Instilling Creativity, Critical Thinking and Values for Holistic Development through Humanities and Liberal Arts Courses among Engineering Students

Abstract

Education gives us not only a platform to succeed, but also the knowledge to polish our social conduct, character, independent thinking and self respect; its greatest gift in fact, is the set of values it imparts to all of us. Education, the continuous learning experience, makes us learn from people and situations, success and failures, leaders and followers and then getting groomed to be the person one aspires to be. The actual aim of education is to teach how to think than what to think. Thus, education not only acts as a means to get a job for earning our livelihood but also helps us lead a life of values. If education makes the learners mechanical and materialistic in their approach, it surely fails to inculcate human values. Education will have little meaning if it fails to train us to apprehend the eternal values, to appreciate the supreme human virtues and the simple decencies of life. However, presently, there is a popularly held belief in the world of education that social studies and humanities are non-essential segments of the curriculum. The students who study science and technical subjects have better job prospects and hence, better fortune as compared to those who opt for humanities and liberal arts courses. Besides, it is also assumed that the students who undertake liberal arts courses are intellectual and academically diligent. The present paper focuses on the relevance of humanities and liberal arts courses if done by the engineering students. It also discusses how the humanities courses focus on fostering value based education so as to develop learning outlook, strong character and analytical attitude.