Does anyone wish they had a traditional classical education like this instead of what they got in college?

The Great Books wrote:

Angry Willy wrote:

Uhh, no. I would prefer to remain gainfully employed.

Here is what happens to graduates of St. John's. They get regular jobs, like you and me.

http://www.sjc.edu/after-sjc/

Nearly 70 percent of St. John's alumni pursue advanced degrees

So most of them get real degrees after going here.

Seems like a dream for those that partake in mental masturbation.

I recommend that they throw some Eastern thought in there. Ya know, for the different perspective.

well.... wrote:

No. I studied Engineering.

Take a look at this chart of Median Lifetime Earnings by major, and see if you can figure out why I'm glad I did that.

http://www.hamiltonproject.org/files/downloads_and_links/MajorDecisions-Figure_2a.pdf

Most college graduates, no matter what their major or area of concentration, do not spend a whole career in the discipline they studied. Nothing wrong with engineering. But don't kid yourself into thinking you're a well educated person because you excelled in one field. And equating the value of a college education to what kind of income it results in after college is pretty shallow, in my view. Of course, we all have to work and make a living. But some of us believe there is more to life than that.

St John's students do have to study science and math, by the way.

The Great Books wrote:

Most college graduates, no matter what their major or area of concentration, do not spend a whole career in the discipline they studied. Nothing wrong with engineering. .

The chart ranks lifetime earnings *by college major*, not by profession. It thus takes into account the fact that people don't always spend their whole career in the discipline they studied.

There's a common misconception that Engineering degrees are vocational and narrowly-based. An undergraduate engineering degree requires a broad-based education in analysis and problem solving across a variety of disciplines. Computer Engineers still need to study chemistry, physics, mechanics, thermodynamics, and strength of materials, along with quite a bit of mathematics, for example, and all programs I'm aware of include cross-disciplinary design courses. Industry values the broad problem solving skills that one obtains in an Engineering program. As of 2011 33% of the S&P 500 CEOs' had undergraduate degrees in engineering.

Fair point. Now here's one question for you: if you had to design from scratch a four year college curriculum for students who were going on to careers primarily as leaders first (such as military officers), what would you design?

I agree with the OP. There is no philosophical content in a PhD these days (in the sciences). You are simply encouraged to be a glorified calculator, hammering away at details that have absolutely no meaning in the larger scheme of things.

The Great Books wrote:

Fair point. Now here's one question for you: if you had to design from scratch a four year college curriculum for students who were going on to careers primarily as leaders first (such as military officers), what would you design?

I'm not sure. I'd have to put a lot more thought into it. I know the service academies have put a lot of thought into this. At the US Air Force Academy, for example, everyone takes a core curriculum that includes courses in Engineering, English, History, Math, Science, Foreign Language (and military stuff that's not really applicable unless you're training to be an officer ... but I'm sure you could come up with something useful in its place, like Philosophy, Law, Economics, etc). I'd probably take that as a starting point. Different schools might take different approaches to accomplishing this. A college like St. John's might still want to focus on reading and discussion of classics in the field, other schools might choose more of a project-based approach. Different people learn best in different ways, and a one-size-fits-all approach to instruction isn't going to work well.

That's exactly the task I have in the next six months for the Navy. And I can travel anywhere to discover what I need to know to make a recommendation.

The Great Books wrote:

I think this is truly awesome. It's hard to think of anything someone couldn't be successful at if they excelled in this curriculum. Plus, you might actually learn something.

http://www.sjc.edu/academics/undergraduate/features/

Not to diminish any of the subjects or individuals represented on the list, but a quick review suggests that it's missing most of the twentieth century. I only saw three women listed (could they at least have included Sappho?), little consideration of events in the 20th (or 21st) century, no references to fine arts after Wagner (who died in the 1880s), etc.

Personally, I'm a proponent of "well rounded" education, and I agree that our universities are becoming in many cases merely vocational in focus. With the increasing focus on "STEM" disciplines, humanities, fine arts and "soft" sciences are being defunded. Many colleges and universities are shrinking those departments, and cutting advanced degree programs in those areas. In that context, the St. Johns curriculum has a sort of charm, but it seems to hold onto a curriculum that someone could pretty much have designed in 1920.

The best education is the one that allows you thrive following graduation, as you move into a rapidly evolving world economy. New graduates need to be able to adapt. Some balance between vocational expertise and larger perspective on culture, etc., might be nice. Didn't Aristotle coin the idea of the golden mean?

This is an excellent post. Very helpful to me. Probably the biggest constraint we have is the need to 'major' in something. It crowds out the well balanced approach.

Trollus Maximus wrote:

I agree with the OP. There is no philosophical content in a PhD these days (in the sciences). You are simply encouraged to be a glorified calculator, hammering away at details that have absolutely no meaning in the larger scheme of things.

If you know anything about philosophy, then you should understand that nothing has any 'meaning' in the larger scheme of things, and in fact, the idea of a "larger scheme of things" is useless as a philosophical concept.

As was already pointed out with the Good Will Hunting clip posted earlier, the problem with Universities in the modern world is that they're nothing more than high priced baby-sitting services. There is nothing you'd learn at a University that you couldn't learn right now, for free, with an internet connection and some discipline.

The only reason to go to a University is the idea of getting patted on the back for the piece of paper they give you at the end. It has nothing to do with education, learning, or intelligence.

Go to your local library or used book store, walk into a section you know nothing about, pick up a book, and read it cover to cover. That's how you learn things for free that broaden your knowledge. No you won't get a fancy diploma, but you'll learn.

Grab one book from religion, politics, economics, philosophy, anatomy, athletics, music, and warfare and you'll have two semester's worth of liberal arts education for about 20 bucks.

I'm amazed at how many people think that reading a bunch of fiction and blathering endlessly on your philosophical opinions are the marks of true learning, education and betterment as a person.

Is there anything more worthless? Down the rabbit hole of mental masterbation, to mix metaphors. Utterly worthless.

However, I could see the value in true rigor, old school. Learning Latin, REALLY learning how to write, true history (not white guilt "history"), sciences and math, etc.

start with the Epigrams of Marshall

From their website:

'The Sophomore Music Tutorial seeks to develop an understanding of music through attentive listening, close study of musical theory, and the analysis of works of music by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Palestrina, Stravinsky, and Schoenberg, among others.'

This is the old-fashioned 19th century German version of music history. Note the total absence of Italian 18th and 19th century composers from that list. Also note that the list culminates with Schoenberg, of all the composers in all the world...

It sounds very racist and triggering:

"focused on the most important books and ideas of Western civilization"

Status quo schooling isn't education, it's a 17 year leftist browbeating. I would rather see the whole system washed away and supplanted by a modernized education aimed at the development of reasoning skills and the teaching of true information.

John Utah wrote:

I'm amazed at how many people think that reading a bunch of fiction and blathering endlessly on your philosophical opinions are the marks of true learning, education and betterment as a person.

Is there anything more worthless? Down the rabbit hole of mental masterbation, to mix metaphors. Utterly worthless.

However, I could see the value in true rigor, old school. Learning Latin, REALLY learning how to write, true history (not white guilt "history"), sciences and math, etc.

_______________________

The point of a liberal arts education is not to "blather endlessly on your philosophical opinions," it's to learn how to analyze and interpret information so that you can contribute to the well-being of society. It's about understanding our cultural moment, being able to trace the logical consequences of particular arguments (whether political, scientific, philosophical), the potential negatives and positives of new ideas and technologies, etc. You don't get this stuff from technical education or by focusing solely on STEM disciplines. If you did this, you could more critically appraise and understand why so-called "white guilt" history is so popular now and what it's doing, politically and otherwise.