DukeEthicist: Pre-professional rush

Should institutions of higher education like Duke prioritize teaching pre-professional and marketable job skills over teaching a sold liberal arts curriculum? Duke has no business, marketing, finance, or other explicitly pre-professional degrees, but I think the mainstream focus on campus is to prepare students for entering business, law, medicine, or other professional fields. I find the Markets & Management Studies certificate and the Master of Management Studies degree to be particularly troubling instances of this mentality.

Duke and other institutions like it should

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not prioritize teaching pre-professional careers. Worldwide, America is one of the few nations that focuses on a liberal education. In other countries, most students chose their lifelong careers upon graduating high school or even earlier. The problem is most young adults don’t know for sure what they want to do for the rest of their lives when they are 18. A liberal arts education gives students time to explore majors and career paths they have not previously considered. For example, you can attend Duke thinking you want to major in International Comparative Studies, and leave Duke with a Program II major in Astrobiology. We have this luxury because we attend a liberal arts school. The classes taken to explore multiple majors may actually fulfill other graduation requirements and should not be considered wasted. In fact, exploring different departments at Duke is encouraged – the majority of students entering Duke come in undeclared. Young adults need that extra time to take subjects not offered in high school and find out what they are truly passionate about. Only then can they be confident in pursuing their ultimate career choice.

The Duke Ethicist is a project of the Honor Council which responds to ethical questions posed by the Duke community. Our purpose is to provide a medium through which students may anonymously seek advice or spark dialogue. Got a question? Send it to dukeethicist@gmail.com, and look out for a response on our blog.