Georgetown College students know the rule: avoid taking two classes in the same department during one semester until you are a junior. One of the many students who entered Georgetown clueless about my academic destiny, I took full advantage of the policy. Even if the paperwork might not show it, I changed majors in my head at least five times. It was impossible to experiment with every subject, but I certainly tried my hand at a few for which I would have expressed very little interest when I enrolled. Having now studied abroad for my entire junior year, there will be a bit of cramming to wrap up majors and minors as a senior, but at the end of the day, my Spanish major requires only eleven courses. Only after a semester in Costa Rica (and Chile in fall 2013) do I realize what a blessing the college’s academic policy really is.
It lies at the heart of the liberal arts philosophy: an education is only whole if it includes a wide variety of experiences in a vast array of disciplines. As soon as the class registration process began, it was apparent that the Costa Rican educational system is driven by a different philosophy, one which emphasizes specialization. Their version of “general education,” or courses taken outside one’s major subject, is a mere four classes that together only count as one, to be completed during freshman year. Only through a special exception are foreign students permitted to register in classes across multiple departments. Graduating from Georgetown College requires thirty-eight courses; the Environmental Health major at the University of Costa Rica (in which I am taking two of my five this semester) requires nearly fifty just within the department.
This stark contrast with the trajectory of my own degree is the cause of frequent, awkward conversations. A student who graduates from the University of Costa Rica is considered “a professional” in the subject she or he studied, and a licensed one if she or he sticks around for a fifth year. I explain the idea of a less-concentrated education, but Costa Ricans insistently ask in what field I will be a professional upon my graduation. As grateful as I am for my liberal arts formation, these encounters tend to get under my skin. The thought of perhaps being “a jack of all trades but a master of none” is unsettling, especially considering the magnitude of the financial investment in an undergraduate degree.
I find comfort in the words of my father, who assures me that employers like his own are looking for good communicators, collaborators, and broad-minded, learning-agile people. Even though I agree, a voice in my head retorts sarcastically: “Am I so naturally coarse that only a $250,000 prescription can socialize me for healthy human interaction?" In this day and age, he argues, graduates of an institution like Georgetown are likely to work in many different fields over several decades. Employers will hire for attitude and train for skill.
My dad has won me over. I also detect plenty of drawbacks to the Costa Rican vocational model. With all due respect for the school, the notion of producing hundreds of 23-year-old “professional political scientists” seems a bit silly to me. Costa Ricans must declare a major in order to enroll. As many times as I changed my major, one can imagine that a few dozen courses could curb a Costa Rican student’s enthusiasm for a subject. Changing majors is allowed and extremely common; the glitch is that it means starting over from scratch in the new subject. I know dozens of students who have studied for longer than I but are technically freshman.
This is a luxury facilitated in great part by the fact that in Costa Rica, education is a public good, not a product (three-digit annual tuition). There is no life more fortunate than that of a university student, but if I were an undergraduate into my mid- and late-twenties, guilt would overpower my glee. Having spent nearly two decades being educated, I hope now to be capable of making a meaningful contribution to society. The list of things I love about my Costa Rican university is too long to include here. I could not be happier with the academic and human quality of the faculty, the classes, and my peers. I owe them much gratitude for having shown me that nothing more wholesomely cultivates my human faculties than my liberal arts education.