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Milko's Journal |
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02/11/2009 10:30:53 PM
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Still know what you did last summer.....
Do you guys remember that movie? I will not be talking about the movie, but reflect on my experience from the last semester. In my case it should be called "still remember what I did last semester".
The moral of this story is related to development of good time management skills and also discovering the role of a liberal arts education.
So, fall semester 2008, I put 4 of my upper level business classes. I am not sure why I did that, but the result was enormous workload, many sleepless nights, and fortunately successful end.
I am almost done with my BA degree at Westminster, and I believe the merit of a bachelor of arts in a liberal arts college is the opportunity to explore as many different fields you can, find relations between those fields, and become well rounded person.
In my case, I ended up with 4 business classes which I enjoyed a lot, but I start wondering whether or not I will turn into a wall street machine that doesn't care about the Kantian ends. But, I recognized that a liberal arts degree is not to make you a narrow professional, so I was able to find overlapping connections between different business subjects, and more importantly that helped me build a better picture of how the world operates as a one connected environment.
One advice for incoming freshmen is to be careful when you design your courses schedule, and make sure to mix major related classes with LEs.
And one wisdom for life - always make sure that you discover the connections between different factors, and that you are able to build the whole picture that allows you to have a holistic view on the world.
comments (13)
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02/11/2009 10:17:26 PM
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The Road to Serfdom....
If you are keeping up with the news, you have probably heard about the ridiculous things going on the Capitol Hill and Wall Street. One thing is sure - the economy is in a very bad situation, even recession, but that makes me more and more curious about the Great Depression.
If you have taken ECON 101 you have probably participated in a discussion debating the two choices US had in 1929 - Hayek and the free markets, or Keynes and the big, bad, spending government. History repeats itself, and here we are today in a recession, and our government is again debating to spend or not to spend our way out of recession.
Being a libertarian, it is very difficult for me to find a reasonable explanation on why we should have the government nationalizing private companies and spending trillions on different programs. But I understand that:
1) people are irrational they often take illogical actions
2) when you are in pain, its your instinct making you stop the pain immediately without caring about the long term results
As college students you should have some position on the government's action, because we are the generation that will be paying the debt and experiencing stellar inflation. make your own mind, but also take an action!
Is this post related to our college? Sure, we have our student government as well. Each your the student government is collecting fees from each student, and then spending those money on various activities. The question is - with ever raising tuition, should we be more observant on how our student government spend their revenues from student fees??
The road to serfdom begins when we let the government demolish the free market and increase their power.
comment (1)
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11/08/2008 12:46:03 PM
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I wonder how many of you really enjoyed your high school years. When I was in high school, which had quite rigorous academic environment, I felt like I was subject to one way process - my teachers were lecturing and "pouring" knowledge into my head. The problem was that I didn't have chance to practice my newly acquired skills (except few academic competitions).
So, very important considerations for choosing college, was to pick such a place where education will be both theoretical and experiential. Bingo!
Westminster College is exactly the place I was looking for. In the past 3 years, I have been able to cooperate with faculty from different departments, and engage myself in out-of-the classroom experiental learning. It is a lot of fun, because being able to apply my academic knowledge in real life situations gives me confidence that I am really learning!
The last project I was involved was reaseach on the Writing Center and ESL students. Supported by Dr. Christopher LeCluyse, I've explored the ways Writing Centers could be most helpful to international students on campus. And even more fun - we had a chance to present on the International Writing Centers Association Conference in Las Vegas.
The best way to preapre for real life is to use your academic education as an anvironment where you learn from trial and error.AS the saying goes "Practice what you preach" - do not hesitate to apply your knowledge!
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