Progression 1

Brennan Doyle

Stacey Bieber

English 115 Honors

8 September 2015

Article Summary: No, it Doesn't Matter What You Majored In

In the article “No, it Doesn't Matter What You Majored In,” Carlo Rotella, a college professor at Boston College and writer for The Boston Globe, argues that one’s chosen major is not the most important aspect of one’s college career. Rotella states that employers do not focus on what a person majored in, but rather, if he/she has “spent four years developing a set of skill that will serve [him/her] in a good stead in the postindustrial job market.” Furthermore, Rotella claims that college is extremely expensive, especially since “a college degree has increasingly become a minimum qualification for the kind of job that puts you in the middle class.”

Rotella, Carlo. "No, It Doesn’t Matter What You Majored in." The Boston Globe. The Boston Globe, 24 Dec. 2011. Web. 22 Sept. 2015.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

15 September 2015

Article Summary: Tuning In to Dropping Out

In the article, “Tuning In to Dropping Out,” Alex Tabarrok, an economics professor at George Mason University, suggests that college graduates who studied visual and performing arts are less likely to find a career than those who studied math and science, yet there are significantly more of the former than the latter. Tabarrok states that the government offers financial aid to students and expects them to be able to pay it back because they should land a successful career with their higher education and boost the economy. Therefore, Tabarrok believes that only students who study math and science should earn these subsidies. Moreover, Tabarrok addresses the fact that only 75% of students graduate from high school, and only 35% of college students graduate in four years. Tabarrok explains that in European countries such as Germany, 97% of their students graduate high school, and instead of college, most of them take apprenticeship programs. Tabarrok argues that these programs provide a much better education than American colleges because they teach the students “high-skill technical training that combines theory with practice—and the students are paid!”

Tabarrok, Alex. "Tuning In to Dropping Out." The Chronicle of Higher Education. N.p., 4 Mar. 2012. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

15 September 2015

Article Summary: College Makeover

In the article, “College Makeover,” S. Georgia Nugent, president of The College of Wooster and former president of Kenyon College, insists that the three most important things that colleges teach are reading, writing, and moral development. Nugent describes moral development as “attaining a degree of self-understanding, an appreciation for the limits of the human condition, empathy for others, and a sense of responsibility for civil society.” Nugent believes that there are multiple ways of reinforcing moral development in college but what matters most is the professor asking his or her students what their life values are, and having them reflect upon them.

Nugent, S. Georgia. "How to Reinvent Higher Education." Slate Magazine. N.p., 17 Nov. 2005. Web. 14 Sept. 2015.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

10 September 2015

Dear Mr. Rotella,

My name is Brennan Doyle and I am a freshman at California State University Northridge. I am writing to you because I read your article on The Boston Globe, titled “No, it Doesn’t Matter What You Majored In,” with which I agree on all the main points. I believe that college is very expensive for a vast majority of people even though a degree is practically a requirement to get a career, and that employers do look at how well a person did in college, but not necessarily what they majored in. While I enjoyed reading the article, there were some parts that were rather puzzling. For example, I did not know what you meant when you referred to the dilemma with the middle class and college costs as a “higher-education bubble.” I would assume that it means that college students are stuck in a metaphorical bubble that traps them in their financial debt, but I can’t be certain.

At CSUN, I am majoring in Film Production, which is an extremely competitive field. After reading your article, I began to wonder if I could possibly major in something else and still earn a career in filmmaking. Albeit, Film Production is not a humanities or social science subject, but there are other areas of the filmmaking process, like screenwriting or editing, that are not as exclusive. Perhaps I could switch or even double major in one of those fields to increase my chances of working in the film industry, which would be my dream job.

I know that you wrote that article almost four years ago, and may well have forgotten about it, but it has given me some confidence and reassurance for the four stressful years to come in college and the future beyond, so thank you so much.

Sincerely,

Brennan Doyle

Rotella, Carlo. "No, It Doesn't Matter What You Majored in." The Boston Globe (Boston, MA). N.p., 24 Dec. 2011. Web. 9 Sept. 2015.

Brennan Doyle

Professor Bieber

English 115 Honors

22 September 2015

The Optimum College Education

These days, everyone seems to agree that college is very important. People spend the first 18 years of their lives preparing for it. When they get there, however, many students cannot decide on a major, go into financial debt, or even drop out. Then those who do graduate after four years often cannot find a job and have to spend the next twenty to thirty years of their lives paying off their student loans. If it were up to me, I would create a college that could provide students with the guidance to ensure a successful career and transition to adulthood. To achieve this goal, my college curriculum would focus on a generalized education rather than one focused on specialization, provide students with hands-on work experience, teach real-life skills to prepare students for adult responsibilities, and help students to become moral, respectful individuals.

In my college, students will have to broaden their studies throughout their four years instead of only focusing on classes that relate to their major. Having a wide spectrum of classes can help students develop many skills that their major otherwise might not, which will help them become well-rounded individuals. For example, in a literature class one can learn how to create a well-developed argument, not just in writing but in speaking as well. In a performing-arts class such as theater, students can gain the ability to present and speak to a large group of people with confidence. Having these types of skills is imperative in the world beyond college because they can prepare you for almost any situation that may arise in your personal life, your career, or anywhere else for that matter. There is one important skill, however, that is crucial: critical thinking. In the article, “Why a Liberal Arts Education Matters,” Vedika Khemani, a Ph.D. candidate in theoretical physics at Princeton University, explains why critical thinking, amongst other things, is a crucial skill in the real world, and is learned mainly from humanities courses. Khemani defines critical thinking as “the logical result of being able to simultaneously synthesize multiple ideas in one’s mind”. This is such an important ability to have in the real world because it allows one to assess situations and solve problems much quicker than someone with limited critical thinking abilities.

As well as learning new skills to help students succeed in life, broadening their studies could possibly help them find their true passion. If students experiment with classes they know little to nothing about, it could turn out that they especially enjoy a particular class and decide to change their major to that subject. Thus, just by trying out a multitude of classes and finding something that interests them more than their original major, they may pursue a career that could make their life completely different and perhaps better than how it would have been, had they stuck with their first major. In some cases, nonetheless, what someone majors in may not necessarily be that important to their career later in life. To paraphrase the article, “No, It Doesn’t Matter What You Majored In,” Carlo Rotella, a college professor at Boston College and writer for The Boston Globe, explains how employers are more interested in how well you did in college and the fact that you stuck it out for four years without giving up, than the subject you majored in . So it can’t hurt to change your major here and there, because your future boss may not care. But what he/she will pay attention to is that you enrolled in a variety of classes and gained many abilities because of that.

Becoming a well-rounded individual from taking a myriad of classes is very helpful to one’s chances of getting a job, but it does not help in making students any more experienced in the workplace. To fully prepare college students for having a career, they need to be provided with firsthand job experience throughout their four-year education. In my college, students should be required to participate in an internship for at least a semester, and attend workshops that teach them how to build a résumé and have an impressive interview, as well as proper work ethic and customer service. Having this knowledge at hand will be very helpful in finding a job before and after graduation. Employers will want to hire the people that took these courses because they will simply have more knowledge and experience in the working environment, but also because of the fact that they seized the opportunity to go to a college that actually teaches them this information.

Along with providing students with the aforementioned skills, my college would also teach them the life skills and responsibilities that come with being successful adults. There are so many things that, as a child, you do not have to worry about, but as an adult, you have to incorporate into your daily life. Since college is meant to be the transition from adolescence to adulthood, it seems like the perfect place to develop these abilities. In a single course, a Life Skills GE, if you will, the majority of the skills taught would be about financial duties, such as doing taxes, maintaining a checkbook, and budgeting, but there would also be other lessons, to name a few, about staying healthy, simple vehicle repairs, and computer coding. Learning these skills will give students a jumpstart in students’ lives and careers, and they will be a lot better off than those who have to figure everything out on their own.

The final and arguably the most important takeaway from my college will be building students’ characters. S. Georgia Nugent, president of The College of Wooster and former president of Kenyon College, states in her article, “College Makeover,” that “the aim of education is to teach reading, writing, and the moral development of character”. So what exactly is moral development? As I see it, moral development is the process of becoming more aware, tolerant, and respectful of other people’s backgrounds, beliefs, religions, and cultures. This is a critical principle to achieve before emerging into adulthood because there are going to be so many people that you have to come into contact with in your lifetime that there is no way that they all have the same set of beliefs that you do. Learning to become socially aware and tolerant is crucial to earning other people’s respect, because they will want yours in return. Now, how can moral development be achieved? A normal university would expect its students to learn this skill just by being around other people on a vastly diverse campus. It is true that this has a significant effect on people’s acceptance of others, but in my opinion it is not enough. My college will require students to take a class that studies a group or groups of people that are different from themselves, whether it be ethnicity, race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. Understanding the values and the struggles of these groups will help students become more open-minded and empathetic towards everyone regardless of their dissimilarity.

Too many colleges today are throwing their graduates into their adulthood, empty-pocketed and lacking the skills and knowledge needed to get a job. If I had my own college, I would recognize that every student needs all the help they can get, and that they need to be pointed in the right direction before they can face the real world. I realize that, being a film major, I will most likely not be establishing a university to my name at any time in the future, but I would advise any college freshman who is reading this to take every opportunity they can to follow the guidelines I have stated above. Four years is not a very long time at all, considering that you are supposed to learn how to live the rest of your life in that time. And once college is over, you are on your own out there. Good luck.

Works Cited

Khemani, Vedika. "Why a Liberal Arts Education Matters." New York Times. New York Times, 1 Feb. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2015.

Nugent, S. Georgia. "How to Reinvent Higher Education." Slate Magazine. Slate Magazine, 22 Nov. 2005. Web. 22 Sept. 2015.

Rotella, Carlo. "No, It Doesn’t Matter What You Majored in." The Boston Globe. The Boston Globe, 24 Dec. 2011. Web. 22 Sept. 2015.