Higher education provides people with many opportunities to grow, as thinkers, listeners, professionals and individuals. Higher education isn’t a path that everyone chooses to take, but the people that do choose this path benefit from it in more ways than one. People choosing to get higher education, especially in the United States, are educated in the specific field that they choose, but are also forced outside of their comfort zone and get educated in different areas of study as required by the university. By doing this, students of higher education are more well rounded when they graduate college and are more prepared for life after college.
Ronald Barnetts view on higher education is very realistic and easy to agree with. Barnett states that higher education should be unsettling and subversive. He thinks that it shouldn’t be a “cozy experience”. He also believes that a students higher education is meant to force them to experience things outside of their comfort zones. He also states that higher education is not complete until “the student realizes there are no final answers”, no matter how hard they try to find them.
Ronald Barnett and Martha Nussbaum have similar views on higher education. They both believe that people that chose to receive higher education should expect to be challenged and to be pushed out of their comfort zone. Barnett and Nussbaum know that students receiving higher education want to expand their knowledge and believe the only way to do so is to go outside their comfort zones. Nussbaum explains that higher education in America is different from most, if not all, other countries because of the liberal arts model that is followed by American universities. Because of the liberal arts model, students of American universities are required to take classes uninvolved with their major. This requirement forces students to do things that they aren’t comfortable with, but ultimately makes them better students, more resourceful and better educated.
I haven’t had much first-hand experience with higher education, but I have made many observations since starting my experience. I’m majoring in elementary education, but I have to take classes such as environmental issues. Classes like this I might not have to teach students when I am a teacher, but I’m being forced out of my comfort zone and have to try new things. Even though I might never have to teach elementary school aged kids about environmental issues, having the knowledge that I will gain from taking this class will be a useful skill later in life.
My experience of higher education so far does reflect the ideas of both Barnett and Nussbaum. It shows that universities in America push students outside of their comfort zones, and that there is a good reason for them to do so. It proves that American universities want students to have more skills than the ones they absolutely need for their career choice and that by them having these skills, they will be even more successful in life. It also proves that students who choose a path in higher education have to be open to trying new things and stepping out of their comfort zone, which is an idea that both Barnett and Nussbaum stated in their passages.
