Formation of self identity is the growth of distinct character of a person. The process is usually termed as enduring entity since it happens during the specific period of human life when an individual possesses characteristics which he/she is recognized with.
During that period of time in human life, they establish a reputation which they are identified with. Formation of self identity defines a person; who he is and how people see him (Dupre 8).
Individual’s entity includes logic of uniqueness, logic of continuity and logic of affiliation. Many issues are usually developed by identity formation and they include distinctness and individual identity whereby a person can comprehend who he or she is as a separate and distinct being.
Humans usually experience this through individuation when they apt to become unique. This paper mainly traces the theme of formation of self identity through the readings such as various liberal arts and my own experience as an individual.
A student may decide to major in philosophy but before he or she begins to study, he must be fully aware of benefits of the course. Recognizing a field of study is self identity since a person becomes aware of what he/she wants to obtain in the end.
Parents usually invest financially on their children when they take them to college and that is why they always have the desire to know benefits to them. Parents will invest as much money as they can in educating their children if they know that it will secure their future.
Those students who have chosen to major in the field of sociology, philosophy, anthropology or art history study liberal arts. There exists broad and versatile learning in liberal arts that forces students to immerse in studies.
This is a unique element of American higher education and a foundation of vitality. Today, many students have decided to major in different careers and ignore liberal arts. This is because the curriculum allows students to specialize in what they want and feel comfortable with.
A student is allowed to choose a goal that is practical and most students believe that liberal arts are not practical. Administrators and faculty members have neglected to offer advice to students on the values of studying liberal arts.
Most students and families, however, do not think the same with administrators and faculty members. They believe that it is not worth sacrificing money and time on liberal arts since they will not get any practical return on their investment.
They believe that it is valueless to study liberal arts since the return is apparent.
Understanding the meaning of liberal arts and its purposes is what can make a person like this field of study. Many education institutions have failed to award undergraduate degree to liberal arts students.
In United States, 60 percent of undergraduate degrees offered by education institutions are in technical and pre-professional fields. Business courses account for 21% of the awards.
In 2006 report on improving American higher education, the special commission totally ignored the field of liberal arts and education and finished his speech without mention either of them.
In developing countries, the situation is even worse; many new institutions of higher learning only offer education on subjects which they view as practical which include: science, technology or business.
This is a common practice in China and Uganda; the government only gives scholarship awards to those students whom have pursed courses that are practical such as science, technology and engineering.
Students should understand that liberal arts comprise sciences and arts. Liberal arts can be contrasted with vocational education. Those students who major in liberal arts study psychology, history or biology.
They do not cover applied fields like criminal justice, journalism or agriculture. Having a clear understanding and knowledge of what liberal arts is comprise of, will enable students to make right choices.
For students to become successful, they require intensive intellectual dialogue between them and the faculty on diverse spheres of highest human values and concerns (Hallman 6).
Liberal arts education involves students in formal dimensions of discussions which make students active since they are engaged in different discussion groups. Based on Socrates thoughts, students learn more effectively if they are involved in a discussion or given a question to pursue on their own.
This is what is called active learning where students are involved in asking questions and they are being asked questions. Elusive answers are received after dialoging with their fellow students.
Students will determine who they are and what their thoughts are concerning significant issues in life if they are involved in meaningful discussions which are challenging and require them to ask questions and think harder.
Students will also learn more about who they are if they are engaged in active learning where they can come up with their own questions and answers. This is what is termed as substantial learning.
Liberal arts students do more of substantial learning as compared to other field of education (Roche 12). Most of the times, liberal classes comprise peer discussions, independent research projects and service learning.
Essay examination, tutorials and oral examinations are some of the modes of which liberal arts learning is being fostered.
Students who participate actively during the learning process, who know how to connect the earlier knowledge to what they find meaningful are much brighter as compared to other students.
Being engaged outside the classroom substantive topics will make students enjoy their experience while in college. The more a student is involved in classroom, the greater their chances of learning deeply and developing personally.
This clearly shows that narrow education is not enough to enable students to identify what they want in life. The key to success in the global economic world today is liberal education.
This is because it introduces students to develop multiple perspectives on their own making them independent in such a way that they can make their personal judgment.
Liberal education enables students to acquire broad knowledge and it gives them multiple opportunities to gain real life skills that they can use in the outside world, for example, in identifying that internet is everything in today’s world since it provides us with all the answers that we need (Naughton 7).
Those students with broad knowledge are able to recognize that technology is what drives photography. They will also be able to give reasons why this is so by viewing at what photography is made of. Photography is surrounded by machines and that is what it is built of.
A bright student will be able to identify if the quality of an image has gone up or it has a sharper focus or the lighting in the camera is better or much higher or if the color has lushes. A student who is not bright will assume and believe that all cameras are designed that way.
Liberal students have skills that they can apply in many fields in today’s global economic world. This is because these students are curious and have the passion to know more and identify why certain things occur in life.
Only a bright student will be able to identify why there is war in the world and what can be done to overcome it. Some will see war as a natural thing which existed since Stone Age period.
Human beings are able to identify what is sacred because it shows and manifests itself. It is also totally diverse with profane. Something sacred is something unique which does not belong to this world; it may be an object or a stone which is different from natural ones that exist in the world.
Something that humans have identified as sacred is not adored in their form instead they are worshipped due to their hierophanies nature since they show something beyond their natural form.
Anything that has been identified as sacred by humans will change their form to something else yet it still retains itself since it continues to perform its cosmic milieu in the surrounding where it is located.
For example, a sacred tree will continue being a tree, nothing will distinguish it from all the other trees. Only those whom the tree reveals itself to be sacred will see it differently. They will consider it as a supernatural thing.
Those people who live in archaic societies tend to live a sacred life because they believe that it is power and reality itself. Their sacredness is saturated in their being human.
Archaic societies believe that everything is real and at the same time they value life and believe that it is worth enduring. This explains why religious people such as archaic have great desires for mortality, to join in reality and to be power saturated.
Sacred people usually believe that the world is not homogenous since they can undergo interruptions, break through it to some other space such as mass (Eliade 8).
Sacred people also believe in sacred spaces. They value these places more despite the fact that they are surrounded by other grounds. Non-homogeneity experience of religious people can be termed as primordial experience since it proceeds all outside world reflection.
To them it reveals the central axis and the fixed point for the future. Homogeneity of a space will break if a sacred place manifests in hierophany. It also reveals reality as compared to non-reality of the surrounding.
The world was found on the sacred ontologically manifestation. Sacred people believe that the world is nonaligned and homogeneous; it cannot be qualitatively differentiated or wrecked into various elements.
They, however, believe that geometrical space can be delimited and cut in all directions but cannot be differentiated qualitatively. It requires no orientation by virtue of its structural inherent.
It will be much easier to acquire orientation and obtain a fixed point in homogeneity chaos if sacred space is reveled. The world will be found and the people will have real sense about it.
Identification of sacred is a vast subject which concerns not only historians of religions but also sociologists, social historians, politicians, psychologist, ethnologists and philosophers.
These people have enabled us to understand the state of sacredness as assumed by religious people. They have made us understand the universe and the spiritual world. They have also enabled us to identify the characteristic mode of the world existence.
They have made us understand why sacred people believe in sacred life and the main reason being that it has a sacred origin. Human existence in the world therefore brings out the reality in life as believed by religious people.
Sacred people believe that man was created by the gods in the world while the cultural heroes are responsible for completion of creation. They believe that the history of existence of semi-divine and divine works is not reality but myths.
Devine behaviors possessed by man that keeps them closer to their gods are imitations induced by re-actualized sacred history. Non-religious people, however, have different views on the world. Non-religious people do not believe in transcendence while they acknowledge the concept of reality.
They do not also believe in the meaning of reality of life. Non-religious people are responsible for the development of western culture in the world. Modern non-religious people regard themselves as agents and subjects of history but they do not believe in transcendence.
Nonreligious beings do not recognize any humanity form that exists outside humans since they view it as an historical state. Nonreligious people believe that “Man makes himself, and he only makes himself completely in proportion as he desacralizes himself and the world (Eliade 18).”
They believe that sacredness is a great obstacle to human freedom since it bounds them to one belief. They also believe that after totally demystifying themselves they will become free people. Nonreligious individuals also believe that killing the last god is the only way to gaining their freedom in the world.
Works Cited
Dupre, Ben. 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need To Know. New York: Quercus Books, 2007. Print.
Eliade, Mircea. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt Publishers, 1959. Print.
Hallman, Max. Traversing Philosophical Boundaries. New York: Thomson/Wadsworth Publishers, 2007. Print.
Naughton, John. From Gutenberg To Zuckerberg: What You Really Need To Know About The Internet. New York: Quercus Books, 2012. Print.
Roche, Mark. Why Choose The Liberal Arts? Indiana: University Of Notre Dame Press, 2010. Print.