Aaron Vance
Senior, Student Government Association president
“Whether you conduct chemical or biological research, debate the political and cultural underpinning of Sino-Japanese relations, or seek to conjure the same emotions that Picasso sought during his ‘Blue Period,’ you would be unlikely to do this without undertaking a liberal arts education.”
In writing to answer this question, it seems to me that I must elucidate on my own understanding of a liberal arts education. Referencing the work of Cardinal John Henry Newman, a liberal arts education is an exploration of academic disciplines and subjects that tap into the faculties that make us human.
A liberal arts education does just like it says, it liberates us and frees our cognitive abilities to tackle and explore whatever we choose. Our abilities to think, comprehend, empathize, and relate are all facilitated by the stimuli of our environment, but nowhere near to the extent that a liberal arts education helps to foster this growth and liberation.
For me, a liberal arts education colors in the grander picture of what it means to understand our world. Too easily as students and researchers we seek to only draw conclusions and to call it complete when we have the hard data. But with that initial outline, the data provides the opportunity for debate, dialogue and logic, and allows us to move from the what and how to the why of any concept. And while I could write a whole separate piece on the value of empirical evidence and the power of quantitative data, it has to be said that it needs the necessary companions of reason, understanding, and critical thought to really see what it all means.
It can be said that nothing happens independently of one another, and I think that captures the essence of what a liberal arts education can provide.
Since far back in time, if we trace our understanding of knowledge and philosophy, these epistemological tenets have been valued and kept at the foremost of the debates and dialogues in attempting to advance our lives and our world. From Plato to Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas to Kant, Hegel, Newman, and into the modern era, the historical significance of this kind of education and application holds true.
Whether you conduct chemical or biological research, debate the political and cultural underpinning of Sino-Japanese relations, or seek to conjure the same emotions that Picasso sought during his ‘Blue Period,’ you would be unlikely to do this without undertaking a liberal arts education. All of those things require a liberal arts education just the same as trying to holistically understand the world around you does. And if you really want to, you must not shirk in this commitment, forego the various modes and schools of thought, or sacrifice the messy and the difficult. Because to do so only squanders what you might be able to achieve, and is truly only a divestment to yourself.
