What Kids Now Learn in College (Save your money. Here’s a list of the lessons they'll be taught)

National Review ^ | 02/29/2012 | Dennis Prager

[Mr Rogers]

“If you want to start your own college where engineers and scientists only have to take engineering and science courses then go right ahead.”

Hmmm...I’d bet I couldn’t get such a college accredited.
Maybe. I haven’t tried.

“Most of the scientists and engineers I know were OK with their humanities courses.”

That wasn’t my experience. I CLEP’d out of my general ed requirement, but most of my biology classmates did NOT enjoy taking humanities classes.

“Others used them to expand their social circles, i.e. to meet women.”

Take up riding horses. Women (& girls) outnumber men 10:1. Odds as good as an elementary ed class, and not nearly so boring.

[Paved Paradise]

Okay, Rogers, back to the original debate. What I was trying to say is that if one’s goal is to attain a TRUE university education (in the classic sense it was originally meant) then exposure to the classical studies is imperative. I don’t care if you don’t like Plato or [fill in blank with whatever you have determined is worthless], you are a hypocrite to say that a basic understanding of these topics is wasteful, yet YOU yourself use them in an argument to talk about their uselessness. In other words, if you didn’t know about any of this, you couldn’t even pose the debate in the first place. Thus, my POINT is made by yourself and quite wonderfully.

Unlike you, I don’t think engineers or people with math/science degrees are superior to people who have attained education or art degrees. I actually recognize that all people have gifts and talents with which to glorify God and make this world a better place. And, many in the science world are doing probably far more than those in the art world to destroy this country.

I have no problem with people who wish to avoid a classical education and never learn Greek, languages, learn about Homer or Plato, learn about Dionysus, or the Fates, The Aenid, or ANY of it. I don’t think it’s a bad idea for there to be engineering schools for people who only want to be engineers; or technical schools for any skill for that matter.

However, that kind of education is NOT the same. You want it to be so, but it is not and will not ever be that.

One quick anecdote. I have a friend who obtained a BS in Business from an excellent local university and works in a liberal arts university. Just the most basic stuff is lost on her. Where’s the Danube? (oh, it’s a River?) She asks me “Who is this Nostradamus everyone is talking about?” She believed the crap in Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci Code.” If I made a joke about Nathaniel Hawthorne, she doesn’t know who that IS (much less who wore a Scarlet A). I could literally go on and on. So much for her “college” degree. As far as I’m concerned, she’s a dope. A darling person but a dope. And these people are the ones who keep voting in the Obamas and their ilk.

[Paved Paradise]

And one FINAL comment to your first line about “Does one need to study liberal arts to be well rounded?” Absolutely NOT. I never SAID that. I was quite informed WELL before I ever went back to college. But I’m rare. I read! Constantly! And all topics. I’m partial to biographies, but I enjoy science non-fiction (e.g., “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks” etc.)

The sad fact is that 95 percent of people who DO NOT learn this stuff in school (high school or college) will NEVER learn it on their own. EVER. They just did a survey a few years back about how many university grads have read a book that is NOT directly related to their profession or field and it was pathetic.

I think it’s about whether people value knowledge and learning. I don’t think college/university is for everyone, and today’s universities are very lacking, indeed, in broadening our young people’s minds. There is too much propaganda.