Is it time to abolish the liberal arts?

Parents Forum
41

<p>I wouldn’t want to live in a world that doesn’t appreciate the arts or the liberal arts. Frankly, I think kids should have more intensive training in liberal arts and NOT less of it. If I had my way, as most people might know, I would have most kids major in vocationally oriented fields. However, I would also require them to take a significant portion of liberal arts.</p>

<p>However, my firm belief in strengthening the liberal arts requirements has little to do with things like, “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Frankly, if history teaches us anything, countries will constantly make the same mistakes regardless of their historical knowledge. </p>

<p>Liberal arts courses should enhance writing and critical reading skills, both of which sound very beneficial in times of change. I also think that liberal arts courses provide a strength of mind and ordered intellect, not to mention a much greater appreciation of diversity and of handling some of life’s tougher situations that STEM majors won’t get as much of. STEM majors enhance different skills than that of liberal arts, which is why I am in favor of broad based educational requriements.</p>

<p>As a result, I do think that the liberal arts courses should be strenghened to enhance these skills. Thus, courses in grammar, philosophy ( in particular), literature, political science, econonmics and math etc. should all be required regardless of the major. Moreover, I certainly would keep and even beef up the arts such as dance, music and theater. I think these areas provide profound benefits to everyone in many ways, not to mention provides needed entertainment.</p>

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<p>This argument is wholly ridiculous, as everyone else has stated, and I say that as a mechanical engineering major. I thoroughly enjoy/appreciate the liberal arts and humanities, and am in fact a very well rounded student (so to those saying STEM people don’t appreciate/aren’t good at humanities, I would argue such generalizations aren’t true!) </p>

<p>Also, what happens to people whose talents truly don’t lie in STEM areas? Would you want some, say, working as a civil engineering who could never quite pass statics? Personally, I prefer it when my buildings and bridges stay still. </p>

<p>I agree that we may need more STEM majors. But I think that we can work on that by doing things such as re-examining math/science education in the K-12 system, and introducing STEM fields early on to underrepresented groups such as girls/women, etc. Then, those people who are truly interested in STEM majors can follow through accordingly.</p>

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<p>Sad but true kind of - my joke on American history was it was basically the South doing something racist/heinous/bigoted and the north going along with it for awhile before telling them “NO” - over and over and over again. Of course even if it’s not my major I learned to love history and became a bit of a buff, it’s fascinating if you give it a chance/find a book that isn’t dull. The OP started here at CC with posts like the first one, it honestly saddens me that someone could be so filled with hate for majors not their own. It creates complete animosity. Before the days of Cormy and Antipacifist I had never heard of the little war between STEMs and the LAs, now when I hear someone’s STEM if I don’t know them I end up raising an eyebrow because I wonder “ohhh, is this going to be one of those haughty a$$holes who thinks my major ought to be abolished?” Thankfully, the ones I’ve met are friendly and not at all like OP.</p>

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<p>@ologos. I’d never heard of a Straw Vulcan fallacy before but upon finding out, I believe you are quite right. I misrepresented the argument that I was trying to make. There is certainly awe-inspiring beauty and power in scientific study and in the construction of our universe–the depth and complexity of the simplest of worldly things is beyond our limited comprehension.</p>

<p>What I am attempting to convey is that while scientific-technical thinking seeks to understand how or why a physical phenomenon occurs, the liberal arts interpret what these processes mean for individuals and societies. Both are essential; neither is better or more important than the other. Without progress there is no reflection and without reflection there is no progress for humanity. I simply argue for the liberal arts because that is my passion and they are currently under attack by the ignorant and narrow-minded.</p>

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<p>Triple the number of STEM students and the salary differences will disappear.</p>

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<p>Oh man! With this theory, everyone going after an MBA or JD MUST only pursue a business undergraduate degree or pre-law undergraduate degree.</p>

<p>I guess my L.A. major is just silly –> Will change to a STEM major tomorrow to pursue a future law degree. ;)</p>

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<p>antipacifist, based both on your name and your mention of “liberal radicals,” you’ve already told me a lot about yourself. As someone who plans to major in “useless” majors such as classics and history, I feel that they have given me so much perspective and insight about the world around me, how it came to be, and how it WILL be in the future. You are ignorant in believing that we will only be exposed to singular views or perspectives and that they are solely based on the past. if we should eliminate such “useless” majors, should we also eliminate history and the like from school curricula? Just have kids learn basic reading/writing and do nothing but math and science for life? You say that liberal arts majors make no money, but will the prospective-LA majors make more money if everyone were to compete for the same limited number of science/math-based jobs? They would probably end up just as poor as the clearly misguided stereotypes of poverty which you have tried to pass off as the “norm.” I hope you realize, as Swarthmore calls it, the usefulness of “uselessness” (L.A.). History, philosophy, etc may not get me on the cover of forbes, but they have added such a greater underlying meaning to my life (and those of others’) which cold, black-and-white rational math or science can’t necessarily provide. (I can’t wait for a science major to come and rebuke me about how the “harmony of atoms” has given his life aesthetic meaning.)</p>

48

<p>To the OP…you posted the following on another thread…</p>

<p>** I’m not a UT student and don’t mean to come across as harsh but some of these students simply have unimpressive biographies… hopefully the next round of students will be more self-selecting so that they can attract more NM scholars. I also hope they don’t jump onto the lower-standards-to-attract-more-URMs bandwagon. Congratulations nonetheless I guess. **</p>

<p>then…</p>

<p>** OK I feel really bad for my post now. I would appreciate it if a mod would delete it. I was just not thinking at the time **</p>

<p>If you were a liberal arts major, who was well educated in subjects like modes of reasoning or logic, maybe you would not have to be begging a moderator to “fix stupid” because like Ron White says, “You can’t fix stupid”.</p>

<p>When it comes to Medical School, Liberal Arts Majors do much better in Med School Admissions because they just don’t know Calc, Chemistry and Math. They are crtical thinkers who are well versed in cultures and social attitudes, therefore making them better doctors who actually understand that patients make decisions based on what is going on in their hearts and not their heads. So you can be a great surgeon but if you don’t know how to communicate with your patients then what are you defining as great?</p>

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<p>One can study history after dinner,for chrissake.There is no need to financially crucify yourself by actually majoring in it.And why do STEM majors have,on average the highest scores on GMAT,MCAT,LSAT or GRE tests?With the exception of philosophy ,one has to wonder what "critical thinking "skills liberal arts inculcate</p>

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<p>OP needs to take an econ class and understand how markets work. If the liberal arts were worthless then nobody would pursue them.</p>

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<p>I was roving around on the Science and Engineering forums earlier and I found this: [The</a> Real Science Gap | Miller-McCune](<a href=“miller-mccune.com”>miller-mccune.com) If I could find the source post I would credit it.</p>

<p>It’s long. </p>

<p>It also has an incredibly good point that is pertinent to this discussion. Namely that there is no shortage of STEM majors in the US. In fact, it appears that there is a massive glut of students proficient in those areas graduating in the states every year. So, by arguing that we should eliminate liberal arts majors, the OP is effectively working towards an exacerbation of the current situation.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, this glut is complemented by a remarkable lack of any decent jobs in those fields. I’ll admit to being ignorant to this concept as recently as…three hours ago. Like many nascent college students I thought that careers in the sciences almost always paid better than those in the liberal arts (I still believe that this is accurate, at least in some aspects of the business world).</p>

<p>Much like the liberal arts, the sciences have run into the rather distressing issue of supply and demand. Termed a “race to the bottom” (Is there anyone that doesn’t love that phrase? I hear it all the time. Everything’s a race to the bottom these days) in the article, outsourcing and cheap graduate students provide cheap labor for an industry that relies on it. Quote’s on the subject below:</p>

<p>“In fact, three times as many Americans earn degrees in science and engineering each year as can find work in those fields, Science & Engineering Indicators 2008, a publication of the National Science Board, reports. The number of science and engineering Ph.D.s awarded annually in the U.S. rose by nearly 60 percent in the last two decades, from about 19,000 to 30,000, the report says. The number of people under 35 in the U.S. holding doctorates in biomedical sciences, Indicators notes, rose by 59.4 percent — from about 12,000 to about 19,000 — between 1993 and 2001, but the number of under-35s holding the tenure-track positions rose by just 6.7 percent, remaining under 2,000.”</p>

<p>Also described in the article is the effect of this increase in supply of science graduates: a brain drain. The country’s top students, many of whom could be well-suited to careers in the sciences, are staying away from scientific careers. The end result of such a drain can only be a stifling of innovation, something which I imagine has already begun. </p>

<p>Of course, the only logical course of action at this point is to do away with the liberal arts. On a more serious note, I wonder if there are any careers left that aren’t dealing with a glut of qualified applicants? Everywhere there are assertions that a liberal arts degree will lead to a job at Starbucks at worst, and an underpaid white collar position at best. If STEM majors are facing the same pressures…well, it’s looking like quite the dystopian tomorrow. It certainly seems that the surge of college-bound kids countrywide might have damaged the career prospects of a generation.</p>

<p>There’s also a bit in there about the U.S. Educational system that I liked. It describes how the numbers are inherently stilted against the states in many ways, something that I have heard before. The specifics are in the article, but this bit about the diversity of the US also struck me:</p>

<p>“Very significantly, American students are by far the most diverse of any industrialized country, with a “substantial gap in the U.S. between the achievement scores of white students and those of black students … and Hispanic students,” according to Boe and Shin. White Americans on average substantially outscored Europeans in math and science and came in second to the Japanese, but American black and Hispanic students on average significantly trailed all other groups. Raising America’s average scores therefore doesn’t require repairing an educational system that performs poorly overall, but boosting the performance of the students at the bottom, overwhelmingly from low-income and minority families.”</p>

<p>This happens to be one of the reasons that I work in a school in the poorest congressional district in the country. The major issue with US education isn’t wasting time on “pointless” things like the liberal arts, its the inability of the system to adequately educate the entirety of the population in a somewhat equal manner. Of course, that’s a whole other snake pit now isn’t it?</p>

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<p>So many misconceptions here…</p>

<p>“Liberal arts” includes math and science.</p>

<p>What this means is that (1) at least some types of “liberal arts” are essential for STEM-focused education, and (2) a “well rounded liberal arts education” includes math and science (which is often lacking at many schools that otherwise have significant breadth or core requirements).</p>

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<p>This is the most ridiculous argument I’ve ever heard; people taking a class doesnt mean it isn’t worthless…</p>

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<p>In terms of job and career prospects:</p>

<p>Computer Science, Engineering, Math, Statistics, Physics >> Biology, Chemistry</p>

<p>(However, many, particularly physics graduates, end up being employed out of area; for example, the finance industry hires physics graduates for their math skills.)</p>

<p>Biology and chemistry graduates’ job and career prospects are similar to those of most social studies and humanities majors (and worse than economics and business majors). Probably due to the surplus of pre-meds who majored in biology who did not get into medical school.</p>

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<p>Smart move</p>

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<p>Right, right. I suppose that I should have qualified my argument by explicitly stating the glut of those aiming to go into research/lab work. In particular those in the fields of biology, chemistry, etc…</p>

<p>My point being that an excess of those aiming to go into research is inherently bad. It stifles the ability of the country to successfully compete and innovate as people move away from research and into business (as you pointed out). Not that there’s anything wrong with business, enterprise is unsurprisingly one of the other chief drivers of innovation (just a different type of innovation).</p>

<p>So, by banning the non-STEM aspects of liberal arts (thank you for pointing out my error), we run the risk of further damaging our research infrastructure. This should theoretically self-correct with time due to market forces, but market forces aren’t exactly known for their humanistic approach to correction.</p>

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<p>Instead of cutting liberal arts why don’t we cut the # of colleges and the # of students who can go to college. I think it’s kind of stupid when people are saying that “everyone should have a college degree.” By having so many random colleges pop up and awarding degrees we are devaluing the worth of a college degree (especially the for profit colleges).</p>

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<p>What is the purpose of the liberal arts?</p>

59

<p>Villager add Classics major & Phil…over most STEM. </p>

<p>“We can’t overestimate the value of a Classics major. Check this out: according to Association of American Medical Colleges, students who major or double-major in Classics have a better success rate getting into medical school than do students who concentrate solely in biology, microbiology, and other branches of science. Crazy, huh? Furthermore, according to Harvard Magazine, Classics majors (and math majors) have the highest success rates of any majors in law school. Believe it or not: political science, economics, and pre-law majors lag fairly far behind. Furthermore, Classics majors consistently have some of the highest scores on GREs of all undergraduates.” Princeton Review</p>

<p>found a media conglomerate (Ted Turner, founder of CNN)
become Secretary of Defense (William Cohen, Robert Gates)
become Secretary of State (James Baker)
become mayor of Oakland (Jerry Brown)
win a Pulitzer Prize in literature (Toni Morrison)
found an industry-dominant software company (Charles Geschke - Adobe Systems)
write children’s books and become a multi-millionaire (J. K. Rowling)
co-found a multi-billion dollar technology company (David Packard)</p>

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<p>Answer my question?</p>