A Practical Education : Why Liberal Arts Majors Make Great Employees / Randall Stross.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stross, Randall, Author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

College graduates--Employment--United States.

College graduates.

College majors--United States.

College majors.

Education, Humanistic--United States.

Education, Humanistic.

Employee selection--United States.

Employee selection.

Personal--Selección--Estados Unidos.

Personal.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press, [2020]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The liberal arts major is often lampooned: lacking in "skills," unqualified for a professional career, underemployed. But studying for the joy of learning turns out to be surprisingly practical. Unlike career-focused education, liberal education prepares graduates for anything and everything—and nervous "fuzzy major" students, their even more nervous parents, college career center professionals, and prospective employers would do well to embrace liberal arts majors. Just look to Silicon Valley, of all places, to see that liberal arts majors can succeed not in spite of, but because of, their education. A Practical Education investigates the real-world experiences of graduates with humanities majors, the majors that would seem the least employable in Silicon Valley's engineering-centric workplaces. Drawing on the experiences of Stanford University graduates and using the students' own accounts of their education, job searches, and first work experiences, Randall Stross provides heartening demonstrations of how multi-capable liberal arts graduates are. When given a first opportunity, these majors thrive in work roles that no one would have predicted. Stross also weaves the students' stories with the history of Stanford, the rise of professional schools, the longstanding contention between engineering and the liberal arts, the birth of occupational testing, and the popularity of computer science education to trace the evolution in thinking about how to prepare students for professional futures. His unique blend of present and past produces a provocative exploration of how best to utilize the undergraduate years. At a time when institutions of higher learning are increasingly called on to justify the tangible merits of the liberal arts, A Practical Education reminds readers that the most useful training for an unknowable future is the universal, time-tested preparation of a liberal education.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

1. The Major Decision

2. The New Education

3. Naturally Curious

4. Proper Proportion

5. A Foot in the Door

6. Engineering Success

7. The Different Perspective

8. A General Understanding

9. Underrepresented

10. Normal

11. Interesting Things Happen

12. A Mania for Testing

13. The Strength of Weak Ties

14. The Shiny New Thing

15. First Gen

16. The Art of Living

17. Bilingual

18. A History of the Future

19. Do-Over

20. Liberal Education Is Vocational

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jul 2020)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

OCLC:

1178769393