NC Governor: Study liberal arts on your own dime

Since most of y'all don't live in North Carolina, you might not have seen this, but the governor of my state basically said on a national radio broadcast that I should be fired.

A couple nice selections

As many of you know, I'm paid (fairly little) by the state of North Carolina to teach philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, where I'm working towards my Ph.D. So I probably have more of a vested interest than the rest of you folks. But is this as ridiculous as it looks like to me?

1. Governor McCrory, you have a liberal arts degree from Catawba. Did that not help you become governor (which, last I checked, is a job)? Dr. Bennett, you have a Ph.D. in philosophy for heaven's sake. I don't need to remind you that philosophy majors score third highest on the LSAT (behind math and physics), highest on two GRE sections, and near the top on the GRE math section. It's not like it doesn't give you skills that are useful outside the discipline. But I'm sure any critical thinking or leadership skills that come out of liberal arts programs are useless for most people. As long as the rich have access to them, the abilities of the population won't miss a beat.

2. More importantly, when did major state universities become trade schools? If your main goal is to get people jobs, you don't need a university. The point of a university is to give a person a broad education and some understanding of how the disciplines work together. If all you want to do is get people jobs, shut down UNC and start trade schools and apprentice programs. I'm sure no one will miss any of your liberal arts programs that are in the top ten in the world.

Dude is going to make me vote Democrat. And I've never voted Democrat for any major office.

 

Lol, that's just bad.

 

If people want to get a FA degree that's up to them, but I didn't go to college to figure out how philosophy, music, and chemistry related to my major. I didn't care, I was only interested in the classes that taught me what I needed to know to get a job in my major. I think there is value in being well rounded, but I view every FA class I took in college as wasted money. I'm sure English majors and the like feel the same way about the basic science and math classes they have to take.

 

I do think a lot of college students see it that way, but I think it's wrong that they see it that way. The reason distribution classes are required is because the university thinks they're a good idea and most students wouldn't pursue them unless forced.

 

What a great way to absolutely destroy a great university system with one of the best public schools in the nation. **** that guy.

 

I don't agree with the gov taking this line on things, but I also think there's a lot of kids who go to college and get various LA degrees without understanding what they can and can't do with them.

 

Now that is correct. I also think a lot of people go to college when they really don't need to. College has gotten to the point where it's a thing that everybody does (or at least everyone from a certain socio-economic background), and that isn't the way it should be. There are some people who don't want to do it, don't need to do it, and don't get anything out of it. Those people shouldn't be here. But I still think the university has an important place, and the importance isn't measured in jobs.

 

To me it comes across as me having to pay ridiculous amounts of money for a teacher to tell me I interpreted Robert Frost wrong. I don't give a damn about Frost. I consider myself well rounded but I do that on my own time.
I wish colleges were more like apprenticeships. I learned far more co-oping than I ever did in the classroom. We live in the age of specialization I think the basic curriculum is outdated jmo.

 

So you're exactly the sort of person I'm talking about in the previous comment. Have no interest in a liberal arts education, don't need it for your chosen job, and probably didn't get a lot out of it. There should be more apprenticeships for your type. They make perfect sense. They're more immediately useful and they're probably cheaper. But university shouldn't be like an apprenticeship. To say that is to misunderstand a university. We should have both of those two things, and we shouldn't try to put them in the same role.

 

The fact he's listening to Bill Bennett is proof enough that he's a pompous [dadgum] fool.

 

You know what should be like apprenticeships? [dadgum] apprenticeships. If one wishes to be a droning droid for the machine, have at it. Just kindly keep your [dadgum] noses out of the greatest higher education system in mankind's history.

 

This is a perfect example of the pitfalls of allowing stupid people to vote.

 

This pretty much shits on my school as a whole.

 

Not sure if I mentioned this. He wasn't just listening to Bennett, he was on Bennett's damn show. He didn't get my vote this time, and he's sure as hell done his best to make sure he won't get it next time.

As always, hat says what I was thinking, but more concisely.

 

What I can't get past is that it shits on McCrory's own damn undergrad. Which he cited as giving him excellent preparation in his campaigning for office. Of course, his undergrad wasn't public, and McCrory has no problem with people paying money to do something that he apparently both considers excellent preparation for life and useless. Just as long as they don't do it in the UNC system.

I'm sure North Carolina residents will love UNC turning into Mississippi State.

 

I'd love to see philosophy taught more in the public school system. I alway want more basic finance taught.

 

A fiscal responsibility class should be mandatory in both high school and undergrad.

 

I fail to see how not forcing a STEM major to take Nordic Mythology shits on your education. Unfortunately apprenticeships don't exist so we're forced to pay crazy amounts for classes that we get no tangible benefits from. I don't agree with the NC governor, but I don't agree with forcing people to take pointless classes either.

 

Heaven forbid a college student gets out of his or her comfort zone every once in a while. Woah now, critical thinking? When will that come up in the real world?

 

Agree wholeheartedly on both counts. I went to a private high school who taught both, although they didn't tell us we were doing philosophy when we did it.

Probably never. My guess is it's useless.