To put it in simple terms, Mr. James O. Freedman who has written the book "Liberal Education and the Public Interest" (2003) says in an article in the New York Times that "A liberal education is what teaches people how to write and how to think and makes them much more valuable in the job market over a 40-year career than graduates of a preprofessional program." Further, he adds "All the employers will tell you that they're seeking the flexibility of mind that a liberal education imbues." Liberal education enthusiasts are the real answer to heal an ailing economy, like the U.S. economy today.
Not developing an expertise to a particular field could be one of the objections to my arguments. Some may say a very general education is not good because a person can't be good in everything. So the solution, they would suggest, is to undergo vocational, shorter-term trainings where the youth sector will be promised of jobs easily as long as they are equipped with the necessary skills. But with the world's overpopulation problem, unemployment is a constant challenge. For me, unemployment will always be there and will not be resolved totally in one or two clicks. So my idea of acquiring stability, personally and as a citizen of my country, is to invest in lifelong career. Most employers prefer employees who are flexible and can multitask. The faculty of reason and critical thinking is foremost scrutinized by human resource officers who are in-charge of hiring competent workforce. If an applicant has parochial view on issues, it will be hard for him to have a thorough understanding and judgment.
To sum up, products of liberal education cannot be reaped at the moment one grabbed a diploma, such are earned through time. And that is my vision. I want to build a career that is lasting and developing through time.
References
Connor, W.R. Liberal Arts Education in the Twenty-First Century: An AALE Scholars Essay. Washington, DC: American Academy for Liberal Education. Online. Available from Internet, http://www.aale.org/pdf/connor.pdf, accessed 24 November 2008
Harris, Robert. 1991. On the Purpose of a Liberal Arts Education. 15 June 2007. Online. Available from Internet, http://www.virtualsalt.com/libarted.htm, accessed...
2003. Justifying a Liberal Arts Education in Difficult Times. The New York Times. 19 February. Online. Available from Internet, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9c03e4d7163df93aa25751c0a9659c8b63&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1,accessed 24 November 2008.
Smith, William L., Ph.D. The Importance of Liberal Arts Education: In a Knowledge-Based Economy. Online. Available from Internet, http://ezinearticles.com/?the-Importance-of-Liberal-Arts-Education:-in-a-Knowledge-Based-Economy&id=629754,accessed 24 November 2008
Cited in Wikipedia.com, Liberal Education: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education
Wikipedia.com: The term 'liberal arts' is a college or curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing intellectual capacities, in contrast to a professional, vocational, or technical curriculum. In classical antiquity, the term designated the education proper to a freeman (Latin: liber, "free") as opposed to a slave. Martianus Capella (5th century AD) defines the seven Liberal Arts as grammar, dialectic, rhetoric and geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music. In the medieval Western university, the seven liberal arts were: the Trivium: grammar, rhetoric, logic; the Quadrivium: geometry, arithmetic, music, astronomy.
In modern colleges and universities, the liberal arts include the study of art, literature, languages, philosophy, politics, history, mathematics, and science.
Connor, W.R. Liberal Arts Education in the Twenty-First Century: An AALE Scholars Essay. Washington, DC: American Academy for Liberal Education.
Robert Harris. 1991. On the Purpose of Liberal Arts Education. http://www.virtualsalt.com/libarted.htm
William L. Smith Ph.D. The Importance of Liberal Arts Education: In a Knowledge-Based Economy.
Andrew Chrucky: "The aim of liberal education is to create persons who have the ability and the disposition to try to reach agreements on matters of fact, theory, and actions through rational discussions." Cited in Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_education
Sara Rimer. 2003. Justifying a Liberal Arts Education in Difficult Times. The New York Times. 19 February.
