<p>Given the discussion of whether or not an "Ivy" education is a fraud, or whether true intellectuals only apply to "serious" colleges (i.e. Chicago, Reed etc.) I'd like to offer a thought. Graduates of any selective college, including the Ivy's, have to fulfill either distribution requirements or a core curriculum. (I understand that Brown is more flexible, but still has requirements.) Regardless of major, these kids are educated in all aspects of a liberal arts education -- analysis, writing, research and quantitative methods. English majors must take some quantitative classes, and science majors take humanities. My hope and expectation is that my son will emerge as a well-educated citizen, conversant in a variety of topics.</p>
<p>In defense of science/engineering types, I have to offer the example of my H, who has bachelors and master's degrees in math. One of the things I liked about him immediately, was that he is a voracious reader. And he read authors that I would never have read for fun -- Solshenitsyn and Dostoyevsky come to mind. He introduced me to other authors over the years, and we have even been know to buy each other the same book for Christmas. I don't think that it's so unusual to find engineers and scientists who have an interest in other subjects -- curiosity is probably a pretty basic characteristic. And I've known people who majored in social sciences who are frustrated engineers at heart. So, like Epiphany, I think it's a mistake to make too many assumptions about people based on their career or college major. Intelligent people are often talented in a variety of areas, and may end up in I-banking, computer science or business for pragmatic reasons as opposed to a lifelong interest in those fields.</p>