- What is a central tension Boyer discusses in his chapter? Support your response with a quote from Boyer and at least 4 sentences of explanation.
- A central tension that I picked up on in this chapter is the clear divide between the study of general education and specizlied education at many colleges and institutions. With this, we come back again, to the liberal arts versus the “career education.” The notion that, to create a successful career, students can utulize both, meaning these two areas can work together. “The amount of misunderstanding and hostility crackling between the two cultures is amazing and, considering our liberal arts mission, probably destructive. Each side needs somehow to be convinced that they are working for similar objectives” (Boyer 221). It’s already been proven, earlier in the article and in various other studies, that employers specifically look to hire people with skills obtained from the liberal arts (reasoning, critical thinking, reading/writing ability). They rank more important to employers than the actual technical skills. The tension in this chapter, like I said, is career education versus liberal education. Boyer is clearly pushing for the side of the liberal education, but in the sense that it can be used within technical training and more specziled majors. This is his whole idea of an “enriched major”.
- What is Boyer’s “Enriched Major” idea, and how does he imagine it as a response to a key tension? Support your response with a quote and at least 3 sentences of explanation.
- Boyers “enriched major” deals with the concept that students should study a field in depth, but at the same time, puting this field of study into perspective – into a larger, deeper, and wider context. Not keeping it so narrow – being able to discuss it and use it in terms of other ares such as in the social aspect. “If a major is so narrow and so technical that it cannot be discussed in terms of its historial and social implications, if the work in the proposed field os tudy cannot be a broadening experience, then the department is offering mere technical training that belongs in a trade school, not on a college campus, where the goal is liberal learning” (Boyer 223). We can connect all that we’ve learned about the liberal arts and how important and crucial they are to study. The exact idea about the “enriched major” is that we can use critical thinking and reasoning skills, problem solving skills, and the ability create connections between, for example, a technical major and social and economic involvement. Boyers “enriched major” wants students to not study so narrowly – pushing schools to keep undergrad programs general rather than honing in on the technical aspects of a certain discipline.
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