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Robert Harris 'Article' On The Purpose Of A Liberal Arts Education

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Robert Harris 'Article' On The Purpose Of A Liberal Arts Education
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Sandy Stein

IENG 031. 01

Spring 2009

Liberal Arts Education Robert Harris’ article, “On the Purpose of a Liberal Arts Education” on page 1-6 of the website VirtualSalt (March 14, 1991), is written in enumeration mode. The purpose of the article is persuading the reader to think about the advantages of liberal arts education. The article has a positive tone because it is optimistic, and respectful. Harris lists several rewards of liberal arts education. First, liberal arts education can help you become a broad thinker. Second, liberal arts education gives you a chance to learn and empower you to discover the world. Also, it elevates you to increase your knowledge and teach you how to become a good leader. Finally,
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An education in liberal arts can give a person many choices and opportunities concerning what kind of job he/she wants in the future. According to Harris’ “Once you develop good thinking habits, you will be able to perform better in any job, but more importantly, the happier life will be” (1), Harris suggests that liberal arts education helps to have a satisfying and comfortable life. When a person graduates from liberal arts education, he/she will get a gratifying job that will make him/her feel like he/she has a strong personality. Needle, Corbo, Wong, Greenfeder et al (2007) point out that liberal arts education is a good choice for the future to have more options for jobs, which they expressed in their article “Combining Arts and Science In ‘Arts and Sciences’ Education” published in the journal College Teaching on pages 114-120. The purpose of the article is to persuade us to study the liberal arts for a good life. The article has a positive tone because it is optimistic. The mode of the article is illustrative. The main idea of the article is to encourage people to study liberal arts because it can give them a better future. Needle et al states, “Today’s liberal arts education is viewed as preparing students for the real world” (114). Needle et al suggests that graduating with a degree in liberal arts will make you ready for real life. In addition, liberal arts will teach you and make you understand more about life. I found that the two articles are similar in their goal which is to talk about liberal arts and how it is important in a person’s life because a liberal arts education gives you more opportunities for a great job and a better

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