For your blog this week, we’d like you to discuss these issues. What did you learn from the Wikipedia entries that might seem interesting or relevant to your current situation? How might you marry the concepts of a liberal arts education with your professional pursuits? What could a professional musician possibly get out of taking a class on, say, Botany? Or the French Revolution? Or Ancient Greek Philosophy? Or any of the other Liberal Arts Courses that we offer here? (You might want to peruse the current Converse Academic Catalogue for ideas. You can link to it from the Converse homepage.) And, finally, did you take anything away from Convocation today that might resound off of these themes?
I am really not sure how a liberal arts education will help me with my professional pursuit, but with small classes there are lots of interaction between the students themselves and of course the professor. As a result, students can learn more things effectively, and can get help from their professor.
At a liberal arts college, there are so many classes to choose from, and most do not have anything with your major. For example, as a music major I probably do not have to take History classes, Philosophy, or Psychology, but by taking classes that seems out of my field can help me in so many ways. If you were to look straight on, music classes and history may not have anything to do with each other, but they are always connected. By taking a history class, I can learn about things that went on in the world when a composer was writing a piece and I can also learn why the composer's composition may sound happy or melancholic.
The most important thing I got from the Convocation was being a "well-rounded" person.
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Mari, you might want to take a look at the Converse Undergraduate Catalogue and check out the course requirements for a Music Education degree--you DO have to take history and psychology courses, and for good reasons. Music is ABOUT everything you can possibly think of, and your future music students will come from a number of backgrounds and have a huge variety of interests. You'll need tons of knowledge about everything, really, to understand the music and translate it all to your students. And, I might add, every successful conductor I've known has be amazingly well-read for the same reasons. I honestly can't think of any class I ever took or any interest that I pursued that I haven't somehow used as a musician. And that includes figure skating :-)
ReplyDeleteAlso, you might revisit the SSS syllabus--blog entries are supposed to be at least 200 words long. This one is 184 (most Word programs have a Word Count tool). A small difference, I know, but nevertheless...
Yay Hasimoto-san! I like you blog even though it wasn't long enough. Unfortunately, we do have to take courses like math and english, but we can also get in 'want to' classes with all the 'have to's. Who knows? You might end up taking a class in Anatomy, and decide that you like it so much that it becomes your minor! You never know! We all just gotta remember to explore!
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