real issue is learning the moral virtues through habitual practice to be able to act in such a way that you can seize productive opportunities.
What the author should be complaining about is that the sense of adventure is not alive and well in the academy. And in fact, her very attitude demonstrates the lack of adventure. Rather than calling for more from the universities to help instill a brave relation to life, she is asking that counselors & profs do more to coddle students, to get them “ready” for the “world.”
That is precisely what we DO NOT need from schools.