Summary Of The New Liberal Arts By Sanford Ungar

Sanford J. Ungar’s “The New Liberal Arts” discusses the common assumptions made about a liberal arts education and how they are often wrong. Ungar believes that a liberal arts education is important for all students and teaches them skills they will not learn elsewhere. He also insists other countries, such as China, should adopt America’s liberal arts system, he says, “The Chinese may be coming around to the view that a primary focus on technical training is not serving them adequately-that if they aspire to world leadership, they will have to provide young people with a broader perspective” (Ungar 231). In other words, Ungar believes only a proper liberal arts education can help students achieve an open mind. Though I concede that a liberal

For instance Ungar has this to say about students receiving a liberal arts education, “They come to terms with complexity and diversity, and otherwise devise means to solve problems-rather than just complaining about them. They develop patterns to help them understand how to keep learning for the rest of their days” (232). Although I agree a liberal arts education can accomplish that, a person can also learn that through a job, in Mike Rose’s “Blue Collar Brilliance” he speaks of his mother, who dropped out of school in 7th grade (275). Without having an education Rose’s mother became a waitress, though her job seems simple it is not, she had to assess her duties at the restaurant and determine what order would help her accomplish her tasks in a timely fashion. Rose’s mother also had to deduce the moods and needs of each and every customer, according to Rose “her tip depended on how well she responded to these needs, and so she became adept at reading social cues and managing feelings, both the customers’ and her own” (275). The skills that Rose’s mother possesses are skills that Ungar would argue can only be acquired by attending college, yet this woman managed to gain them by waiting tables at a

According to Mike Rose, “To work is to solve problems. The big difference between the psychologist’s laboratory and the workplace is that in the former the problems are isolated and in the latter they are embedded in the real-time flow of work with all its messiness and social complexity” (280). In other words, Rose believes that though problem solving skills can be learned at a college, they can also be learned through working and by doing so they will get more from the experience. When a person learns to solve problems at the work place he or she must deal with all the variables life throws into the equation, where as in a classroom everything is planned and nothing is organic. This issue is important because many students are told they need to receive a liberal arts education to make it in this world. No one tells them that there is another option, one they may like better and could quite possibly learn more from. Skipping college and getting a job is actually a good idea for some students, they will learn the same skills they would at college, except they will learn them in more complex situations and earn money instead of spending