What is a liberal education all about anyway? As a third term senior, I am now evaluating what Lawrence has done to prepare me for the outside world. As an English major, yeah, I can recite Shakespeare and Chaucer by memory, but how can I apply that skill? Is that really a talent worth attaining?At first I was discouraged, and had planned to tell Warch that I wanted my money back. But then, it hit me.
I am writing this article about four hours later than I should have. I was sitting on my bed, and realized that I had totally forgotten about my obligation to write a weekly opinion article.
I think somewhere between my eagerness to study and do well grade-wise at this school, my off-campus job to pay for my school, my social life to assure I do not have a breakdown at this school, and my internship to help me when I leave this school, I merely forgot.
Everything that I am involved with may not be directly related to or sponsored by Lawrence, but it is all affected by it. Just as my life after graduation will be, too.
I will have better time management skills: not because I went to a seminar produced by student services, but because I worked three jobs over the summer to pay for my education.
I will be able to budget my money and expenses when I am on my own: not because I took an economics course, but because I have proved to myself that I can in fact live off of Ramen for an extended period of time, and had to budget my seemingly non-existent funds as a poor college student.
I will have good people skills: not because I had to research or write a paper about personality, but because I have had to live and function among a variety of different characters whose individualities clashed with mine.
There are many other aspects to just being a college student that have embellished me as a person, and have better prepared me for the life after Lawrence.