<p>idad, that sounds good but sounds like poppycock to my ears. The difference between being educated and being trained is largely in the mind of the student in most instances. And some professions require base level competencies to produce able professionals. In my field of engineering if the students do not learn these skills our buildings may collapse, roads will be unsafe, our gadgets will be unreliable and our aircraft will be more likely to fall out of the sky.</p>
<p>I do not consider any of my engineering students to be any less educated than their peers in the College of Liberal Arts. Why should having an understanding existencialism be considered superior to understanding the theory of indeterminant structures and compressible laminar flow, knowledge which keeps the plane you fly up in the sky? They certainly are different but one is not superior to the other in my mind.</p>
<p>Are some of my students better writers and communicators that most of their LAC peers? Of course. And many students improve these skills during college by completing both some of the engineering and gen elective course work. In fact I suspect that most engineering student have an opportunity to develop team project commication/cooperative capabilities than their LAC counterparts.</p>
<p>I am not anti-LAC by any stretch of the imagination, encouraging my son to apply to more LAC's than research universities(4 vs 3) even though he was leaning towards a compsci major. And I agree that their curricula provide their students with a wonderful education.</p>
<p>What I find objectionable is the snobbery which some, not all, LAC proponents exhibit when they consider that education in the liberal arts is somehow superior to other academic endeavors. And the disproportionate numbers of LA students majoring in economics and the bio sciences is indicative that their training, er education, has one eye firmly fixed on a post graduate professional objective.</p>