Reply to Decline and fall of the English major

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Decline and fall of the English major"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My dd just graduated from an Ivy as an Englis major and has a great job lined up. The WSJ did a great story (I don't have the link sorry) a few months back that many businesses like hiring liberal arts grads over business majors because they can write/think. Colleges shouldn't all turn into trade schools. The liberal arts are great fields of study and folks shouldn't give up on them.[/quote]

Ding ding!  Big hearty congratulations to you and your DD!

The Association of American Colleges and Universities has an initiative called LEAP through which they've conducted research regarding what employers want out of recent college grads (http://www.aacu.org/leap/documents/2009_EmployerSurvey.pdf).  All of the skills they say they want can be achieved through studying the liberal arts:

Knowledge of Human Cultures and the Physical and Natural World
• Science and technology 70%
• Global issues 67%*
• The role of the United States in the world 57%
• Cultural diversity in the United States and other countries 57%
• Civic knowledge, participation, and engagement 52%*

Intellectual and Practical Skills
• Written and oral communication 89%
• Critical thinking and analytic reasoning 81%
• Complex problem solving 75%
• Teamwork skills in diverse groups 71%*
• Creativity and innovation 70%
• Information literacy 68%
• Quantitative reasoning 63%

Personal and Social Responsibility
• Ethical decision making 75%
• Intercultural competence (teamwork in diverse groups) 71%*
• Intercultural knowledge (global issues) 67%*
• Civic knowledge, participation, and engagement 52%*

Integrative and Applied Learning
• Applied knowledge in real-world settings 79%

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics