General Education versus Specialized Education
In today’s high pressure, fast-paced America, the liberal arts get a bad rap. People who choose this line of study are often chided as being undecided about their future, not knowing “what they want to be when they grow up” and “Who’s going to hire a History major anyway?” Many times parents and advisers pressure students into choosing a specialized field of study like engineering, accounting or business management. What they fail to realize is that many of today’s top CEO’s have a liberal arts education and they prefer to hire people who do as well.
In an article Entitled “What Would Plato Do” in the Yale Alumni Magazine: July/August 2005, the following quotes can be found:
“A liberal arts education teaches you how to think: how to analyze, how to read, how to write, how to develop a persuasive argument. These skills are used every day in business.”
Susan Crown – Henry Crown and Company, Yale trustee, and self-described social activist
“Because I was CEO of our company for 24 years, I had a unique opportunity to set the culture and to bring on people who could flourish in that culture. I looked for a liberal arts background.”
Richard Franke – retired CEO of the investment firm John Nuveen & Co.
“I am not wild about business degrees for undergraduates; that’s a vocational-school sort of thing. I would say, for an entry-level job, if I’m hiring people I would absolutely prefer a liberal arts degree to a business degree.”
Donna Dubinsky – CEO of Numenta
“For leaders and managers, an undergraduate degree in business is a genuine, serious mistake. What you’re going to learn is an advanced version of bookkeeping; you never learn the most rigorous thinking taught in professional business schools. I don’t know anybody who recommends undergraduate study in business, certainly not over liberal arts, and I include science.”
Charles D. Ellis – managing partner of Greenwich Associates
There are many more examples to be found online. The important idea here is that in some fields, a more general, liberal arts education is often preferable or even desired over specialized education which can be provided more efficiently on the job. In fact, as technological change continues faster and faster, schools can not provide the latest in technology (better done after hiring) but the skilled liberal arts grad does bring the human nature skills set of communication, adaptability, advanced reading and writing, creativity, critical thinking,
leadership etc.
Even if a student has chosen a career that requires a specialized degree, a liberal arts education or Leadership Education can only serve to enhance their studies in their chosen field and their prospects for the future.
Monticello College has a two-fold objective – convey a Classical Liberal Arts or Leadership Education to our students while instilling qualities of sound character – the kind of education that America was founded on and prospered under for the first 350 years AND assist every student in creating a business or employee skill set that produces income before graduation. We fight unemployment by building entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs!
Students who attend Monticello College will study the Classics and Great Books of Western Civilization, but will also get great hands-on, practical experience from the diverse natural environment surrounding the campus.
By learning HOW to think rather than WHAT to think, Monticello College students will not only be prepared to follow their missions in life, but to lead and inspire others to do the same.
Because of Monticello College’s unique combination of location, mentoring, and participation, total four-year program tuition at Monticello College is lower than most 2-year colleges.
The new academic year begins in April 2016. All applications for online and on campus students are due before February 1, 2016.
**HOW TO APPLY TO MONTICELLO COLLEGE
At Monticello College we employ the Seminar Format for our classes. This means we study one subject at a time for a duration of 2 days to 3 weeks. Nearly our entire curriculum consists of original sources and most of those are consumed as whole works. Needless to say, we do a lot of reading. As it is common to discuss one or more new books each day, preparation for a school year requires reading the next year’s curriculum weeks or even months in advance.
We recommend an 8-week (4 hours a day) preparation period. We also recommend that serious students acquire some books and begin reading even before being accepted as a student to get a jump on the readings. This means you should complete the application process long before the deadline so you can be accepted by early February and have plenty of time to prepare and complete as many readings as possible.
We recommend that you begin your application process as soon as possible and that you have all portions of the application submitted long before the deadline. You should plan to purchase the whole year’s worth of books at one time as some books we use are considered rare and are difficult to find or have a long shipping time, so plan to begin your book purchasing process with lots of lead time.
Give your student the advantages that a Leadership Education can provide. Contact us today for more information.