PORT 122: Liberal Arts Seminar

      Liberal Education in an Asian Context  

a liberally educated student ...

• is open-minded. "...thereby opening themselves to perspectives very different from their own."

• is inquisitive. "... the ability to look at a complicated reality, break it into pieces, figure out how it works, with the end result of being able to do practical things in the real world."

• looks past the improvement of just themselves. "... they belong to a community whose prosperity and well-being are crucial to their own; they help that community flourish by giving of themselves to make success of others possible."

• takes full advantage of his or her education. "... the most important characteristics of effective undergraduate programs are interactions between professors and students, especially outside the classroom; the second most important factor is interaction among the students themselves."

a summary of my thoughts ...

In this article the author creates a compare and contrast relationship between liberal arts programs at American and Asian colleges. It was cool to get a chance to look at two different societies, which are located are two different hemispheres on the globe. However, what I realized the most is how liberal arts is becoming a universal philosophy. It is trying to become apart of college and university curriculums from all countries. If studied and completed correctly, the liberal arts has a domino effect on society. The student is the first to receive this sense of enlightenment from the course, but once instilled, he or she creates active goals to enhance his or her peers, family members, workplace, community, and so forth.