Advice for the Graduate: It's More Than Plastics, Benjamin
May 9, 2003
By Jonathan Henry, University of Richmond News Feature Service
So the job market for the class of 2003 is tight? Well, that's really not the objective of college education. A job eventually will happen, say University of Richmond professors; the point of college is what has been learned over four years.
If college is preparation for life, then what should graduates have learned? Some Richmond professors say that all college graduates should know the following seven lessons:
1. How to explain the American system and other systems of government-i.e., understand terms like "checks and balances," "separation of powers," "parliamentary system" and "head of state vs. head of government."
Arthur Gunlicks, professor of political science, says: "Some students think they understand basic terms that should be common knowledge among college-educated persons but in fact misunderstand or half-understand them, possibly because they are 'learned,' often very superficially, relatively early in life, and become imbedded in memory."
2. How to think about issues theoretically.
"It is important for students to look for patterns, connections, correlations or interrelationships, between and among events or issues, in order to try to better understand causal relationships," Gunlicks says.
3. That simple solutions are almost always wrong or even dangerous.
"One should be wary of conspiracy theories, which almost always make unproved or unprovable assumptions," Gunlicks says. "One must also always be suspicious about single causes, because most issues are interrelated, and most events have multiple causes, some of which may be unknown or in any case difficult to measure in terms of their impact. Also, some 'causes' are merely assumed, perhaps because they seem so plausible, but are not verified."
4. How to analyze important, difficult books without detailed knowledge about context and without courses taken in school.
"Nothing is more fundamental to liberal education, says Raymond F. Hilliard, professor of English, "than knowing how to read important books-how to ask the right questions about them, how to evaluate them, how to compare them with one another. By learning how to reason accurately about complex verbal texts, one learns how to reason about human experience in its infinite variety and complexity."
Other lessons you should have learned:
5. The scientific method; basics of evolutionary theory and what it means for biology; general knowledge of organization of life from DNA to ecosystems.
6. Forms of cultural identification and sympathy that come through study of a foreign language.
7. An understanding of roles of creation and interpretation in the study of art through the creative process.