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| A liberal education didn't teach me how to hit a volleyball, but it did teach me to write about volleyball (photo by Mark Edinger) |
I've had eleven jobs since graduating from college in 2009.
Yes, eleven jobs in seven years. Granted, some of those jobs overlapped, and several came at Fredonia. But still, that's a lot of change in a short amount of time.
It might even cause you anxiety if you think college should get you ready for a job by the age of 22. You might ask, "If you changed jobs so many times, was going to college a waste of money?
But that question misses the point entirely. As opposed to a vocational school, when it comes to the four-year college experience, it's less about getting ready for the first job and more about getting ready for many jobs over the course of a lifetime. That requires a broad, liberal education.
"Liberal" here is not the opposite of "conservative", as in the political sense. It refers to a base of knowledge and skills common to all professions.
This begs the question: what skills does a student need to learn in their four years? Here's three:
Writing -- Every action is preceded by a thought, and thoughts are best organized and expressed through writing. If someone's writing is sloppy, his thoughts are sloppy. And if his thoughts are sloppy, his actions will be sloppy. Some professors I've met think writing papers should be a part of every college course.
Consider this thought from Norman Autustine, CEO of Lockheed Martin: "the firm I led at the end of my formal business career employed some one hundred eighty thousand people, mostly college graduates, of whom over eighty thousand were engineers or scientists. I have concluded that one of the stronger correlations with advancement through the management ranks was the ability of an individual to express clearly his or her thoughts in writing."
Speaking -- We just finished watching two weeks of political conventions, amounting to nothing more than glorified pep rallies. And yet they hold huge weight depending on the emotions we feel watching the speeches.
That's worth repeating: we can research 50 years worth of history about both candidates, but two weeks of rhetoric can instantly change our opinions.
Professors don't make students give presentations in class to torture them. They do it because success in life often depends on getting other people to believe what you believe. It's hard to do that if you can't speak well (or write well).
Learning -- The majority of the facts you learn in college are forgotten after graduation. The facts aren't the important part though, because they're just a Google search away.
The important part is that you learn how to learn.
This thought is from CNN's Fareed Zakaria: "I learned how to read an essay closely, search for new sources, find data to prove or disprove a hypothesis, and detect an author's prejudices. I learned how to read a book fast and still get its essence. I learned to ask questions, present an opposing view, take notes, and, nowadays, watch speeches, lectures, and interviews as they stream across my computer. And most of all, I learned that learning was a pleasure -- a great adventure of exploration."
(h/t/ Fareed Zakaria)