discussion question and respond to 2 peers answers

after reading the article What Are Liberal Arts?, discuss the importance of liberal arts in your own words. Considering what was mentioned in the article, share one way that liberal arts fit into your life or your educational pursuits. Have you ever taken any liberal arts courses before at other institutions? Which areas of the liberal arts are of particular interest to you and why?

Respond to at least two of your peers’ posts to help you get to know them, and to ask questions about their initial posts to help them clarify or expand their responses on how the Liberal Arts fits into their personal or professional lives.

To complete this assignment, review the Discussion Rubric document.

http://mycollegeguide.org/articles/liberal-arts-degrees/what-are-liberal-arts

Peer 1

Hello all, my name is Ama York, I am 73 years old, yes you read that correctly. I am a retired teacher working on my second bachelors degree. This time around I am working on a degree in Addiction Psychology. The reason I have picked this is because this has affected me greatly throughout my life, lots of family members where addicted to some kind of drug or alcohol. But what made me finally decide to want to try to help people get better is when I lost one of my daughters to a drug overdose. She was 42 years old, and in the months before her death she went sliding down so fast no one could catch her. I live in Southwest Virginia so there isn’t really a lot of help options down here. Even less in the town she was living in that was 2 hours away, two of her daughters tried bringing her down here and getting her away from the people and all, but she went back and 3 months later we lost her.

So because I was a teacher, an elementary school teacher at that I have had some liberal arts classes in the past. My bachelors is a bachelors of science, I have taken early childhood psychology. Now obviously it wont apply to what I am learning now, but it has benefited me my whole life. Being able to understand the way children develop mentally and how they learn, helped me be able to teach them in ways that they understood. I preferred teaching first graders, but I taught all the way up to sixth grade. I also took these at the University of Virginia.

I believe that liberal arts is necessary in lots of professions, and is something good to learn and know, you never know when you may need it. With a lot of careers it will be a big portion of that you do. Even when trying to run a business, you wouldn’t think it would be necessary but understanding people helps you market better.

I am very interested in the psychology aspects of liberal arts, but I am also interested in other parts of humanities, and social sciences as well. I am interested in some natural sciences, like earth science and things like that.

Peer 2

Hi everyone my name is Kaylyn I am 28 years old. I am born and raised in south Louisiana. This is my first year of college and I am proud of myself for making this commitment. My current major is BA in Psychology with a concentration in child and adolescent development. When I have free time for myself I am reading anything from suspense novels to motivational/self-help books. I love to sing and I am a lover of all music. I also love spending time with my family they mean so much to me and are so supportive of my journey to further my education. I am currently a manager of a popular retail company in the south.

The importance of Liberal Arts to me is being aware of society and its everyday changes. Being able to have a fluent understanding with all people of all walks of life. I feel it is an important piece of education needed for any career of your choice. Working in this day in age you have to be flexible and quickly adapt. Therefore I believe having the knowledge on the hows and whys of humanity and the science behind it is definitely needed to help evolve with the world.

I have always had an interest in the human mind. When I began experiencing panic and anxiety attacks my sophomore year in high school I began to do more research on the subject. I wanted to know does this affect everyone? Could it be my upbringing that triggered this? Was it a coming of age problem? Also I thought how many other children are silently going through this pain? Though scary to go through it definitely turned a light switch on for me. I knew I wanted to change the narrative and be a helping hand for young kids and teens with mental illnesses on the spectrum. I would like to help the young generation gain clarity from my perspective knowing they are not alone in their fight. If I could reach one child and help them through their traumas with just comprehension and empathy I would be satisfied.

This is my first time getting an in depth understanding of Liberal Arts and the variety of career options it can provide. I feel the more I learn in this course the more skills I will gain for communication, writing, and research. When I read in the article that liberal arts means a free person needed to contribute meaningfully to society it immediately resonated with me. That is my mission to serve humanity in anyway that I can and be beneficial to them. I chose Psychology to start my career as a licensed social worker and eventually a therapist for the youth. I know that the knowledge and skills gained in this will be for the better of me and my chosen career path.