Remember: 1) Use your own words; 2) do not exceed the 400 word limit; and 3) provide short parenthetical citations consisting only of page numbers...

Remember: 1) Use your own words; 2) do not exceed the 400 word limit; and 3) provide short parenthetical citations consisting only of page numbers from the text to document specific points.

The SituationYou loved your work at the museum, but the pay was terrible. By studying part time for several years, you recently earned the degree of master of science in academic advising (yes, such degrees really exist). Degree in hand and plenty of museum experience under your belt, you impressed the humanities division of your local liberal arts college to hire you as an academic advisor. One of your most important tasks is to promote less popular minors. Your college plans to revamp its web site, and one new future will be concise explanations of the benefits of the various majors.

Your Task

You have been assigned the task of explaining the benefits of majoring in “world religions.” There really are such majors, by the way, and often they are called “religious studies” or simply “religion.” At secular institutions of higher learning, students majoring or minoring in religion would typically start with a course like ours. At this point, you have seen a wide variety of human religious expression. Your basic task is to think about what you have recently learned or studied and extrapolate from it important knowledge and skills. In other words, think about how and why the study of religions can help a person develop in ways that will be “useful” in the world. Here is an example of the kinds of statements you might make: “The study of religion provides deep insights into the core beliefs and values of past and present civilizations.” That is a good point, but it might be a little too abstract to convince an employer to hire someone with a religious studies background. Can you think of taking this point and making it more obviously applicable to working conditions in today’s world? Moreover, consider realms other than straightforward cultural knowledge. For example, is the study of human religions likely to contribute to a person’s empathy? What about a person’s ability to acquire and process information? . . . and so forth. In a sense, your task is to be a propagandist, so be creative and imaginative. However, everything you say must seem convincing and be supportable based on what we have seen in this course so far. And, of course, the attention span of most site visitors is limited so:

1)list your top 5 reasons for majoring in 'religion' or studying 'world religions' in bullet form; and 2) offer 2-3 sentences for each reason explaining why it is important enough to make your list.