Informal Writing #7 - Danny Wallace

Informal Writing #7

            The following debate on the topic of “Whether the Humanities should be a requirement for all college students” took place on October 24^th, 2013. The debate took place between Gordon Hunter, director of the Trowbridge initiative in the American cultures at the University of Illinois and the editor of American Literary History, and Belinda Parmer, founder of the social enterprise “Little Miss Geek”. Hunter was on the side for the Humanities to be taught at public universities while Parmer was on the side against.

Opening Statement:

Hunter: A democracy can only be as energetic as the mind of its citizens. The questions fundamental to the humanities are also fundamental to a thoughtful life. What is good, what is beauty, do we need God? What is to become of a culture when public universities are deprived of these very things that make up the fundamental pillars of our society. Are private institutions and the elite, going to be the only institutions that are allowed to experience the cultivation of imagination?

Rebuttal:

Parmer: In theory, that is all good and well but lets look at this from a realistic standpoint. I personally got a degree in French and Spanish. With that degree I went to my first job interview, they say I had a degree in both those languages and they asked me “what else can you do?” At that moment it dawned on me that the humanities can be useful in theory, but they really are not going to give you a skill set that will be useful in a job like a technical major. 

Question: With money being a current hold back on many universities and their motivation on whether or not to keep Humanities programs, what do you have to say to sway them either for or against?

Parmer: I would say that studying the humanities is a waste in our current economic situation. In an age where learning code impacts the world in a far greater way than learning literature, we must put our focus on the technical studies. If that means that humanities must be dropped in order to provide proper funding, so be it

Rebuttal:

Hunter: We cannot give up on the humanities and continue a watered down curriculum in order to provide for undergraduate seats. We must set out our priorities and recognize that with the humanities, comes a higher developed mind capable of learning.

Closing Statement:

Parmer: I feel into the gender-induced stereotype of following a career into the humanities. Not realizing that that top three paying jobs for females are all in the technical field. Now, I have a 5 year old daughter, I will not let her blindly fall into the gender stereotypes that I did. I want her to embrace the fact that a science or technical degree will not limit her creativity but expand it and broaden her horizons far more than my arts background could.

Hunter: We cannot allow for a articulately stale curriculum based on what some call necessity, to override our need for a greater and more expanding learning in the field of the humanities. The humanities have always been apart of our culture and giving up on them at public universities is one step closer to giving up on them in our society.

Informal Writing #7

Belinda Parmar:

I believe that studying humanities in college is not a wise investment for your future.  I majored in French and Spanish, but was always asked about what technical skills I could bring to the table at job interviews.  My degrees were never enough.  Therefore, I think that students, specifically girls who tend to be socially pressured into these areas of study, should be discouraged to study the humanities so as to not make finding a job after college more of a challenge than it already is.

A survey conducted on the best-paid jobs for women were found to all be in the technology sector (Pharmacist, Chief Executive, and Lawyer).  Why wouldn’t they be?  Technology is so prevalent in our everyday lives that one would expect to have the highest paying jobs in technology.  It only makes sense.

Gordon Hutner:                  

               I agree with you that statistically speaking, a humanities degree does not alone guarantee you a high paying job, but I believe that they are necessary for a higher end thinking.  I think that the humanities are very pertinent to a lawyer and a chief executive, because what is going to make one CEO standout from another is going to be his or her ability to be the most efficient, and sometimes the most graceful.  When I say graceful I mean charming, well-rounded, looking like they got everything other control, and also having the power to persuade others.  These things can all be emphasized and practiced through the study of humanities.  A CEO and a lawyer can make a better persuasive case using rhetorical appeals that he learned in his English class.  A CEO could use what he or she knows about other nations to be able to connect with international customers.  A lawyer could use what he or she knows about how people tend to act in groups from his or her sociology class to help strengthen his or her case against his or her opponent. 

No a humanities degree may not make the next new technology out there, however, it will be necessary to ponder the things in this society that govern so much of our society: politics, religion, philosophy, and even civics.  Without the humanities, there would be no meaning in life other than to continue to progress technology, which is a very empty lifestyle.  Looking into the humanities such as religion, can provide a sense of higher purpose, and establish a set of morals that technology cannot provide by itself.  These morals can further be transposed into civics, which can be used to gain voters in political debates for office.  Therefore, I believe that having a degree or background in the humanities could be used to one’s advantage.

Belinda Parmar:

               Interest in technology is growing a lot faster than an interest in the humanities, which is a direct correlation of how much technology is becoming a part of our everyday lives.  “Anybody can learn to code and these days it’s as important as reading and writing…. Not being able to code limits your impact on the world far more than an ignorance of great literature.”  Why bother learning something that we cannot actually use?

Gordon Hutner:

               Because “knowledge is power.” The more you know, the more you have the ability to manipulate others and the more qualified you will be to perform tasks that involve any kind of social interaction.  Another reason why we should learn the humanities even though you say we cannot use them, they keep other jobs and majors that are in the technical sector more privileged and less populated.  If the humanities are taken from public colleges, then there will be an overwhelming amount of people learning to become doctors, dentists, surgeons, and optometrists (etc.).  Not only that, but colleges will have to lower standards of performance in these areas so that more students will succeed, thereby continuing a similar income that colleges are used to with the addition of humanities programs.  This lowering of standards will ultimately make the technical jobs less skilled and prestigious.  A doctorate will mean less and an undergraduate degree would be even less significant. 

               In short, the humanities are a vital part to our society.  Without them, our world would be so dim; it would be focused on coming up with the next new thing.  Things like love and faith would be a thing in the past.  Society would eventually evolve into robots.  I don’t mean that people will start to develop circuitry in their bodies, I just mean that they will be like a giant assembly line, working to make the world a more technologically advanced place.  The humanities keep us in touch with who we as humans are.  It tells a story about what humans are all about.  Without them, our society, in the moral turmoil that it is already in, will begin to crumble into insanity and chaos pulling all those holding on to the humanities with them.    

Informal Writing #7 - Jeremy ilang-ilang

Informal Writing #7

Talk Show Host: John Moyen

Author #1: Jeffrey Dorfman

Author #2: David Leonhardt

John Moyen: Hello, welcome everybody to the What’s In It For Today show! I’m John Moyen, your talk show host for today and today we are going to discuss a crucial topic, called “Is college a basic need that should be affordable to everyone?” Today we have authors Jeffrey Dorfman, author of “There Is No College Tuition ‘Bubble’” and David Leonhardt of “The College Dropout Boom”. How are you two doing?

Jeffrey Dorfman: I’m doing well, thank you.

David Leonhardt: Doing just fine.

John Moyen: So what are you guys think about college being a basic need and being affordable for everyone who wants to attend? David, let’s start with you.

David Leonhardt: Well in this economy, it’s obvious that the price of college is too damn high nowadays. You got kids who really want to attend college but can’t really afford it and you got kids who are rich by birth and most of the high-income students sometimes don’t pay attention to the financial crisis. Just as I said in my article, only about a 41% of low-income students have managed to graduate school within a five-year period, as found by the Department of Education and however 66% of high-income students have. And I have to agree with the Harvard president stating “We need to recognize that the most serious domestic problem in the United States today is the widening gap between the children of the rich and the children of the poor…” because it is really unfair for students who weren’t born in a pile of gold.

John Moyen: Interesting take, David. So now, what is your take, Jeff?

Jeffrey Dorfman: I’d have to agree with that point. We can see nowadays that college prices are skyrocketing and are trending in the news recently. Just as stated in the beginning of my article, private colleges are expensive as always, and I know personally because of my daughter currently attending one and public colleges are increasing rates so that they can offset the budget cuts on the funds received by the state. I know people try and look at the “big picture” of colleges and their prices, but realistically, there are many colleges that are underpriced, according to the economic standards.

David Leonhardt: Well, that’s easy for you to say, Jeffrey. You’re trying to point out that many colleges are underpriced, not even the fair price, but “underpriced” according to your terms, while you have a daughter that attends an expensive private college. It seems like you’re coming off a rich background and that you wouldn’t take this topic in a serious manner but a manner that you would just summarize. For everyone who wants to go to a college of their choice, every college, even the expensive ones should provide every interested student with an affordable opportunity.

Jeffrey Dorfman: First of all, I never stated that I am a rich family nor come from a rich family background. I just have only enough to pay for my daughter’s education that I’ve been saving up ever since she was a child. Second of all, colleges’ actual cost compared to the commercialized costs in the media are actually much lower than usual. As I pointed out in my article, “When President Obama and other critics of college costs complain about sky-high tuition, they are either misleading people or do not understand the difference between the full list price and the average net price. After all, the only people paying the high prices for colleges are the ‘rich’ people who the very same critics believe in taxing so highly”. These prices do not seem as bad as they actually are, so they are quite actually affordable. Another thing I pointed out in my article, for instance, Harvard’s full price as stated in the media is at $59,800 but the average price paid by students who qualify for financial aid is only $15,550. When you actually examine the price personally, it doesn’t seem bad as it is in the media.

David Leonhardt: Okay, well what if those students STILL don’t have the money to pay off those fees? I’m sure to many students, that’s still an unaffordable price. I also want to talk about the selectivity of students by colleges, specifically the elite ones. If you read towards the end of my article, you would see that specific topic. Low-income students’ chances of getting in, despite their high test scores and astoundingly high GPA, has no better chance when being compared to higher-income students who are equal academically. Why? Because colleges demand both a brain and a great contributor to the school, and that’s a lose-lose situation in terms of not providing affordable options for lower-income students and not selecting a low-income student to attend their school.

Jeffrey Dorfman: Okay, well for those low-income students, maybe the expensive top-elite schools shouldn’t be their only choice. There are many affordable options to choose from. Again, going back to my article, low-income students can choose to attend a local community college or local state university that has prices much cheaper compared to these famous, expensive universities and that’s a great choice for them. During that period, students can save money to transfer later on to the institution of their choice. Likewise, just because Mercedes has a car that costs $100,000 doesn’t mean all cars are unaffordable, you just got to choose something that you can afford in the situation that a student is in at this point.

John Moyen: Well, time to wrap this up for today’s talk. Great discussion from these two authors. Again, ladies and gentlemen, Jeffrey Dorfman and David Leonhardt.

Informal Writing #7 - Kendall BeCraft

10-24-13

Informal Writing #7



                                                                Informal Writing #7

     
     Two writers, Jeffrey Dorfman and David Leonhardt, arrange to get together to discuss the topic of if college should be more affordable or not and share any thoughts or opinions they have about it.

Dorfman: David can you tell me a little bit about your thoughts on the price of college and whether or not you believe it is affordable?
Leonhardt: Sure Jeffrey I'd be glad to. The prices of college right now are driving people away for applying for college and even causing people to dropout. Lower income people simply can't afford to pay the price of college. Only 41 percent of low income students entering a 4 year college graduate within 5 years, on the other side of that 66 percent of high income students do graduate. To me these statistics come from financial problems, the low income students that are attending a college look at it as putting themselves in debt when they could be out making money, therefore they tend to dropout. I talked to a man named Andy Blevins not to long ago, as a low income student he attended Radford University for his freshman year and after coming home to a summer job he decided making money now was better than becoming more and more in debt so he dropped out. He doesn't make as much money as he wants but he loves the life he lives and the people in it.
Dorfman: See David that's just it, everyone wants to make the big money. I believe the more you put into something the more you will get out of it. To me college is an investment and if you want to have a better job and make more money then in the beginning you have to put money into it. The amount of money you make the rest of your life will be far greater than the money you spend on a college. I actually think college is in some cases underpriced. Take Harvard and Southern California for example, Harvard's full price is $59,800, but the average student there with financial aid pays $15,550. Southern California's full price is $60,000 and their average student pays $27,500. With that being said there are ways to get around paying as much being a low income student. Also Harvard only accepted 5.8 percent of over 35,000 applicants, why not drive the price up some when some people are willing to pay for it?
Loenhardt: You cant drive the price up because not everyone can afford it. Everyone deserves a fair shot and I don't believe the prices of college now are allowing that chance for everybody.
Dorfman: Colleges are kind of like a car, there are cheaper cars out there and there is your more expensive cars. Just because the top of the line car is out there on the market doesn't mean everyone can go buy it. But most everyone can find a way to afford the cheaper car. There are ways to go around the issue of money if you are willing to work for it. It doesn't matter if you attend a community college of a school such as Harvard, the cost isn't what is stopping people.

Informal Writing #7

Informal Writing #7

Belinda and Gordon have arranged to meet at a small café in the middle of a bustling city. They decided that they needed to meet in order to discuss the topic of how important humanities classes are in college. Our skit starts as Gordon arrives at the café two minutes late, with Belinda patiently waiting outside against the wall.

Belinda: Gordon, nice to finally meet you in person! I was worried that you would not be able to make it.

Gordon: Well, I’m sorry to be fashionably late. To reiterate, you wanted to discuss the importance of the humanities in the curriculum of education, yes?

B: Yes, or perhaps how they are not so important. Let’s go get a table outside, it’s quite nice out.

G: Yes I would enjoy eating in the sun. However, let us not start our discussion by depreciating the humanities. They are incredibly important in everyday life.

B: Well I hope you can back that up with some facts, because I experienced firsthand how useless the humanities can be.

G: I- Yes I intend to do so.

There is a silence as the two move towards a table near the corner of the sectioned-off eating area. They sit down and a waiter comes to take their drink orders.

G: I’ll take seltzer water with a few drops of lemon-lime, my good sir.

B: I’ll have a Coke.

The waiter leaves and they begin their discussion again.

G: So you said that you “experienced firsthand” the uselessness of humanities? Please do tell.

B: Well, I was always successful in math, but I always felt that my career would be in the arts. I thought I would be an interpreter or something, but then when I would go for job interviews and they would say “yes you can speak foreign languages but what else do you do?” and I would have nothing to say. Nothing I had studied was bringing me anywhere in life. But then, in an advertising agency, I was given some tasks with companies like IBM and HP. It was then that I learned that I had fallen into a stereotype of girls loving art and not the technologies.

G: Well, yes that is a common stereotype. But don’t you see? All these schools nowadays are promoting technology and science! We need the humanities in our lives in order to call ourselves human. Thankfully, the core humanities have remained through the years: English and History. Without those we would be monochromatic in skill. We don’t need only people that excel in Math and Science in this world, we need a balance! As a sum, we need our country to be a fully artistic and logical unit.

B: Don’t you understand that you can be an artist in your own way as an engineer or programmer?

G: That may be, but there must remain a balance in society. We cannot have everyone shift to engineering or programming jobs. We need historians, writers, and actors too! Earlier you said something about the stereotype of girls only participating in the arts and that you wanted to break that.

B: Yes, I believe that females should feel comfortable in the environment that men currently dominate.

G: Well if every female suddenly went into engineering, then the majority of our population would be mathematicians and scientists, would it not?

B: Yes, but why does that matter? Like I said, you can be really artistic as a programmer. In fact, I’m teaching my daughter now how important it is to be technologically savvy, and I want her to grow up to become another person who can express the arts through the sciences.

G: But it isn’t right that way. We need the core humanities to survive. That is what we are arguing about. Not whether or not you can express your feelings through some form of math or science. We need people that have studied History and English.

B: And there will always be people like that, but like I said, the world is shifting to technology, and it is becoming more and more important to be able to do math and science in our everyday environment. I stick by my claim that spending four years studying foreign language was worthless.

G: Suit yourself, but I still stick by my beliefs that the humanities are core in today’s world.

B: Then this argument has gone nowhere, so I’m leaving.

G: Fine, be that way. I’ll stay here and eat something.

B: Fine.

Belinda now leaves the table and exits the café area and walks to her parked car down the road. Gordon receives his seltzer from the returning waiter and drinks it quietly as the set fades.

Informal Writing 7

Informal Writing #7

Is college a basic need that should be affordable to everyone?

Mediator: To begin the debate I would like to start off by asking, is college too expensive or should it cost more?

Dorfman: I believe that right now college is in high demand. When something is in high demand prices should be raised. Thousands of students are applying to top-notch colleges and only a small percentage of them are being accepted. For example, only 5.8% of the 35,000 students who applied for Harvard were accepted. Clearly students from all over the world aspire to be Harvard graduates so the price should be raised as the competition rises.

Leonhardt: It is not fair for many students who cannot afford college. Many kids come from households that did not come from a college background or their families don’t have the means to pay for school. Low-income families generally live in areas where the education system is not the greatest so the same resources that middle and upper class families have are not available. These resources that they are deprived of may help them with their SAT scores or their GPAs. Prestigious universities simply do not admit many low-income students. For example, the University of Virginia only had 8% of students with low-income in their undergraduate class last year. This is a decrease from 11% the previous decade.

Mediator: Should all colleges be affordable or should students only look at options that they can afford?

Dorfman:  College should be attended by students who can afford them. Not everyone should aspire to go to the best colleges in the country if they cannot afford it. Most of the prestigious schools in the country give out financial aid. The average student does not pay the average price. At Harvard it costs $59,800 for full price when the average student only pays $15,500. If this is still not affordable there are plenty of options out there. Community and technical schools are perfectly good options. Those students who intend on specializing in a career that typically does not pay much should consider low-priced public school options. In addition, students should not attend private colleges if they cannot afford to pay off student loans in the future. Working in college is also an option. There has been research done that working twenty hours or less a week does not significantly effect grades. College is not expensive, it us underpriced.

Leonhardt: How can you say college is underpriced? Many students shy away from college simply because it costs too much. They have to potential to succeed in many prestigious colleges throughout this country but simply do not go because they can’t. Most students who drop out of college are of the lower income class. They say they will return for their degrees but 1 in 3 Americans in their 20s never do. I was interviewing a man named Andy Blevins from Chilhowie, Virginia. He is a college drop out from Radford University. Ever since he dropped out he has regretted it. As a low-income student himself he was at a disadvantage. Towns of low-income families have low graduation rate and few go to college. They don’t have as many resources available to them, which makes it hard for them to attend college. Colleges now don’t accept many low-income students.  Mr.Casteen, the president of the University of Virginia has noticed the problem for low-income students. He is making a new system for financial aid. Beginning in the fall not tuition costs or loans will be required for students who’s parents have an income of $37,700 or less. They have also increase the financial aid for families in the middle class. John Blackburn, the admissions dean at the University of Virginia, made it his goal to attract students of lower income. He went to small towns for college fairs and in a particularly poor town he noticed not many students came up to his booth. He realized the UVa flag was intimidating even though he was advertising for low-income students. Simply the universities flag gave off the bad reputation UVa had obtained to low-income students. These colleges need to seem more friendly to students who cannot afford the education they have the potential for. They should not be afraid to attend college because they cannot afford it. They need the resources to live up to their abilities.   

Informal Writing #7 Kimi Howell

Option #2

Interviewer: Hello and welcome to today’s show of “The Future: College Edition”. Today we will discuss whether the Humanities should be requirement for college students. We also have two guest who will help discuss this topic; first we have the author of “I wasted four years of my life- don’t make the same mistake” Belinda Parmar. *Parmar walks in and sits down* Belinda Parmar has a degree in French and Spanish and decided later on that she should have got a degree in the technology field. The second guest is Gordon Hutner, one of the authors of “The Real Humanities Crisis Is Happening at Public Universities.” *Hutner walks out and sits down*Hutner, the question of the day is should the Humanities be a requirement for college students?

Hutner: Yes, I believe if every student took one humanities class then that would increase the degrees in Humanities. Some students are not familiar with the humanities so they do not know if they want to major in it. If more students take even one class it will also increase the spending of the Humanities and colleges will not suspend their Humanities program. Taking a class in Spanish or French will help if they decided to study abroad.

Parmar: Yes, taking French will help if they study aboard or visit but if you think about it, more people speak English now than before. If students do choose to study abroad there will probably be at least one person who speaks English.  By my personal experience, stated in my article, employers today do not look at the Humanities as a degree. They want more from a person, they want a technology degree not a Humanities degree. Why would college students waste their time learning Spanish when the students are never going to use it? It is a waste of time for everyone.

Hutner: There are also jobs for Humanities degrees too. The first Morrill Act in 1862, the nation pasted a land-grant universities, promoted “liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and profession in life.” This GI Bill also expanded the access to a middle-class life. Edward Humes stated that the bill made possible the education of multiple Nobel Prize winners, tens of thousands writers and artists but more importantly millions of citizens who brought benefit of their liberal arts educations to all endeavor. So not only having a degree in technology will get you a job, there are lot of jobs out there for students.

Interviewer:  Hutner, you said in your article that “employers see humanities education as important does not mean that they are eager to hire majors in philosophy or anthropology. We must also be responsive to the fact that the cost of higher education makes it impossible for many students to focus on one humanities subject to the exclusion of all else.” Parmar, what do you think about this statement?

Parmar: I did get a degree in Humanities and when I got an interview, the employer asked “It's great that you speak foreign languages, but what else do you do?” Today, people need more than just speaking a language, they need more than one thing. But because I have a degree in Humanities, I believe is helps me with my work life, interacting with people. People think because I am a women, I couldn’t major in technology and I found out to late that I actually could.

Hutner: The question is should college students take humanities, not major in it. I believe they should. I think we got off topic with the subject of jobs. Yes, jobs are important when deciding what students what to major in; but students need to certain all subjects: math, technology, science, humanities, etc. I think students should at least take one class to find out if that is the right fit.  Like I said in the beginning, this will increase college budget and increase class sizes. Yes, a person with technology degree is always going to be needed but we also need writers, artist and translators.

Interviewer: Time is almost up. Is there anything you want say before we end the show?

Hutner: I will summarize what I said. Students should take Humanities, it will increase the college budget but it will also make the college money. There are colleges out there that do not have humanities at all because they think it is a waste of money. Just one class!  That is all I am saying for students to take. One class could change their perceptive on what they want to major in.

Parmar: From past experience, I wasted four years of my life studying French and Spanish. Now in days, all people care about is technology. “When is the next iPhone coming out?” “My car can call my parents with me just speaking to it.” People do not care about humanities, you don’t hear someone say on the street “I’m so glad I’m a philosopher?” No you don’t. Students need to look in the future and see what best for them. If they want to major in the humanities then go for it, but just do your research before you decided.

Interviewer: You both made valid points on the subject. Thank you for coming in today, and thank you our audience for watching The Future: College Edition. Have a wonderful day.