CI #6- A Semester Recap

For my final civic issues blog, I am not going to focus solely on one article that I found off the Internet that either agrees or disagrees with liberal arts in education. Instead, I am going to go back over each of my Civic Issue blogs one by one and summarize that specific blog. In the end I am going to talk about my thoughts and feelings regarding that blog.

I used my first civic issues blog as a place where I was able to ‘set the scene,’ of what you should expect reading each of my blogs. I talked about six different reasons I found that Liberal Arts in education will benefit you in the long run, and I also went into explain how I believed with each benefit I listed and I explained how liberal arts allows you to use your right (more creative) brain a lot more, and with this, it allows you to think in different ways/ analyze situations a lot different/from all different angles.  In this particular blog, I also explained how I found an article published in Forbes magazine, titled, “A Liberal Arts Degree is More Valuable then Learning any Trade.” After researching liberal arts in the education more and more, I don’t really know if I particularly think the same way. I have come to believe that a degree is what you make of it, and almost any degree can be beneficial if you use it in the right way.

For my second civic issues blog, I found an article titled, “What’s a Liberal Arts Education good for?” And it begins by explaining the dilemma many people have when choosing a college and a major which will affect the rest of your life, it brings in politicians and how they believe they should invest regarding America’s economy.  I then go into explain how I chose a field in Liberal Arts because it was appealing how we didn’t solely study math and chemistry, instead we focused on a broad range of subjects.

For my third Civic Issues post, I found an article, which looks at Liberal Arts in Education a different way. Within this article, the author is explaining how it’s difficult to link some Liberal Arts majors to an actual career, which will allow you to make a successful living. The president of the John Education Policy in Raleigh N.C. explains that many liberal-art graduates aren’t getting jobs because they didn’t learn in depth about subjects. Instead, they learned a little about a lot of different areas of study. He explains how he thinks if you are in majoring in anything relating to liberal arts, the chance of you getting a career is slim.

Next, I talked about how the governor of North Carolina, Pat McCrory slammed liberal arts education. Talking about how he doesn’t think this type of education deserves as much funding as they are getting. This slam really upset many people especially those focusing in a liberal art related career. The author of the blog goes onto explain that at first she was going to study science, but shortly chose to pursue a career in Journalism. She stressed how important critical thinking is and how skills like writing and communication are very likely to help you with getting a career.

Lastly, my fifth civic issues blog focused on four reasons why having a liberal arts degree can help your career. The four reasons explained are: 1. It stirs up conversation, 2. It opens your mind, 3. Its employable, and 4. It has history. I found these four reasons to be very weak wen trying to persuade someone to take up a liberal arts education. The author of this article hardly explained any of them, and pretty much just restated exactly what we expected them to be like.

Over this semester, I can definitely say that my outlook on liberal arts education has changed, but not entirely. I still believe that studying liberal art courses are important because they give you a different way to think about subjects. This topic was interesting to write my blog over, but I wish I would’ve chosen a topic that had more controversy surrounding it because it would be easier to show different viewpoints/ show the debate about the issue.

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One Response to CI #6- A Semester Recap

  1. jyv5106 says:

    I have really enjoyed reading your entire blog, and this is a good summary of what you’ve written. I certainly agree that to some extent, some knowledge of the liberal arts are important. The ability to communicate is certainly valuable, and philosophy is a topic I believe everyone should at least somewhat explore. I guess my problem is that I think there are more people in liberal arts majors than can possibly find a role in society in which to use that degree. And, given the price of college these days, paying for a major that you don’t plan on using to get a career seems kind of silly to me.

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