Center of the Cirle 2/18/10

On Dec. 29, 2009, the New York Times ran an article by Kate Zernike titled “Career U: Making College ‘Relevant.’” The article outlined the changes that liberal arts schools across the country are making, seeking to prepare graduates for careers and to eliminate seemingly “irrelevant” or “inapplicable” majors such as philosophy. The author ultimately comes down in favor of the liberal arts, arguing that one’s major is far less important than one’s degree, but not before she details many applicable and appealing alternatives. If you have the time and the energy to seriously question your last four years and your parents’ $200,000, I suggest skimming the myriad of comments left in response. The respondents range from the bitter and jobless to the defensive and idealistic.

With graduation in sight, I have been having a similar liberal arts crisis. My friends and I have started playing the “what would you have done differently?” game, and sometimes I am surprised by the dubious reviews that come out of my mouth. Feeling the pressures of the job hunt, I often respond, “I would have studied something more pertinent.”

But then, I look at my cover letters and I bite my tongue. I want to spend the rest of my life reading, writing, editing, speaking and teaching, all pillars of the liberal arts. At Middlebury, I have learned the value of conversation over canned responses, and I would argue that this knack for liberal arts discussion makes us all more interesting people, regardless of our starting salaries. Here, I have met economics majors who also care about the environment, math majors whose true passion is cooking and ENAM majors who double as varsity football players. Despite the difficulty of judging a person by his or her major, you can always count on the fact that he or she will chat your ear off about what he or she cares about. And it is this fact that makes me proud to wave a liberal arts degree. As a publisher recently advised me, “All we really look for is passion and a commitment. The rest is teachable.”

Still, this crisis of confidence is understandable. It is intimidating to stand in an applicant pool next to someone who is “professionally trained,” especially when that “professional” is also well-dressed and well-spoken. Yet, I think we liberal-arts kids can bring something unique to the table. We can talk about paintings and world hunger in the same conversation, recall sports stats and census reports on request and, perhaps most importantly,  we know that a full life exists in a delicate balance between work and play, right brain and left, old and new, applicable and just plain interesting.

So, Kate Zernike, I feel you on this one. I make bitter sarcastic comments about my education all the time — my favorite of which is asking relatives if they would like to donate to the “H.Kay majored in English and religion fund” — but I would never trade my experience here for a tech degree or a B.A. in journalism. Call me irrelevant, but I think that the comments and the conversation that the article inspired proves that the liberal arts tradition still stands strong, even if our classics department represents less than one percent of the student body.