<p>I am going to add this to my interview questions.</p>
<p>Yes, the STEM fields are growing. Yes, we need more STEM majors.
HOWEVER (and this is a big however), ask yourself, what would a world be like with ONLY STEM majors? Do you really think that all jobs can be completed by STEM majors? </p>
<p>Just curious. BTW, it is possible to do a STEM major and a humanities major - one of the points of a liberal arts education. I chose a LAC because I want to study two fields that are disparate to most people.</p>
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<p>This is not an argument against liberal education. It’s an argument against bad teaching. </p>
<p>Many CEOs of major corporations, senators, cabinet members, and presidents have a liberal arts background. Only two US presidents in the past 100 years (Hoover and Carter, 2 of the least successful) have had an engineering background.</p>
<p>I agree it would be desirable for more people (including senior leaders) to be better educated in the physical and life sciences … though I’m also sorry to hear that even a top 20 university apparently did not expose you to very high quality instruction in the social sciences or humanities.</p>
<p>My bioengineering major daughter DID take an ethics class as one of her core courses. She said it was one of the best courses she took in college…a completely different type of thinking than her math/science/engineering courses…and she liked that diversity in thinking. Ditto the fine arts.</p>
<p>OP…you never did answer my question about the arts…do you propose to abolish those too?</p>
<p>I can’t even begin to argue with your “logic.” First, not everyone excels in STEM.-just like not everyone excels in art, dance, Or even…history! My mother was a history major and an exceptional writer that could probably spew word bombs at you until you were bruised from an inability to reciprocate! </p>
<p>Abolish the liberal arts would be like abolishing poetry - like discarding Greek mythology, Shakespeare, Chaucer. And by the way, understanding history, the human experience is invaluable. You are so terribly misguided I don’t even know how to respond. We are not robots. There is a life to be lived that doesn’t revolve around money, statistics, technology. There is beauty in humanity. Sometimes science is unable to feed the soul. I would not want to be a citizen of your society, how terribly barren of introspection, faith, imagination, meditation and silence. </p>
<p>I hope you find poetry someday. I hope you recognize the importance of diversity in everything.</p>
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<p>I find it hard to believe that the author of this statement has taken a college level class in history, political science or psychology.</p>
<p>Those starting out with engineering degrees may think that we have an incredible amount of understanding and mastery of the physical world. Most will eventually learn the importance of politics, business, human relationships, etc. Some that don’t may wind up as very unhappy people - I know a few like this.</p>
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<p>This is a link to the Open Yale course: Freshman Organic Chemistry:</p>
<p>[Freshman</a> Organic Chemistry — Open Yale Courses](<a href=“http://oyc.yale.edu/chemistry/freshman-organic-chemistry]Freshman”>http://oyc.yale.edu/chemistry/freshman-organic-chemistry)</p>
<p>The online video lectures are chock-full of history and lore. It appears to me that the students can simply read a lot of the fundamentals of chemistry out of the textbook.</p>
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<p>History - See Vballmom’s post</p>
<p>Political Science - Helps with foreign affairs</p>
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<p>Ahh but sweety, how will he know foreign affairs without Political Science?</p>
<p>Psychology - Helps with counseling, study of the brain/neurology and in dealing with mental disorders.</p>
<p>You’ve had your topics locked about ten times now for this same b.s. Anti, how many more times are you going to post this crap? EVERY SINGLE TOPIC you’ve been told again and again why you’re wrong but you keep spamming these topics. You’re worse than that A- ■■■■■ and “I wanna bang my teacher” guy put together. Will you stop with these topics already? I’m sick of you. This exact topic was closed, not even ten weeks ago, with this same name. And yet… HERE IT IS AGAIN.</p>
<p>The liberal arts have a valid purpose in our society. I know you don’t like it Adolf but that’s the way the world works. If everybody was a STEM major, society would collapse. Someone capable of critical thinking would understand that.</p>
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<p>That’s the 2nd or 3rd time you’ve used that… aww, did baby fail a class where that was one of the required texts? Somebody’s hatin’ on Simone.</p>
<p>How exactly do you think we learn to deal with current economic and political crises? By trial and error and the scientific method? Of course not. Because the problems we are experiencing today have been experienced before, simply in different contexts. Understanding and analyzing past crises allows us to avoid the same in the future, or at least remedy them the best we can when they occur. Political science and foreign affairs fall under social sciences and the dreadful liberal arts, I hope you know.</p>
<p>mspearl made an elegant argument. Science may improve the way we live, but the humanities are truly what we live for–the beauty and evolution of fine art, literature, music. What emotional resonance can be found in the coding of DNA? When was the last time string theory made you laugh or cry? Of course for some intensely passionate about STEM, this may be true. But for <b>humanity</b> as a whole, the <b>humanities</b> give us a way to express and understand what our existence means.</p>
<p>Use common sense economics (cough, liberal arts).</p>
<p>If everyone was a STEM major (including people who would have been better off w/ a liberal arts education), the supply of STEM labor would increase, decreasing salary. </p>
<p>People who would have been liberal arts major would have made more money in the Liberal Arts than in STEM.</p>
<p>Law is a sensitive, sensitive matter - how many STEM people are qualified to serve as the head of some High Court? How many understand the intricacies of law? How many STEM people have the critical thinking, the foresight, the understanding of history/literature to control their inventions? If we abolish the liberal arts, then we may one day release a monster into the world that we are not capable of controlling.</p>
<p>You think plowing STEM majors can help this economy? No, only one skilled in economics can tell us the way markets work. </p>
<p>Your idiocy is astounding. The people below the poverty line in LA majors would not have fared much better in STEM majors. They are below the poverty line 1) because they were foolish enough to choose a LA major when their skill sets more matched a STEM major, 2) because they lack skill overall, and therefore can’t get a job anywhere, or 3) because they slacked off in LA school.</p>
<p>@Telperien/mspearl et al. - your arguments, however. are complete Straw Vulcan fallacies - one does not necessarily only find beauty in the humanities - for me, there is little more beautiful than the “simple elegance” of a mathematical proof, the wondrous simplicity of DNA, the creation of a new life from 1s and 0s. The STEM person is not necessarily anti-beauty. Beauty can be found everywhere. While the OP seems to make a ridiculous assertion to BAN the liberal arts, it does not mean that he is unappreciative of beauty. Your categorization of the sciences as a rote-robotic trial and error method is flawed and fallacious.</p>
<p>I used to think like you did antipacifist, and my anti-pacifistic attitude didn’t help me much either. I’m a physics student and I’m 100% for getting rid of the illogical and the ********. I just happen to disagree.</p>
<p>Infact, I will go so far as to say that, with the proper perspective, you could argue that we should be promoting the liberal arts. There is so much to know about the universe… as a researcher in fundamental physics, I can attest to that, and I feel with every fiber of my being that this just has to be the best way to truth, whatever that meant. That’s what I thought anyway, but recently I watched a lecture by Richard Feynman where he was talking about statistical mechanics and how this plays into the ass hole attitudes of theoretical physicists of the time. Contemporaries of Feynman seemed to think (and this is no different today sometimes) that the only useful intellectual endeavor was scientific. Yet at the same time they know that in order to describe fluids, looking at the quantum mechanical many-bodied problem perspective just wasn’t helpful. So you need to look bigger, go the macroscopic route. You get emergent properties that you couldn’t explain otherwise. It’s like wetness. What the hell is that? Likewise, what is love? What is life? What is money, politics, depression, government, and all of this? Whether us technical and quantitatively gifted people like it or not, these things can’t be ignored.</p>
<p>You also need to read up a bit on some serious politics and economics and then talk to some normal people about their views on this stuff. It’s insane how idiotic some ideas are. A computer science degree is quantifiable by the starting salary you receive in your first job, but knowing about true Marxism and why it could never work with our civilization as it currently stands or the history behind the creation of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic idea of a god is something that can never, ever be quantified.</p>
<p>Be smart. You’re an engineer, so you know how to think. Get rid of these biases, they only hinder your ability to think clearly with an open mind. What you’re saying in this post is similar to what most people feel about the scientific and mathematical subjects, and in the end that hurts everyone. Open your mind and think a little deeper.</p>
<p>I am concerned about the students who graduate in the liberal arts and are finding it difficult to cover their college loans. Some students I know have gone into the military as officers with a liberal arts background and been trained in various fields including flying jets.
I live around a lot of scientists that work for big drug companies and they do well but not nearly as well as some of the national sales reps that live in my neighborhood.
I’m older so I’ve had time to observe a lot and I will tell you that a successful financial life is determined more by expenses. who you marry, your health and a successful savings plan than how much you earn in this life. I know many STEM graduates who can’t retire perhaps ever, because of risky investments, health setbacks and divorce.</p>
<p>Who exactly is going to teach future STEM majors if there are no liberal arts graduates?</p>
<p>@shulie - other STEM majors? Teaching doesn’t need a separate degree…</p>
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<p>Parents and students have to have reasonable expectations in their areas of study and expected salaries for those studies and plan for costs accordingly. Even those in STEM majors have to do this. We read about the problems that many doctors have in paying back their student loans, even with what we consider high-incomes.</p>
<p><em>they don’t adequately prepare students for a science-driven world.
*shrugs</em> I fail to see how this is relevant. Do we need a science degree to get along in life? Cant business, econ, law, etc. do the same.?
*They stifle dissenting opinions and prevent students from exploring their viewpoints because students are taught to blindly drink down the opinions of their professors (who are often radical liberals).
ARE YOU SMOKING? Theres a whole major called Philosophy, Literature hardly stifles dissenting opinions, if anything STEM classes stifle dissenting opinion, because there is no gray area in science (more or less)
*They almost invariably lead to poor salaries.
See past post
*They hinder one’s ability to use quantitative reasoning in everyday life.
False. Philosophy is self explanatory, every law major needs logic classes, literature and history develop critical thinking.
*They attract poor students who come to college just to party.
Okay, this one may be true, but this also doesnt solve the problem. If you abolish the LA, where will these students go? Bankrupt, unemployed, below the poverty line???
*They drain resources from important science-related research.
False. Society and the political system need to function for there to be enough money to deploy into the sciences.
*They instill laziness and carelessness in students - in liberal arts, all the material is spoon fed to you, all you have to do is regurgitate it.
Has the OP ever taken a philosophy class? Obviously not. I would argue that in biology at least undergrad bio, all the material is spoon fed to you. How, is ANYTHING spoon fed to you in Literature? And history is more than just regurgitating facts
theres something called an essay.
*They waste taxpayer money and cause many people to be unemployed.
See above on the OPs failure to grasp economics.
*They give rise to a class of basically uneducated people who expound on the urgency of problems they know nothing about, such as global warming and energy technology.
While STEM majors argue on topics they know nothing about such as philosophy, law, music, etc. If your logic is flawless, then so is mine on this one.
*History, literature and so on explain themselves. Having 600 books written on one historical event is not useful and is just a way for people of mediocre intelligence to make money. Science and mathematics are the only disciplines that have real explanatory power in the 21st century.
Having 600 books written on one scientific issue is not useful and is just a way for people of mediocre intelligence to make money. If your logic is true, then so is mine. The history books provide the same thing the science books do they raise awareness of the complexity of the issue, so we are more prepared to handle such issues in the future.
flowery, indirect way in which liberal arts majors are taught to write.
Steinbeck, Hemmigway, etc. wrote in a flowery indirect way??? No, not at all. You are thinking of the texts of 100+ years ago.</p>
<p>Ologos: you are right, there is beauty at the cellular level, dna etc… it is all around us. Certain majors helps us discern this beauty. Certain courses help us translate beauty in all forms through words, painting, dancing…</p>
<p>mspearl: agreed. As a prospective physics/philosophy major w/ a music minor - it is rather shocking to me when someone argues any certain field should be “abolished”…</p>