This opinion piece by Diana Smith, media relations assistant in college relations, appeared in the August 2000 issue of Springs Magazine.

BY DIANA SMITH '98

Six years ago, my parents urged me to reconsider my major at Colorado College. Like many parents, they were worried I might not be able to "do anything but teach" with an English major. Well, I'm not a teacher and I do have a job. And now, I've decided to pursue my new interests in Web design. During the last two years, I have gone from minimal word processing skills to understanding HTML and taking over most of the Web work in the office. I never took a computer science class at CC, but my education here gave me what I needed.

Critics say you can't study science or math at a place that calls itself a liberal arts college. If only five percent of this country's undergraduates are enrolled in liberal arts colleges, they argue these schools can't prepare students for the hot high technology job market.

Despite the ideal, young people don't go to college to sharpen their intellects to become well-informed citizens. They go for the additional lifetime income a good education promises to provide. And a liberal arts education offers students exactly what they seek -- the most professional and practical training possible.

A liberal arts degree is a valuable and essential employment qualification because employers are looking for the same qualities a liberal arts graduate possesses. Imagine an interview at a start-up Internet company.

Can you work hard and participate fully?

At a liberal arts college, students earn their educations by participating, discussing, examining, critiquing, and researching. At CC, classes are small, based on interaction and dialogue more than lecture, and are taught by professors as opposed to teaching assistants. Every student is asked to contribute something to every class, and there is no way to hide in the back of the room. In fact, there is no back of the room since most classes are seated around a table.

Can you work well with others?

Professors at CC are known for splitting a class into small discussion groups. Students work closely during class, and collaborative presentations and projects require meetings outside of class. In senior seminars, peer review can get intense when classmates are asked to give feedback on rough drafts of theses.

At the same time, can you do independent work?

Research opportunities abound at liberal arts colleges. Eager to gain hands-on experience, students also have more options to design their own majors, capitalizing on their individual talents and interests.

Can you adapt and change to new situations and responsibilities?

Liberal arts graduates are prepared for a wide range of careers and for inevitable career changes they will face in the future. For example, an art history major may end up in the physics lab. I remember dissecting a squid in invertebrate zoology, even though I didn't think of myself as a "science person." I graduated with a great understanding of literary theory, but I also left CC with a strong background in journalism, Spanish, and psychology.

"Prospective students and their families need to know that the high-tech, career/vocation-oriented, and other trendy options aren't their only choice in education," says Kathryn Mohrman, president of Colorado College. "Since the founding of the United States, liberal arts has been the education of choice for many of our best and brightest students. Liberal arts colleges continue to exist today as vital communities of teaching, learning, and discourse for undergraduates -- not as educational anachronisms."

While people who graduate in the liberal arts may remain true to traditional values, it is more likely that these scholars will have the next new idea. CC alumni include Peter Neupert '78, CEO of drugstore.com, Ralph Armijo '74 of driveoff.com, an online car-buying site, and Richard Koo '82, cofounder of Vitria.com, a platform for business e-commerce.

Today's high school seniors will probably work until 2050 and beyond. It makes sense that they master educational attributes that last a lifetime. John Kemeny, the former president of Dartmouth, said it best: "The purpose of undergraduate education is not just to answer current questions, but to prepare you to answer the questions that we don't even know today."