#40 Slveryder: an excellent post. As an academic advisor at the university level, I see students like yourself who make the conscious choice to get as much as they can out of college, and I see others who make the choice not to do so.
We are on dangerous ground when conservatives are so paranoid and resentful of the “liberal propaganda” they envision as “brainwashing” undergraduates that they take the anti-intellectual route and condemn higher education entirely. We need more conservatives who have the interest and desire to become academics and scholars. And we need Liberal Arts folks who have an interest in preserving our great traditions of literature, history, music, art, etc. (By the way, “Liberal Arts” means something very different than “liberal” as in ideologially liberal–in case there is anyone reading this blog who doesn’t realize that.).
And don’t think that parochial or “Christian” education is any better. The students who transfer into my “Big Ten” university from so-called Christian colleges are often grossly underprepared for the work. My Christian high school was so dumbed-down that I felt cheated when I graduated. In other words, students wishing to eschew “liberal” educational establishments by enrolling in “conservative, Christian” ones are not necessarily getting a better product.
The key is to find a college with a low student-instructor ratio and with good resources for students. Then the task is the students’–to make the choice to get as much out of the experience as possible.
