The first year of a typical American law school is the best graduate education I ve ever heard of, and probably the best year of graduate education in the world. Most of the opinions typically used are the enduring, leading cases written by the great judges. I could go on with this, telling you about how law schools teach analysis, logic and, of course, rhetoric, and how many law schools require a capstone, integrative course in legal philosophy, but let me switch over to the MBA instead. The standard American MBA is mostly required courses, horizontally and vertically integrated to provide a general education in all the fundamental areas of business and management. I ll conclude this with my modified version modified about to the extent the Shimer curriculum has been modified over the same time period of some advice Professor Keohane gave me in 1966.
Education is a lifetime enterprise.
In a 1990 lecture at Harvard, Adler said, sometime after sixty, I have gradually achieved a sufficient understanding of the great ideas and a minimum measure of wisdom to regard myself as a generally educated human being. There are four key elements to a strong start on your lifetime of adult education. The first element is Shimer College. I know I ve been preaching to the choir on that text, so I ll move on to the others. The second is a corresponding general education in all the fundamental materials of the field in which you plan to work.