In Defense Of A Liberal Education

Zakaria argues that a liberal education has three primary benefits. First, it emphasizes writing, which encourages critical thinking instead of rote memorization. Writing makes one “sort out” their ideas (74). These skills are essential regardless of career. Second, an education in the liberal arts fosters superior oral communication, or what the Yale-NUS partnership calls “articulate communication” (75). The ability to provide coherent presentations and articulate one’s ideas verbally in an organized manner is also an essential skill: “The seminar, a form of teaching and learning at the heart of a liberal education, helps you to read, analyze, and dissect. Above all, it helps you to express yourself” (76). Finally, a liberal education stresses “how to learn” (78): It creates life-long learners with an inherent curiosity. These skills are critical to any career and facilitate the many career transitions that one experiences over the course of one’s employed life.

An effective liberal education fosters interdisciplinary thinking, from which emerging technology and scientific research can benefit. Technical skills and the humanities are not opposing forces because the latter depends on creativity, which the humanities support and which artificial intelligence cannot master:

Technology and liberal education go hand in hand in business.