I do not think the papers I wrote in history class have helped me in the technical writing I do every day. The writing I did in my science classes and my thesis, did however. Learning to present data in readable and coherent way and to demonstrate the scientific validity of the conclusions was not required in humanities classes. Most of those kinds of skills came at work.
Furry- go look at what is happening in Santa Monica and Beverly Hills and Brentwood and some other high rent school districts in California. The vaccination rates there are already at “below herd immunity” levels. Actual kids are actually getting sick. People there cannot rely on their neighbors- since their neighbors have already avoided vaccinating their children.
I know a young doctor who recently told me of an awful day in the ER of his hospital (big, urban teaching hospital in a NY suburb). A child came in-- clearly very ill- the attending went off to test for the six or so obvious potential diagnosis, the tests were ordered, the child- still very ill but getting IV fluids- was about to be subjected to a long round of procedures, when one of the old docs (he’s actually got emeritus status- no longer seeing patients but he runs rounds occasionally and gives lectures) was taking the short cut to the parking lot through the ER and overheard a nurse asking the doctor, “should I tell the parents some of your suspicions?”. So he poked his head into the kids room and went out to announce to the attending and the other doctors “it’s measles”. And went home.
The young doctors were in a tizzy- they had spent less than 5 minutes during their peds rotations on measles so did not recognize the rash. The poor kid- everyone worries about Ebola and Zika and Swine flu and Avian flu or flesh eating bacteria… but nobody under the age of 50 recognizes a case of measles anymore.
So I do believe that if people had any understanding at all of transmission, probability, mortality rates by age cohort, or how a logarithmic or exponential function works- they’d vaccinate their children.
Then they would have to understand economics… (but not trying to derail the thread into politics, as that will get it shut down. So just a general comment. 
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Okay then.
Which colleges allow STEM majors to graduate without taking "liberal arts"courses?
Wait, since math is a liberal art, maybe the question is which STE majors.
Oh wait, since science and engineering require math as pre-req and writing, maybe the question is which T majors.
My STEM kid has about 25% of his requirements as non-math “liberal arts” including 3 writing intensive courses, a year of language, etc. etc. Looking at his other college choices, they were similar.
And then there are the electives some of which he is taking “liberal arts”.
At some colleges, the distribution requirements are met by watered down classes which check off a box. I’ve seen the result of some “Business Writing” seminars and they are bleak. At some colleges, the humanities and social science requirements are provided by “service” departments- i.e. the college doesn’t actually have fully functioning professors of English or History- there are a couple of classes like “topics in the humanities” or “literature throughout the ages”.
Even the professors (and adjuncts- lots and lots of adjuncts) who teach these classes admit that the rigor and depth does not compare to an actual history or social science or literature class.
So just because a kid is required to fulfill a writing requirement doesn’t mean she is going to learn how to write at a college appropriate level.
So its on the kid to make sure they don’t take shortcuts. Good lesson for life. Take personal responsibility for your own life.
Its mostly the E majors that have limited ability to take Lit/hume courses, since the four-year schedule is just too packed with E and E-related courses, there is little room for electives.
For an ABET-style degree from Dartmouth, one has to stay a 5th year., bcos Dartmouth requires all students to complete all of Distribution requirements. In contrast, my son’s best friend, who was an Engineering major at UCLA, had an extremely restricted schedule: 'we want you to graduate in 4 years, so you will need permission to take anything else."
And on the other side, easy geology classes unofficially dubbed “rocks for jocks” or watered down science classes as officially listed as “physics for poets”.
Doubters of evolution and global warming aren’t limited to humanities, social science, and non-STEM majors. I’ve worked with a surprising number of engineering, computer science, and some math/physics graduates who are also staunch opponents of evolution, feel global warming is hooey, and/or are anti-vaxxers. And some graduated from some pretty respectable elite schools including the hallowed HYPSMCC schools.
At one firm where we had a few who held those positions…including a surprisingly large number of STEM graduates who doubted evolution, global warming, and/or were anti-vaxxers, the rest of the colleagues including those who were non-STEM majors regarded them as our firm’s resident “village idiots/flat earthers”.
My older engineering relatives who worked in the engineering/tech field for decades have had similar experiences which still shock them despite the fact they’ve encountered such folks in work and at professional conferences populated by fellow engineering/tech professionals.
Lots of opinions being thrown around regarding Ged Ed stuff. NCSU lists the gen ed requirements for all students, major does not matter. http://catalog.ncsu.edu/undergraduate/academicpoliciesandprocedures/degree/gep/ No ‘crap for credit’ listed. Also worth noting that there is only one option for the writing class. Sure there is variation in the difficultly of the classes listed, but it’s worth noting that many of the classes listed are probably a required class for a degree path somewhere in the university.
(picked NCSU as an example for two reasons - it is predominately a tech/STEM school and I happen to be familiar with it)
I am a staunch, staunch advocate of people getting a strong STEM and Humanities/Social Science background (as someone with both a BA and a BS…), but in regards to this:
Yes, yes I do.
It sounds like you had a poor experience with your humanities classes. That is unfortunate. Many places need to learn how to better present both STEM and Humanities/SS classes to students IMO.
I’m a historian that works with “big data.” I promise that presenting data with scientific validity is absolutely needed in my humanities papers.
^I came to say the above. Any humanities or social science classes that doesn’t teach people how to present data in a readable, coherent way is a bad one. You don’t do this in an obvious way - the kind of ‘data’ you use in a humanities class isn’t exactly the same as the kind of ‘data’ you’d collect in a science or engineering class (although a social sciences class might get pretty close). But you do learn how to form a coherent argument, how to back up your argument with evidence drawn from sources, and some of the mechanical and structural things that take your writing from blah to good (and possibly to great).
Besides, as I tell students every day, you may not realize that the classes you took helped but that doesn’t mean they don’t. An engineer may not spend a lot of time thinking about how the argumentation class they took freshman year or the American constitution class they took junior year actually do help them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t.
Mm, I don’t think that’s how anti-vaccination folks work. The majority of the ones I know of (either personally or from the media) actually try to convince other people not to vaccinate their kids, or will at least be very happy to have an extended conversation about why you should not. In my experience, it’s not that they know about herd immunity and take advantage of it. They don’t think that commonly vaccinated-against illnesses are that serious to begin with (“I had chicken pox as a kid and I didn’t die!”) and they believe that the prevalence of autism and of complications arising from vaccines are far higher than they actually are. Most of them also believe in some link between autism and vaccines…which is often due to a misinterpretation of science and statistics (although sometimes due to simply looking for any false information that will confirm their beliefs).
Anyway, I think it’s good for most college students to have well-rounded educations in all the liberal arts and sciences - humanities majors should certainly have to take math and science classes; math/science/engineering majors should have to take humanities and social science classes; and social science majors should have to take math/science classes and humanities classes.
I stand corrected on the anti-vaxxers. I find it hard to believe that someone would willingly expose their kid to a risk which is easily avoidable- but I bow to the experience of the CC crowd.
Not at all impressed with this article’s position. Limited opportunities for science majors compared to universities that offer more nonscience courses as well. I can’t imagine giving up the wealth of choices a larger school offers.
Universities with great research opportunities trump LAC’s anytime for science liberal arts. Getting to work with a choice of one professor instead of exposure to many in a top ten facility is not as good. Most students will not be doing that at any school. At UW-Madison, a top chemistry grad program then and now, we read a book and wrote a short paper for each semester of our freshman honors chemistry courses. Topical for the time- Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring one semester and The Double Helix the next. Had to write a research paper for Organic chemistry as well. Spent time doing work in grad labs, plus a senior honors thesis. My friends in the major and I all had very different lab experiences. Now they offer more research opportunities for undergrads at UW. Decades later son was able to take several grad level courses in math. He also took several unrelated humanities classes- such as a semester course about Nietzsche after two other philosophy courses.
Being exposed to a variety of experiences within a field is better than working with the only person in it. Once in the major students find themselves part of that world. Able to get to know professors and to have others with the same interests.
Totally agree people forget sciences are a liberal art. Wish more science was required of social science and humanities people. Science majors tend to take electives in their fields beyond college requirements while the converse doesn’t seem to be true. How many non science majors go beyond the science requirements compared to those in the sciences who go beyond the breadth reqs in nonscience areas???
They were also able to cite ex-Dr. Andrew Wakefield’s medical study making that link before that study was pulled from a British journal for fraud and his medical license pulled for misconduct arising from that fraud:
"The assumption always seems to be that STEM majors can’t write, think or do anything beyond their field. " - Whose assumption? I never heard of it. Most of them will need to write a lot and they better know how and they do!
“in-depth philosophical courses than your average bio” - I do not know what is that and who needs it aside from some brain washing that is unfortunately going on at many colleges. Good luck to those who thinks that Bio is an easy thing that does not involve any writing, I can only laugh at this notion. And why all medical exams involve tons of essay questions - supposedly addressed to those who absolutely cannot write? How about all medical research, all those huge research papers, again, written by those who cannot write? This does not make any sense whatsoever How about huge manuals for engineering documentation, again, written by those who cannot write? And where the fact that only specific colleges can produced good writes came from? Frankly, good HS teacher is plenty enough to instill great writing skill, much more than enough.
The author seems to conflate two different issues: 1. the value of non-science liberal arts subjects for STEM majors and 2. an apprentice/mentor model of learning to do research (which in some cases might be more possible in the setting of a small liberal arts college focused on undergrads).
Similar to other engineering programs, but you’ll note that EE, for example, only requires ~4 lit/hume/social science courses. Some of the other General Ed requirements can be fulfilled by other sciency-courses. Of course, a EECS double would have little no room for electives.
My points was not that humanities classes were not valuable, they were and I learned a lot. But I did not learn how to write the kinds of reports that I use in work every day in a class on anthropology or history. Yes, the task of organizing my thoughts and finding the information to support my position was required, but the data did not have to presented in the same way. I learned scientific writing in my science seminar courses, in writing a thesis and in a UC extension technical writing class I took many years ago as well as on the job. I had a mostly very good experience with humanities classes, but my major was credit intensive and I did a semester off campus, which did not leave me a lot of time to take classes outside my major.
Everyone needs to learn how to write. Not sure that high schools or colleges are doing a great job with that.
"don’t think that’s how anti-vaccination folks work. The majority of the ones I know of (either personally or from the media) actually try to convince other people not to vaccinate their kids, or will at least be very happy to have an extended conversation about why you should not. In my experience, it’s not that they know about herd immunity and take advantage of it. They don’t think that commonly vaccinated-against illnesses are that serious to begin with (“I had chicken pox as a kid and I didn’t die!”) "
This is exactly right. They don’t understand herd immunity, which is why they are doubly stupid. A truly smart anti vaxxer would shut the heck up about vaccines, quietly not vax their kid, and keep it to themselves and stay protected as a free rider. The fact that they go around telling others not to vax, too, shows that they don’t even have that common sense to free ride.