Reply to Colleges that prioritize the humanities side of liberal arts

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Univ of Chicago’s required core curriculum is intense and reminds me of philosophy classes I took in college. In one semester the first year, our daughter read Aristotle, Plato, St. Augustine, Durkheim, Arendt, and Freud. I’m sure I’ve forgotten many. https://college.uchicago.edu/academics/core-curriculum[/quote]
A humanities kid having to take core classes with a bunch of Econ majors (30% of Chicago students major in Econ) and STEM kids sounds like a living hell to me…[/quote]

Well I guess only St. John’s or a theological seminary would suit you, then. I hope your student, however, will survive a few classes with people who have perspectives and goals that differ from hers. The world would likely be in better shape if the econ kids and the STEM kids had studied philosophy and literature.  [/quote] But not if the STEM kids are required to take "STEM for poets" courses before taking the real STEM courses, which is why they don't. So why should humanities majors have to take "humanities for STEM majors" before getting to the real humanities courses[/quote]

It’s a stupid comparison. It’s not like intro English classes read Dr. Seuss. The humanities are not linear.  A student with exceptional skills can write an exceptional paper even in an intro composition course.

Also, not that you asked, but literature courses in college were nothing like I expected, as a kid interested in literature. There was very little connection to anything we’d done in AP English in HS. [b]It was hugely theory based and reading theory[/b]. Look through course catalogues for departments that interest you.[/quote]

You were probably an undergrad in the early 2000s.  But it is quite true that college-level study of literature and history (or similar) cannot and should not spend all of its time just analyzing content.  Performing close reading and conducting historical or cultural research require careful training, and part of that training is learning about the work of other scholars, so that you know what is possible, observe how to do it, and can position your own work in dialogue with the work of others.  Not everyone wants to do this, which is why there are _also_ degrees available in rhetoric/composition, creative writing, public humanities, great books, and other areas that allow for different levels and types of interaction with the primary sources vs. the scholarly tradition.  Plenty of room for all - but I do agree that students should understand what they are getting into and have the chance to choose. [/quote]

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