Liberal Arts in Our Life - Research Paper Example

?Michelle Koh Prof. Rebeiro ESL33B April 24, Liberal arts in our life I. Introduction The liberal arts are s in general areas of study such as philosophy, mathematics, art, history, economics, and languages. The liberal arts subjects are drawn from the major branches of the liberal arts. These include the social sciences which cover such subjects as sociology, geography, economics, political science, and anthropology. Another branch of the liberal arts is known as the humanities which cover literature, languages, history, and philosophy. The third branch is the creative arts – theater, fine art, creative writing and others. All these broad subjects are what are known as the liberal arts and they are, as you can see, quite wide and varied. They are usually available to students at an undergraduate level right at the beginning and at more advanced levels as we move up the higher education chain (Sigurdson 14). II. What I know about the topic 1. The main task of liberal arts Liberal arts are not designed to equip you or enable you to specialize in a specific profession. Rather, they are there to prepare the students for life in the working world. Liberal arts equip you with the ability, first and foremost, to have lifelong learning. Learning does not just end in the classroom or after graduation. It is a process through which we acquire knowledge skills and expertise throughout our life. It is, therefore, necessary for one to have courses that equip you to do exactly that – essentially be a student for life, learning and adapting to new knowledge, new aspects of life and learning how to adapt, live and even thrive with change. 2. The main capacities of liberal arts The liberal arts also give one the ability and capacity for free thinking. It teaches the student how to think, how to question and how to expand your horizons. The liberal arts also enable one to communicate effectively (Schall 7). It is not just a matter of learning how to speak a foreign language or two – though that is also covered in liberal arts – but how to interpret nonverbal communications, how to communicate in cultures other than your own, and how to express yourself in contexts that are different from your traditional ones (Sigurdson 18). The liberal arts give students a chance to not only explore and get their head round a large variety of subjects but also an ability to look at the world, themselves and others in a totally new light. It gives students an appreciation of different points of view and different modes of thought. It is an opportunity to learn about the evolution of human society, how it started out, how it came through civilization, what civilization is all about and what in the world has changed and how it has changed since this civilization came about. In liberal arts one learns what previous generations have learned, thought and experienced (Schall 11). III. Research 1. The main questions of liberal arts What questions did they ask? What answers did the great philosophers seek? Liberal arts give you an opportunity to wrestle with abstract concepts and ideas. There arose questions such as: What is beauty and how does one decide that something is beautiful and the other one is not? Does this color or make-up look good on me? How did our history shape us and our thinking? How did we interact with the environment and what impact has it had on us and us about it? What acts constitute sexual harassment in the workplace and why and how should they be reported? Thus, liberal arts result in a person who has a more rounded appreciation of himself, others and his environment. A classic story is told to explain the importance of the liberal arts. Three blind men who were told to touch an elephant and then describe what it looked like. The first one touched the elephant’s main body and decided because it was so big, this creature must be like a wall. The second blind man touched the elephant’s tusk and after racing it all the way to the tip, decided that the elephant must be shaped like a spear, like some sort of weapon. The third blind man happened to touch and feel the elephant’s trunk and he assumed that the elephant must be a long tubular item, like a snake (Blanchard 5). Were all these blind men right? In their individual ways, they all were to an extent. But they were also all wrong in their descriptions of the elephant. They were each looking at it from the limited perspective of what part they had felt. If they had been students of the liberal arts, however, they would have had the ability to look at the parts of the animal they were touching in a different perspective and had a better chance of describing the elephant correctly. This is what liberal arts do. They free the student's mind to be able to see things from not just one but several different perspectives and thus have a more rounded appreciation of the world around us. The liberal arts have thus opened our eyes so we can see a more complete and more accurate picture of the world around us (Blanchard 4). 2. Liberal arts necessity Why are the liberal arts necessary? That is a good question. One that is posed a lot in today’s modern world where science is supposedly king. Why should I waste my time taking a course in the liberal arts while that knowledge gained there will not be a very useful time as a bank employee? The liberal arts equip students with all sorts of skills that will be useful in whatever place they find themselves in. How, for example, would that bank employee get the job at the bank if he did not learn how to write a good application letter? How would he manage to successfully go through the interview process if he had not learned some tricks and techniques in how to prepare yourself for tough interview questions? How would he be able to impress that bank manager that he was the right candidate for the job if he had not learned how to express himself with confidence, how to describe his strengths and show his ability to overcome his weaknesses? The liberal arts teach a lot of very important and necessary skills, skills that we require throughout our life. Liberal arts will teach you, first and foremost, numerical skills, which every banking industry staffer should know. Even in these days with automation and calculators and computers, one still needs to have some basic numerical skills to survive working in a bank. The liberal arts also teach critical and analytical thinking. They also equip one with problem solving skills. Liberal arts are also necessary in that they allow us to equip our brains for future learning and skills in how to utilize that learning acquired practically and feasibly in our everyday life. The liberal arts equip us to be open and prepared to adapt, use and improve on information technology. These are all skills that are useful no matter what field of study or what profession one ends up in. Indeed, these skills are essential survival skills that we all need to navigate successfully and smoothly through many aspects of our lives. And they make us better, happier and more successful human beings (Highet 2). 3. How can liberal arts improve our nature? By improving your knowledge and bettering your understanding of the world, the liberal arts make us more appreciative of others within and without us. By enabling us to better understand our own selves – what our personality types are like, what things we like, what our values, virtues and vices are – we become better people to live with others, be it with our spouses, family children and the general society. We gain an understanding of what acceptable and unacceptable social and societal norms are and more. Liberal arts courses let us see things such as gender rights, human rights and closer to our banking life, customer rights and why it is important to treat the bank customers, suppliers and co-workers in a certain way. All this serves to make us better human beings. Does that make us happier? Of course it does. The satisfaction of doing a job well even as a bank worker is one the arts will equip us for by making the habits that let us perform our tasks in a particular way. And the gratitude and satisfaction that this brings to our customers, co-workers, and bosses are reflected in us and that goes to improve our happiness quotient considerably. So, in a way liberal arts, or at least utilizing the skills we acquire through liberal arts, does make us happier. And we all do not have to be told that a happy, satisfied worker is a more productive and successful worker (Highet 2). IV. What I learned 1. The role of liberal arts in my life How do all these liberal arts benefit me as a bank worker? Today, the skills that are born out of liberal arts are in even more demand than ever. In the tough economic climate that the entire world finds itself in, jobs no longer have the permanence they used to have, and professionals all have to keep improving on their abilities and flexibility to be able to move on to new opportunities as well as to keep adapting to rapidly changing environment. And it is not just professionally but in all aspects of life. Two decades ago, we did not have as widespread use of cell phones as we have now. Yet there are certain aspects of cell phone use, such as the correct etiquette, that we have only been able to learn and adapt to base on lessons learned from the liberal arts. V. Conclusion Liberal arts are very important for us. Even in societies where life was more rigid and more regimented such as in China, Japan and some parts of Asia, they are finding that they have to re-learn the liberal arts in order to make their workforces more adaptive to new technologies, workplaces and changing professions. With all the economic woes that the entire world has had to face, one of the first things they found out is that their workers were so fixed in the one job or profession that they were trained for that when they have to change jobs due to economic reasons, or as it is happening nowadays, if their particular jobs become automated or they are no longer required, they have a bigger challenge adapting to new jobs and new working environments. As a result, a lot of colleges, schools and educationists are now seeing the need for the liberal arts and why it is important and necessary to keep recommending that all students take at least part of a liberal arts course. In the end, it has a usability that lasts an entire lifetime. Works Cited Blanchard, Brand. The Uses of a Liberal Education: And Other Talks to Students. Open Court, 1973 Highet, Gilbert. The Art of Teaching, Vintage Books, 1950. Schall, James V. Another Sort of Learning, Ignatius Press, 1988. Sigurdson, Rich. Why Study the Liberal Arts? N.p., n.d. Web. April 22, 2013. Schall, James V. Another Sort of Learning, Ignatius Press, 1988. http://www.uni.edu/reineke/whystudyla.htm Read More