The first big mistake I made in college was to sign up for an 8 o’clock class my very first semester.

English 110, nonetheless.

The second big mistake was to disregard one of those non-grammar lessons my professor in that ungodly early class tried to instill in me and my fellow 25 or so freshman: the importance of a liberal arts education.

To the unenlightened, UW-Eau Claire happens to be a liberal arts university, meaning your degree comes with the notion that you’ve become an expert in your chosen field of study as well as having dabbled in a number of other areas.

This is because of those wonderful General Elective credits – GEs – that virtually all of us dread. When it comes to a liberal arts education, it’s all about that wonderful buzzword: diversity.

Not just diversity in the student population, but diversity in your education as well as the ideas presented to you.

Unfortunately, it seems a lot of students are more concerned with the diversity of their investment portfolios than their education.

But, I’m not one to judge.

It wasn’t all that long ago that my English 110 partner and I were siting in my Horan Hall dorm room trying to write a five-page paper convincing our professor that a liberal arts education was a crock. It was just a way for the university to suck more money out of parents for classes we’ll never use, and obviously, we’ll never need.

Maybe it was getting up four hours earlier than any other of my wingmates every day. Maybe it was the steady diet of Subway, Taco Bell and Burger King. Maybe it was my obligatory case of freshman arrogance. But looking back on it, our argument was pretty silly.

We tried to compare the training of a dentist to that of a journalist.

We said liberal arts education was washed up. This was a new economy where time was money. If we are going to send students to school for four years, why not make them absolute experts in their field – like dentists – instead of wasting half of their credits on all these classes that would never matter anyway.

It’s a good thing I realized how much I needed to take those GE classes seriously. It’s scary to think what type of journalist someone could be without basic knowledge of the sciences, the arts and in particular things like psychology, sociology and political science.

But for other majors, the connection isn’t so obvious.

What does a human resource major or a management major get out of a liberal arts education?

Plenty, according to the checkbooks of big time CEOs.

More than 60 percent of Forbes 500 CEOs have bachelor’s degrees from liberal arts colleges. It’s no coincidence that the most adept business majors who can ace even the most difficult MIS test need to be able to think critically and think on their feet.

I know; I had to listen to a businessman complain for 20 years about employees who can’t think outside the box.

An accountant by training, my father started making personnel decisions for the company he worked for by the time I was old enough to hear him complain about it.

Like most bosses, he complained about people more than he praised them. But consistently it was his employees who couldn’t think for themselves that made Mr. Sargent most angry.

And if there is any basic lesson all potential employees should learn, it’s that you don’t want your boss mad at you.

While it’s hard to pump it up on a resume, critical thinking, as well as basic written and oral communication skills, are as important to anyone who wants to be successful in as any advanced job skill.

This semester I’m taking my final GE class, Music 110.

I certainly have more interest in the class than the first GE I took four years ago.

And, of course, I’m taking my music class at 1 o’clock.

Some lessons are easier to learn than others.