{"id":4220,"date":"2012-05-17T10:19:15","date_gmt":"2012-05-17T16:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4220"},"modified":"2012-05-17T10:19:15","modified_gmt":"2012-05-17T16:19:15","slug":"the-potential-strength-of-a-liberal-arts-degree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4220","title":{"rendered":"The Potential Strength of a Liberal Arts Degree"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have written here before about the Higher Education Bubbl<\/a>e. Related to that perception, you hear a lot of people devaluing education in the humanities and arts. High-profile news stories about graduates with degrees in, for example, film studies and a big debt load<\/a> did not help.<\/p>\n

But here is an article from a business publication saying that liberal arts grads are being hired\u2014if they can demonstrate what are essentially good research and rhetorical skills. And by “rhetorical” I mean the ability to analyze and argue a given problem or situation. Quintilian<\/a>, call your office.<\/p>\n

From an article titled “Revenge of the Liberal Arts Major<\/a>,”<\/p>\n

More interesting, at least for those of us who got some parental grief over our college choice, was the apparent love being shown for liberal arts majors. Thirty percent of surveyed employers said they were recruiting liberal arts types, second only to the 34 percent who said they were going after engineering and computer information systems majors. Trailing were finance and accounting majors, as only 18 percent of employers said they were recruiting targets.<\/p>\n

“The No. 1 skill that employers are looking for are communication skills and liberal arts students who take classes in writing and speaking,” said Dan Schawbel<\/a>, founder of Millennial Branding and an expert on Generation Y. “They need to become good communicators in order to graduate with a liberal arts degree. Companies are looking for soft skills over hard skills now because hard skills can be learned, while soft skills need to be developed.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Contrary to what the “expert on Generation Y” says, however, a liberal arts degree is no guarantee<\/em> of communication skills, however. I see plenty of Facebook and blog posts from professor friends’ complaining of their students’ poor writing, inadequate research, and inability to think beyond checking the right answer on a multiple-choice test.<\/p>\n

You have to work at it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have written here before about the Higher Education Bubble. Related to that perception, you hear a lot of people devaluing education in the humanities and arts. High-profile news stories about graduates with degrees in, for example, film studies and a big debt load did not help. But here is an article from a business […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83],"class_list":["post-4220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-education"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-164","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1626,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1626","url_meta":{"origin":4220,"position":0},"title":"Don’t Teach My Kid Greek Mythology","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"From a report on the school-board meeting from our county's weekly newspaper: Sheri Shreve was upset that fourth graders were learning Greek mythology and seeing pictures she felt were inappropriate for children. Yes, your fourth-grader might end up at a liberal arts college like Bryn Mawr and join the Pagan\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"education\"","block_context":{"text":"education","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=education"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":730,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=730","url_meta":{"origin":4220,"position":1},"title":"Cut-rate Bacchantes","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I came to the university this morning, and as I walked up the steps to one building, I found an ivy wreath lying at my feet.Having had the benefit of a liberal arts education, I immediately thought, \"The Bacchantes were here last night.\"One problem: it was plastic ivy. Maybe today's\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3036,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3036","url_meta":{"origin":4220,"position":2},"title":"“Higher Ed Bubble” Goes Mainstream","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Another article on the \"higher education bubble\" (think housing bubble, but with college degrees) from that screaming right-wing rag The Christian Science Monitor. (That was meant as sarcasm.) A college degree once looked to be the path to prosperity. In an article for TechCrunch, Sarah Lacy writes, \"Like the housing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"education\"","block_context":{"text":"education","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=education"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3241,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3241","url_meta":{"origin":4220,"position":3},"title":"Oh yes, learn to write","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Walter Russell Meade on advice for new college students and their parents\u2014if you are on of those, raise your hand. Good stuff, such as \"The real world does not work like school\" and \"Choosing the right courses is more important than choosing the right school.\" It's actually a classic defense\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5775,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5775","url_meta":{"origin":4220,"position":4},"title":"Joss Whedon on how your Body Wants to be Mulch \u2014 and other Wisdom","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Joss Whedon returns to his alma mater to give the commencement speech. If this had been my commencement speech, I might have remembered something about it. It's nice to see someone with a tragic (in the old sense) view of life. As it was, my commencement\u00a0 speaker was some history\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"education\"","block_context":{"text":"education","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=education"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4659,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4659","url_meta":{"origin":4220,"position":5},"title":"Rhetoric: It’s “Classical” Because It Works","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 19, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Back to the basics\" works if you chose the right basics. (We could debate that.) \"The Writing Revolution,\" an article in The Atlantic, argues that attention to basic rhetorical principles \u2014 as opposed to expressing your feelings or writing in order to become a better person\u2014 helps disadvantaged high school\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"education\"","block_context":{"text":"education","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=education"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4220"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4220\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4221,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4220\/revisions\/4221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}