Anne E. Fernald: The Crisis In The Humanities

Out of all the assumptions about what makes a college a successful college, I believe the value of college is not solely based off of the cost or graduation rate, but it’s value is reflected by the students’ efforts and the life lessons learned. After reading the articles, Why I’m not afraid of Virginia Woolf -- of the, ‘crisis’ in the humanities by Anne E. Fernald, The Crisis in the Humanities and the Corporate Attack on the University by P. Winston Fettner and College is not a commodity. Stop treating it like one by Hunter Rawlings, I began to understand more about other perspectives of college that have broadened my understanding of higher education.

Some of the main advantages for teaching Humanities in higher education is that it leads
Humanities teaches students how to critically think, which is an important skill for inside the classroom and outside of it. Personally, I relate to this because while saving up for a large purchase, I had to consider many things; the cost, how much I needed to work, when I needed it by and how much I needed to save each paycheck. I believe that doing critical thinking helped me make the right decision that I will not regret in the future. Fernald states that “the crisis is not with the humanities. The crisis is with the failure to value them enough” (3). This shows that the issue is not with the subject itself but how people take the class, as people can take what they learn for granted. People aren’t valuing the lessons they learn in humanities. In The Crisis in the Humanities and the Corporate Attack on the University by P. Winston Fettner, he states that “without critical thinking, historical knowledge, and rhetorical skill, we are incapable of the sort of reasoned decisions that are the foundation of genuine democratic life,” (5) That this quote is conveying that critical thinking, historical knowledge, and rhetoric are
In the article College is not a Commodity. Stop Treating it like One, Hunter Rawlings proposes that college requires a large amount of work on the student's part to get their money’s worth. I agree with Rawlings thoughts about rating colleges and how “people use performance measures such as graduation rates and time to degree as though those figures depended entirely upon the colleges and not at all upon the students” (2) I somewhat agree with this statement in that each individual student performs differently in college depending on their motivation, effort and other factors. It’s unfair to decide whether to go to a school based off of others experiences there. If people didn’t do things due to others having unsatisfactory experiences, then nothing would ever get done considering that everyone is going to have a different experience with a college or a professor. In my personal experience, even though my twin sister and I were in the same high school English class, with the same teacher, same resources to reach out to and same quiet, study environment, she didn’t study or spend as much time outside of class reviewing the subject. We didn’t receive the same grade in the class or have the same experience. I really enjoyed the class and at the end of the year received a higher grade than my sister who had