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Deresiewicz's Pessimism

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I do not share Deresiewicz’s pessimism about the soullessness of higher education today because the students I have met and had the pleasure of teaching — engineers, artists, accountants, pre-med, pre-law, and yes, English, history, philosophy, and classics majors — have souls, every last one of ’em, and in many cases more developed souls than their elders running the asylum. One reason for this is what Deresiewicz describes as the parallel curriculum and parallel college. Students pursue internships, network in student organizations, and participate in a dizzying variety of extracurriculars. Deresiewicz thinks students are “deserting the classroom” for these opportunities. He should be pleased. It’s a feature, not a bug. Because it is in that

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