In a striking opinion piece published in the New York Times, Joshua Kam describes the angst of being a cosmopolitan international student in Middle America. After finding the right college and finding the right major for him, he often found himself struggling to explain his origins to people he met, and justifying a liberal arts major that helped him find context in his life.
This is another example of how the liberal arts are truly “liberating.” This young man’s foray into history and the Classics have taught him a great deal about himself. While it’s true that college students will someday emerge from the cocoon of college into the wide, wide world to make a living, the educational experience of the liberal arts can help students understand their world better, improve their ability to communicate with others, and sharpen one’s analytical skills in ways that are hard to quantify.
The good thing is that employers are looking for students like this one (who studies at Hope College in Michigan–which is a member of the Colleges That Change Lives consortium) who can elegantly argue a case in the court of public opinion.
Read the piece here.
Mark Montgomery
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Mark Montgomery
Mark is the Founder and CEO of Great College Advice, a national college admissions consulting firm. As a career educator, he has served as a college administrator, professor of international relations at the University of Denver and the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, program consultant at Yale and the University of Kansas, government instructor at Harvard and Tufts, high school teacher of French, and a Fulbright teacher of English in France. He has personally helped hundreds of students from around the world map their college journeys. Mark speaks on college preparation, selection, and admission to students and parents around the world, and his views have been published in major newspapers and journals.
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Mark Montgomery
Mark is the Founder and CEO of Great College Advice, a national college admissions consulting firm. As a career educator, he has served as a college administrator, professor of international relations at the University of Denver and the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology, program consultant at Yale and the University of Kansas, government instructor at Harvard and Tufts, high school teacher of French, and a Fulbright teacher of English in France. He has personally helped hundreds of students from around the world map their college journeys. Mark speaks on college preparation, selection, and admission to students and parents around the world, and his views have been published in major newspapers and journals.