Anonymous wrote:Colleges are not preparing kids for the real world anymore. My DD has discovered that as she's due to graduate in a few months with no marketable skills. She was locked out of any practical class (reserved for those in the major) so was stuck with BS electives. We are encouraging her to take some certification courses (on our dime) to make herself more attractive to employers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Colleges are not preparing kids for the real world anymore. My DD has discovered that as she's due to graduate in a few months with no marketable skills. She was locked out of any practical class (reserved for those in the major) so was stuck with BS electives. We are encouraging her to take some certification courses (on our dime) to make herself more attractive to employers.

I'm curious -- When was this mythical period when colleges "prepar[ed] kids for the real world" with "marketable skills"? I ask, because thirty-one years ago this month (damn, I'm old), I received a letter addressed to the members of the Class of 1992. It read, in part:

First of all, undergraduate education -- at least at Harvard, is not designed to prepare you for any specific vocation. We read a lot today about the competition for jobs and the pressure to get into graduate school. But I would suggest that you will be making a mistake if you come here with the thought of gaining a degree simply as a passport to a job or a ticket to admission to graduate school. You have a more important mission. Society is not lacking in people with the technical skills for professional careers. What the professions need more are people with a wide background of knowledge, people with good judgment and taste, people with sensitivity for the problems of others and a strong sense of ethical principles. These are the subtle goals of a liberal arts education and it would be wrong if you were to disregard them in favor of a shortsighted effort to use these college years to get a head start on your professional training.

It was signed by Derek C. Bok, President of Harvard University.

The letter was accompanied by a memorandum that read, in part:

One of the reasons to pursue a liberal education is to become a larger person, broader in intellectual experience, deeper in empathy, stronger in belief.

It was signed by Henry C. Moses, Dean of Freshmen of Harvard College.

Yes, yes. I'm certain you'll poo-poo all that. Harvard-Schmarvard, you'll say. Go ahead. However, if you do so, I'll simply dismiss you as the disingenuous person I assume you to be. You may even snipe, "Ho, ho, you kept a silly letter for more than three decades," despite the knowledge that this objection in no way addresses the question at hand. So, again, I'm curious -- When was this mythical period of college as a glorified vocational school? Be specific.

Anonymous wrote:Colleges are not preparing kids for the real world anymore. My DD has discovered that as she's due to graduate in a few months with no marketable skills. She was locked out of any practical class (reserved for those in the major) so was stuck with BS electives. We are encouraging her to take some certification courses (on our dime) to make herself more attractive to employers.

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Anonymous wrote:I can’t believe people want to learn about non-white people. What a waste of a brain.

Most stuff written by non-Whites is vastly inferior. Compare Plato/Aristotle to Du Boies. No contest.

Also, I find that when Leftists ask for “diversity” they just mean studying stuff that blacks and Hispanics have written. No Hindu, Chinese, or Islamic literature/philosophy. For example, look at this new “diverse” reading list for the Spring Humanities 110 class at Reed College( which they changed last year because of student protests)

“Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Poems, Protest, and a Dream: Selected Writings, trans. Margaret Sayers Peden (New York: Penguin Books, 1997).
W.E.B. Du Bois, Souls of Black Folk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man (New York: Vintage International, 1980).
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006).
David Levering Lewis, ed., The Portable Harlem Renaissance Reader (New York: Penguin, 1994).
Alain Locke, ed., Survey Graphic; Harlem: Mecca of the New Negro (Baltimore: Black Classic Books, 1980).
Jean Toomer, Cane (New York: Liveright, 2011).”

Where’s all the Chinese, Hindu, and Islamic literature/philosophy?( you know, serious stuff that isn’t just people whining about how they can’t get ahead) You throw out St. Augustine’s Confessions so you can read Harlem Renaissance garbage? Give me a break!

That’s a very fair point that Leftists avoid

It's not a point "leftists" avoid. A lot of Eastern lit and philosophy is offered, taught, and taken. It is an outright lie to say it isn't. That said, if you are going to college in the western world, there will be a fair amount of material from the western world. The fact that world is not all classic Roman and Greeks may have eluded you, however.

You need to work on read8ng comprehension. I d8dnt say it wasn’t offered. I said that when Leftists speak of “diversity” either in curriculum or in demographics, they mean bla+is and Hispanics. Blac’s and Hispanics just haven’t written anything truly seminal. 500 years from now(when America is long gone as a world power) people will still be reading Plato and Augustine. I have great doubt that anyone will be reading du Bois If it makes you sad, I’m sorry

You need to work on reading comprehension. St Augustin is African. He’s called Augustine of Hippo because of the area of Africa he’s from. He is of a Roman African background.

So don’t be reading Plato and Augustine thinking you’ll never read Africans of their caliber. You are already reading an African of their caliber.

Again you’re an idiot. Augustine was White. The fact that he lived in Africa means nothing. We’re discussing race/ethnicity. Have you even read the Confessions?

That’s called white washing. Go ahead and believe everything worth reading must be from whites.

That’s not what I said. There are great Hindu, Chinese, and Islamic writers as well. Sadly, Blacks and Hispanics( our modern victim groups) haven’t written anything seminal. Again, I’m sorry if reality makes you sad

You have the reading comprehension and analytical skill of a slow 3rd grader. Those cliff notes you read can only get you so far. If reality makes you sad, tough luck.