Mitchell Becker
ENG 110 C
Final Version Entry Prompt
Barnett’s ideas talk about how higher education is a phase in an adolescent’s life that transitions them to adulthood. Higher education is when a person’s view on the world and their role in it is challenged. “A genuine higher education is unsettling; it is not meant to be a cosy experience” (Barnett). This is the path where people learn to take nothing for granted, and realize that there are no more answers to the questions that they’re asking.
These ideals can be related to Nussbaum’s explanation of the U.S. educational system. In the U.S. most of the higher learning opportunities are through liberal arts degrees. A liberal arts degree forces people to look at subjects from many different aspects and students are required to learn a wide variety of subjects through their college career. This encourages them to become questioning active participating citizens in today’s democratic society. Barnett’s ideas are fulfilled through the U.S. higher education when the students start to challenge their own cultural traditions and become unsettled by it. “…challenging the mind to become active, competent, and thoughtfully critical in a complex world” (Nussbaum). The wide variety of subjects from all different aspects is what is instrumental to creating a person who can think comprehensively. It almost doesn’t matter what their major is, the liberal arts degree gives every student the opportunity for higher learning that Barnett discussed.
The ideas expressed in the reading selections are similar to my own experience. Since arriving at college, all of my cultural norms and ideas have been questioned by not only my professors but also my classmates. Many questions that arise in class sometimes go unanswered because the answer hasn’t been found yet; I’ll be told that there is ongoing research attempting to come up with the answer. However, I have found that research isn’t always conclusive. Either the results are inconclusive and there needs to be further work done, or it is found that there are so many confounding variables that it is near impossible to find an answer.
My idea of education is similar to Barnett and Nussbaum’s ideas. I believe that our culture is right in having mostly liberal arts degrees available, instead of going to school to do one thing. Higher education should be about creating a more informed well-rounded person. You come out of college with a degree in a field of work you are interested in pursuing, but you are also now more complete by all of the lessons you learned while you were there. Learning that the world should not be taken for granted the way that it is, and that “things could always be other than they are” (Barnett). It doesn’t matter what you go on to study at school, for most people it changes, but the experience is the same for everyone. Experiencing what it is like to be at the forefront of information, learning material that was recently discovered or asking questions that haven’t been answered yet.
