Kagan says, of free men in ancient society, that they "must know something of everything and understand general principles without yielding to the narrowness of expertise."
This can be paralleled to how I sometimes feel about my liberal arts education - at times I feel like I am exposed to everything, and at other times I feel like there is still so much untapped knowledge out there.
For me, a liberal arts education means I'm not limited - I don't have a clear-cut direction to my life - which has both it's positives and negatives. Life-after-college isn't super planned out; I didn't go to a business school, I'm not in a nursing or engineering program. I'm forced to go out there and dabble and experiment with different careers that might fit my interests and my passions.
I'm a strong believer in experiential learning. Yes, college is about education, training, and developing the skills you need to get a job after graduation. But, it's also about the experienes. We learn from what we experience. And I know, even as a rising senior, that the majority of the most-valuable moments throughout my college career have come from experiences outside the classroom.
It is said that a Liberal Arts Education "trains the powers of the mind." In this light, let us think about the importance of thinking - whether it is "knowing everything" or if it is not "yielding to the narrowness of expertise." If our world is a machine and we are the fuel, it is important to not just be a cog in the machine, but to think about what the machine is doing as well. Consider Thoreau's Civil Disobedience: "Let your life be a counter-friction to the machine!" To me, it seems as though a liberal arts education gives us the tools to free ourselves and become that counter-friction - and to challenge and question things that are going on in our societies instead of being a passive bystander.
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