What is so valuable about a liberal-arts education?
The biggest value of a liberal-arts education is not necessarily the subject matter that you study, but how you study it. It’s the ability to get skills in research, in communication, in teamwork, and these are really required in the work world. A liberal-arts education allows you to explore different areas to find out what you’re interested in, because if you limit yourself to what you’ve studied in high school, then you may never discover that you have a real interest in cultural anthropology, or international relations, or even physics, for that matter. Is it fair to expect seniors to make major career decisions? There are some students who are ready to think about their careers in their first year. Others will start thinking after they graduate, and then it’s perfectly acceptable to take time off to figure it out. That’s why there’s this increase in one- to two-year positions, and why Teach For America was the number-one employer at Duke last year. It’s not because all those people
