Ryan Dussault

Professor Emerson

English 110 H6

6 September 2017

Entry Prompt

Ronald Barnett’s The Idea of Higher Education dives into his views on higher level education. Many would agree that higher education serves as a way to learn everything pertaining to a specific field of study. Barnett, however, describes a different experience. He, rather than portraying a comforting influx of knowledge, depicts higher education as a disturbing experience. This type of education, he believes, teaches students that what we think we know may actually not be the case. As Barnett mentions in The Idea of Higher Education, “there are no final answers.” This is what students are taught in higher level education; to always be critical, and to challenge ideas. He never mentions a degree or an excellence in any field, but instead describes a place where students are forced out of there comfort zone, and taught to inquire about the truth. He does not come out and say it, but he implies that higher level education is a place for individuals to grow, not simply a place to learn content.

Another author, Martha Nussbaum, also writes about higher level education. In her piece, “Education for Profit, Education for Democracy,” she describes the liberal arts model. This is the same model that university level education in the United States follows. Under this model, she describes, students take a variety of courses in their underclassmen years, especially pertaining to humanities courses. She discusses how this higher education model prepares students to be “informed, independent, and sympathetic democratic citizens.” She also touches on the emphasis for students to question and challenge ideas, creating active, intelligent, and critical citizens. This is very similar to Barnett’s ideology of higher level education. His idea of students learning to “see that things could always be other than they are” is simply his own words for teaching students to inquire and question. Neither authors speak about the degree that is handed to the student at the end of the journey, but instead, the way in which students learn to think.

I completely agree with both authors. I think a strong higher-level education prepares students for what is yet to come, by helping them develop as people. No student will remember everything in a field that is taught to them, so trying to teach everything regarding a field is both unrealistic and ignorant. Teaching the student to be able to be successful, however, is invaluable. By teaching them to challenge ideas, work hard, and to persevere, higher education prepares them for what is yet to come. I have yet to finish my higher level education experience, but I am hoping to gain valuable life skills from my four years as an undergraduate more than anything else. In a medical field, you go to medical school after you graduate, and then follow that with five years of working in the field before you are left out on your own. You do not learn everything you need to be a doctor in your undergraduate studies, but you are taught the skills to be successful in whatever future endeavors you choose to pursue. Personally, I plan on going into Patent Law, specifically patenting drugs/medicines. I am not going to learn what I need to do that in my undergraduate schooling, but I am hoping to be prepared for when I am taught to do so. I am hoping to be pushed out of my comfort zone, and to grow as a person, and to learn to be independent. I expect to learn all of the material that I need for my career in my graduate studies, and through internships. Through undergrad, I would like to, as Barnett and Nussbaum described, learn lessons like how to be “informed, independent, and sympathetic” rather than to learn some content that I will shortly forget, and handed a paper saying that I made it. Like these two authors described, a higher education is about learning lessons and growing as an individual.