Two Interesting Speakers

I've had some time to think about Justice Thomas's remarks yesterday and figured I would share some of them with the rest of you. I should be able to post some of the pictures Will took of the event. It was an amazing opportunity and I am thankful for the chance to meet such a prestigious individual as Justice Thomas. The Wall Street Journal Opinion page wrote an article this week titled "How Hillsdale Beats Harvard." You can find the article by clicking here. As I was pondering why I am so thankful to have ended up at Hillsdale, I sort of put together Justice Thomas's remarks with a lecture I heard today.

First, however, Justice Thomas. If there was one thing Thomas seemed to emphasize, it was to take advantage of our education. It is through education that we learn character, especially traits like honesty. The first step to becoming an honest person is being honest with yourself. Justice Thomas also pointed back to a proper understanding of our founding as a nation as the only way to view the law and the constitution. This education is attained best through a Hillsdale like education... and by being here (in D.C.) right now. Good education will allow us to discern right from wrong. The standard Thomas uses when making decisions is "by what authority" is the government/plaintaff exercising its action. One can only answer this question by referring to the Constitution as correctly understood through education. Thus, Thomas spent most of his time discussing the importance of the type of education we ourselves were receiving at Hillsdale.

Today I attended a day long leadership conference for summer interns in D.C. I was not really impressed with many of the presentations to be honest... for a variety of reasons. What I did find interesting however, was a lecture given by a well-connected political operative. He has served as the chief of staff for numerous congressional offices and is currently the vice-president of the grassroots conservative networking group who presented the seminar I attended. Interestingly, he graduated from the Naval Academy with a degree in mechanical engineering! Obviously, he is not working in the field he trained for!

In fact the latest statistics show people change careers 6-8 times and jobs 8-10 times! The speaker revealed how at one point in his career as a congressional chief of staff he only hired English majors because of their writing/thinking skills... even though their "training" was not in political policy. According to this speaker, employers want to hire people based WHO they are, not WHAT they are.

Putting this into conversation with Thomas and the WSJ article makes me very thankful I chose Hillsdale because it helped lead me to liberal education. Referring back to some earlier posts I wrote on liberal education, it seems to matter a lot more today what kind of person you become as a result of your education. Going to college for a job, although the dominant idea of our culture, seems to have serious problems. Developing only one specialized part of your mind, might lead to some serious deficiencies in more important areas. Although I am not nearly as liberally educated as I would like to be, I am thankful that Hillsdale has opened my mind to ideas and principles that DO matter. I'm not sure what job I will be headed into, but this is not the time of my life to worry about a job. It is the time to make myself into the individual God has created me for, and that itself will hopefully prepare me for whatever job I end up in.