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Sophia Muzzarelli

Dr. Belanger

Modes of Inquiry

1 October 2015

A Reflection on Liberal Arts Education

Thomas Edison once said that “genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent

perspiration” (Harris, Robert). In my opinion, school is a privilege that all students should use to

their advantage to obtain all the information they can. When I reflect back on my past schooling,

I can see how it has prepared me for a liberal arts education. A liberal arts education is helpful

because it allows students to focus on general education rather than pushing them to work in a

specific subject. As a result we become well-rounded individuals with the ability to comprehend

more of the world, allowing us to listen and contribute to conversations regarding many different

subjects, understand other’s perspectives, know how to express what we are thinking in order to

evoke emotions in others, solve problems by breaking the information down and analyzing it,

and participate in a community atmosphere (Cronon, William). My past experience at Boylan

has helped me understand how to think, how to learn, and how to tie my knowledge together into

a successful life in preparation for a Liberal Arts education.

Boylan has done a wonderful job preparing me for a liberal arts education because it is a

college preparatory school with a curriculum specifically engineered to guide its students not

only on a path for higher education but also how to think in terms of the world around us. There

are two specific classes that I recall taking at Boylan that I know have made an impact on my life

and will continue to influence my thoughts and choices throughout the rest of my life. Freshman
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year I was in a class called Critical Thinking. Critical Thinking was a course that introduced us

to new ways to think (new to freshman entering high school that is). It taught us simple tips such

as how to carefully read directions, deductive reasoning, and how to utilize good judgment.

Although it was only for one semester the benefits from this class continued to reveal themselves

the rest of my time and Boylan and now as I continue on in life.

I believe a liberal arts education is important because, as Robert Harris has simply stated,

“It teaches you how to think”. Loras expects us to be reflective thinkers. This cannot be

achieved if we do not poses the capability to think creatively and critically, which we are

introduced to in our Modes of Inquiry course. We are shown how to develop an “active

engagement” and not just be “passive recipients” of facts (Harris). For example, there have been

times growing up when I have looked at my education and asked myself, “have I really learned

anything or am I just regurgitating facts onto a piece of paper?” Even though I am guilty of

memorizing facts to pass tests I can also say there is far more knowledge inside me that has

imbedded itself into my brain to be intertwined with both old and new knowledge. As I have

grown I have learned to stop, look at all the facts that have been presented to me, and understand

how they work together cohesively. It is far too easy to catch the first idea that flits across your

mind and run with it, rather than put in the effort to find a logical explanation for the why and

how. As I attend Loras I know there will be many opportunities for me to exercise this skill

while learning.

I believe that my education at Boylan has prepared me for Loras because it taught me

“how to learn”. At Boylan, classes were small which made it easier to get involved without being

lost in a crowd. We were encouraged to get to know classmates and engage in conversations

regarding subject matter. One lesson I learned is that it is always beneficial to talk about ideas
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and concepts with one or two other people. This allows us to understand concepts from someone

else’s perspective and check to see if there was any important information we might have missed

from the material. This tactic has helped me many times in all of my classes and I know this will

continue to benefit me because I have already been told that professors expect us to be active in

discussions with our peers in class. I like that are classes at Loras are small enough to allow me

this opportunity as well.

Once we understand “how to learn” we can understand another benefit of a liberal arts

education which is “the more you learn, the more you can learn” (Harris). Each day we learn

new facts, ideas, and habits, even if we are unaware of them consciously. When we gain new

pieces of knowledge, we use what we already know to cement it inside our brains where it will

reside forever, allowing us to access it whenever we need to. All the information we learn in our

lives can be considered building blocks because it all relates in at least one way. This relate to

liberal arts because it is better to have a little knowledge with every subject than only know

everything about just one subject. We are put into a situation that allows us to become well

rounded by delving into different areas of study permitting us to figure out what our true interests

are.

One memorable class that I took senior year was Catholic social justice. Instead of

learning the history or the meaning behind the sacraments (which I have been learning since I

was five). We learned about different social justice principles like the Principle of Common

Good and the Principle of the Preferential Option for the Poor and Vulnerable as well as how we

can use them to contribute to the world which relates to Loras’ disposition of responsible

contributing. The Principle of Common Good focuses on those in need and helping them reach

their full human dignity. The Preferential Option for the Poor and Vulnerable revolves around
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justice for all, which also allows individuals with lesser opportunities to reach their full human

dignity. It is one thing to read about principles in a book, but my teacher went one step further by

having us go online and find examples of these principles on a company’s websites to prove that

this does happen in the real world. One of the websites we were asked to look at, EOS

international, focused on bringing first world technology to third world countries, such as

Nicaragua. They focused on using materials that were from those areas so that if a piece of

equipment broke it could be easily fixed, and volunteers were sent over to live and watch over

the communities.

Albert Einstein was correct in saying “it is not so very important for a person to learn

facts. For that he does not really need a college. He can learn them from books. The value of an

education in a liberal arts college is . . . the training of the mind to think something that cannot be

learned from textbooks.” We have a plethora of sources to obtain facts. The most important part

of life is taking those facts and applying them to the world we know. That is how knowledge is

gained. I will never forget that it does not take a large sum of money to make someone’s life

better. We were taught how to take the information we learn while in school and apply it to a

situation outside the classroom. All we need to do is take a little time to think through a situation

and understand how the knowledge we already poses can be used to enhance the quality of a

lesser community.

This past year, when all my teachers were giving me advice about college, one of them

told me that “High schools are full of teachers, but at college you work with professors”.

Teachers were there to help me learn, but professors introduce me to the subjects and I am

expected to chase the knowledge myself. In Harris’s article he reflects on the fact that no school,

no matter how prestigious it is, can teach us everything that we need to know about the world in
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four years. College is no longer a time to strive for grades that please teachers but a time for

students to branch out into areas that they are interested in and to explore areas they might not

even know existed. A liberal arts education teaches us how to learn faster, comprehend more

easily, and retain knowledge for a longer period of time and we are expected to take these skills

and apply them to life outside of academics.

I believe that liberal art is the best way to further education because it teaches us how to

be active learners, reflective thinkers, ethical decision makers and responsible contributors. It

helps us to further expand our knowledge on both ourselves and the subjects we study. We are

taught how to receive new information and skills that will help us apply it to the world around

us. These skills will resonate with us and help us become successful with all our endeavors for

the rest of our lives.

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Works Cited

Cronon, William. "Only Connect...: The Goals of a Liberal Education” The American Scholar.

Vol 67 No 4. (1998). Print.

Harris, Robert. "On the Purpose of a Liberal Arts Education"

http://www.virtualsalt.com/libarted.htm. 15 October 2010. Web. 11 June 2015.