A liberal arts degree is not the only path to true education
I am writing to counter Samuel Hazo’s “irrefutable” opinion (“To Be Is to Learn,” Forum, July 23) that a liberal arts education is the “only” path to the “intellectual spiritual growth of the whole person.” The essay infuriated me. My opinion comes from both personal and professional experience.
I am a graduate of Simmons College, Boston, with a B.S. in psychology/mathematics, and have earned two master’s degrees, in education and business. My 45-year career as a licensed professional counselor includes serving as a career counselor at George Washington University.
Mr. Hazo argues that a liberal arts education begins in college. Mine began at home as a toddler, when my Ivy League-educated parents read me the poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay, played the music of Rachmaninoff and took me to the Carnegie to see Impressionist paintings. Interestingly, neither of them found satisfying life’s work with their liberal arts degrees.
I found my own passion; it did not find me. As a subscriber to now-defunct Recreational Mathematics Magazine, and a keen observer of behavior, I perused college catalogs until I discovered a double major called “Psychometry” at a college wellknown for preparing women for careers. I never regretted that choice over one of the Seven Sisters, which was my legacy. I learned to think by solving equations and life problems, not by joining the military.
In my position at GWU, I worked with students in the liberal arts who could not figure out what to do with their degrees in philosophy and literature, as well as housewives and empty-nesters looking for more substance in their lives. I became an expert at directing them toward putting their passions to meaningful work.
In my retirement, I am busier than ever before, teaching, volunteering my time to service organizations and serving on boards of nonprofits that do good work. I also am constantly learning through travel and philanthropic opportunities, not watching game shows and reading “glossy magazines,” as Mr. Hazo suspects. I have hardly “grown stale” and I am not alone.
Mr. Hazo’s essay is oldfashioned elitist nonsense. Both young people and baby boomers are searching for meaning in their lives. I hope that school counselors and therapists give them more direction than this ridiculous piece. PATRICIA S. LEMER
Shadyside