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What’s the Use?
by Francesca Gilberti, Harvard Crimson Magazine, 3/19/08
Harvard student Francesca Gilberti, a staff writer for the Harvard Crimson magazine, reports on the opinions her fellow Harvard students hold about the usefulness of a liberal education in a March 2008 Crimson magazine piece titled, “What’s the Use?” Gilberti answers the question, “What does a liberal arts education mean for Harvard students today?” with an analysis of the main schools of thought she found among her peers.
Harvard students fall into three general groups when it comes to opinions about a liberal arts education, according to Gilberti: there are those who are headed for academic careers and see liberal arts as a means to that end, or even as an end in itself; students who believe the critical thinking skills gained in a liberal education will serve them in any career; and students who view liberal arts as an academic pursuit purely for the college years that can be supplemented by extracurricular professional experiences like internships. She titles these varying positions as, respectively, “Liberal Arts as a Life,” “Renaissance Men,” and “Cocktail Conversation.”
Faculty members Gilberti interviewed, on the other hand, focused on liberal arts as the foundation for a well-rounded education. “What we want to have as our focus for the undergraduates is the broadly educated person, who’s comfortable in communications, who understands the societal issues,” explained an engineering professor who wanted Harvard to graduate “Renaissance engineers.” Another professor asserted, “I have yet to find a student who has not felt that the liberal arts…provides them with a very unique perspective on the sciences or social sciences.”
Not all students agree. One student quoted in the piece, now employed in finance, said that while her Harvard liberal arts education does help her think critically, her career “is completely disconnected from [her] education.” Other students explained that they seek extracurricular opportunities to build up their resumes. “Many students see liberal arts merely as a supplement to non-academic activities—a series of motions necessary to obtain a piece of paper certifying one as employable,” Gilberti writes.
The entire article may be viewed online. For other analyses of how both high school and college students view “liberal education,” see reports from focus groups conducted as part of AAC&U’s LEAP initiative.
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