Rebel against tradition

It is common knowledge Duke’s academic curriculum has been to provide a strong liberal arts education firmly grounded in well-grounded academia. Duke administrators want a Duke degree to mean a Duke alumnus knows how to think clearly and write analytically. To this day Duke—with the exception of Pratt—lacks pre-professional schools due to its devotion to adhere to the principle of a liberal arts education. It is even in our school charter I believe—although I could be wrong about that, I could bother to look it up and read it myself, but journalistic integrity is so out these days and journalistic irresponsibility is so in.

Any who, I witnessed first-hand the effects of having a liberal arts education at my internship this summer. The other interns featured a motley crew of other students from various schools across the state. Naturally, I assessed my academic and professional qualities against the other interns because I’m a competitive jerk. Now, Duke is widely considered one of the best colleges in the nation. Many high schoolers would kill to get in here. So it came as quite a shock when I realized I didn’t stack up as well against some of the other interns who came from—how do I put this in a way that is not condescending and demeaning—schools that weren’t considered as academically “good” as Duke.

I soon befriended one girl who came from one of these schools. She was a public relations major and enrolled in her school’s pre-professional school of communications. One day she explained to me how over her collegiate career she had learned to do many professional activities that would help her succeed in the public relations world. She knew how to write press releases, the inner-workings of news stations and other boring stuff that one would learn in a school of communications. I on the other hand possessed no such skills nor had any other real world skills that would help me actually succeed in the real world. All I could do was explain the fine points of Anthony Downs and Mancur Olsen.

Now, one careful observer must ask which person is going to succeed at life and which one is more likely to be bussing tables as Chili’s five years from now because he cannot get a job with a political science degree. The answer to this question is what led me to decide Duke needs to reform its policies on the type of undergraduate programs it offers its students. It is no coincidence the one true pre-professional department at this school—Pratt—also has some of the higher salaries among graduates. Now, some experts claim—as a friend in my block did—pre-professional schools are not truly academic and to have them would cheapen Duke and the education we offer. Other schools of our level, however, offer impressive pre-professional schools. The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania has an undergraduate school of business, why can’t Fuqua do the same? I know many economics majors who would rather have it that way.

The point is that Duke should not limit its academic opportunities to just scholarly studies and try to train its students to win at life. I am in no way bashing some of the degrees at Duke that really don’t prepare you for any actual job in the real world—they are perfectly fine and necessary. I just see nothing wrong with Duke having an undergraduate business school or communications school or journalism school. I think if Duke has these institutions, its students would be more successful and more ready to enter the real world upon graduation from the Gothic Wonderland. That way in 20 years, some students who graduate from here won’t be struggling to make a decent living in their respective town while going from interview to interview, claiming one of the few job skills they possess is being able to recite some of the finer points of deconstructionist literary criticism.

Jonathan Pattillo is a Trinity junior.