The Death of Liberal Arts?

[PBrad1792]

<p>

Plenty of lib arts majors go on to be very “successful”. Is it a straightforward path to employment? No. But it doesn’t doom you to McD’s for the rest of your life. My father was an english major; he’s now a surgeon.

</p>

<p>This has been my point the entire time. Most people I know that are in the humanities either want to teach the subject at the secondary school level, or go on to Law/Med school. Then of course there are the academics who want to get a PhD in their chosen field. There are many who don’t have a well thought plan, but the same goes for science and math majors, which are, coincidentally, part of the liberal arts :[Liberal</a> arts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts]Liberal”>Liberal arts education - Wikipedia)</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

If you think my post was one-sided, maybe you should go back and read it again, especially if you think I am slighting engineers. All I said was I respect the skills gained from an engineering major over the money. Just stop.

</p>

<p>

I’d say you are much more one-sided in your approach.

</p>

<p>

Are you going to tell me that more people go into liberal arts without a “strong view towards” what they can do in the future as compared to engineering? I’ll respectfully disagree. (see engineering drop out rates.) Good engineering students have bright futures. Good LA students have bright futures. We agree on this. So maybe your argument should not be against liberal arts, but bad students in college?

</p>

<p>Let me be really, really clear. The reason I am frustrated with posts like yours is that you’re getting too entangled in the liberal arts vs. engineering battle, and you’re pointedly responding with criticism of the people who call the liberal arts useless.</p>

<p>They have a point, and responding that every major has a point, both engineering and liberal arts, is not taking that point. People enter the libera arts naively.</p>

<p>Engineers can be naive too, and I don’t claim that one should major in engineering instead of the liberal arts. </p>

<p>I do NOT believe that people who do well in the liberal arts and people who do well in engineering both have a good future necessarily. The people in engineering have a much better chance. Being extremely talented at reciting tons of good stuff about English literature doesn’t matter to much of the working world, and it’s crisp, sharp communication skills and a desire to get the dirty work done that matter. </p>

<p>A liberal arts major CAN become marketable if spending significant time trying to become so, but the culture and nature of many majors pushes people in that direction a lot more.</p>

<p>I do not like the “one-sided” criticism you gave of narrow-minded folk who want to banish liberal arts. If you want to be balanced, criticize both that narrow-mindedness and acknowledge that those who make claims about uselessness have a good point.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

BigEastBeast has a bizarre fixation on the liberal arts that’s a bit pathetic really. I find his hysterical protestations against any form of humanities education quite amusing. I can understand thinking the liberal arts aren’t useful; what I don’t understand is the impulse to lead a crusade against them. Most sane humans realize a society full of engineers would be a bit dreary.

</p>

<p>BigEast can be extreme, but the reason for a “crusade” is that people get really complacent about developing marketable skills. </p>

<p>You don’t have to be an engineer to be marketable. BigEast is not an engineer, I think he majored in PoliSci.</p>

<p>It is NOT so easy to major in something that has no relation to marketability and make yourself marketable, because you’re not involved in the correct network, and you have to keep yourself extra on your toes. It’s fine if you do this, but a “crusade” is not such a bad thing…as long as it doesn’t misrepresent facts. If it does, then sure, correct the erring individual.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

It is harder to come from a LA background, but it is far from impossible for a motivated person. People saying those with LA degrees end up working for 12 dollars an hour and other complete fallacies just really anger me.

</p>

<p>And I agree with this. It angers me too, because it’s wrong. But “crusades” against the uselessness of liberal arts have their place too, because I think a little shaking up can get people to start thinking about how to be marketable.</p>

<p>Hearing a nice sentence like “all majors are good, you can succeed if you try hard” is kind of ridiculous. The real message is that all subjects are beautiful, but you have to acknowledge some are useless in the real world, and make yourself marketable in another sense.</p>

<p>One way to communicate this is an extreme “Don’t major in the liberal arts!” sermon, which shouldn’t be taken at face value of course, but is handing out a message worth thinking about for some people.</p>

<p>Misrepresented facts like “you will be serving fries if you major in the liberal arts” are also bad, and I’m not saying one should condone them.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

There are many who don’t have a well thought plan, but the same goes for science and math majors, which are, coincidentally, part of the liberal arts :

</p>

<p>Agreed. To all of the defensive folk out there - I’m just as scathing to math majors. I don’t just sing a nice little tone like “everything has its place, don’t criticize!” </p>

<p>The real message is that only a few people will ever get paid to make advances in math theory, and it’s very worth thinking about how one is going to make one’s math skills marketable. A math major is much more easily trained for many practical positions requiring quantitative background than, say an English major, but nevertheless a math major has to do quite a bit. </p>

<p>I do not believe in the “just do what you love” philosophy, because it doesn’t have to work long term - doing what you love for 4 years doesn’t have to maximize your happiness for the rest of your lifetime. It MAY, but it has a significant chance of leading down a tougher path, and one should think hard about that.</p>

[BIGeastBEAST]

<p>I certainly have no crusade, when it comes down to it - I really don’t care what you people major in.</p>

<p>But, this forum is meant to debate and discuss - so I do my part.</p>

<p>Also, I don’t have some odd fascination with Engineering, I think most other people are the ones always using Engineering as an example. I’m always recommending Finance, IT, MIS, Accounting, Pharma, Biology, Chemistry, Math, Physics, ect. - but any form of engineering is also good.</p>

<p>Because those all provide you with solid skills, and are diverse. Lots of job opportunities lay in all of them.</p>

[BIGeastBEAST]

<h2>There are many who don’t have a well thought plan, but the same goes for science and math majors ~ TonyBallioni</h2>

<p>That may be true, but even if they don’t have a “plan”, they still get a skill - which isn’t true in the LA majors. They still have marketable knowledge, and a background that is in demand. So, they may not have a plan, but at least they have options.</p>

<p>A Math major may not have a “plan”, but at least he has the skill to do several jobs - Auditing, Actuary, Software, ect. Ditto goes for Science majors. They may have no plan, but at least they have a degree that can be directly applied, whether it be in business, government, or research. I know a bunch of Bio and Chem majors who do great in Pharma Sales and Pharma Regulatory Affairs.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

but at least he has the skill to do several jobs - Auditing, Actuary, Software, ect. Ditto goes for Science majors. They may have no plan, but at least they have a degree that can be directly applied

</p>

<p>Math majors may need to do a little more than complete a math degree to be marketable. They probably need to learn to make their math skills marketable.</p>

<p>A math major who knows how to program very well and knows statistics, stochastic processes, etc really well, is probably quite exceptionally marketable.</p>

<p>EDIT - to be clear, this is not quite true:</p>

<p>

at least they have a degree that can be directly applied

</p>

<p>They’re just good skills that are on the way to being applied. You have to take the right kinds of training in math, science, etc to be ready to apply them. </p>

<p>On the other hand, engineering is already an applied science, so it’s more directly useful.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>However, it goes without saying that a major in math is FAR more on the road to being marketable than one in English…which, for those who like the subject out there, I will note to be one of my own loves as a subject.</p>

[BIGeastBEAST]

<p>Yeah, I agree with ya.</p>

<p>All I’m saying is that if I were graduating tomorrow, I’d much rather be holding a college diploma in one of the majors I listed, rather than a LA major (lol which I have).</p>

<p>If we are talking about practicality (lets subtract engineering for a second), and I had to pick one major that provided a good overall basis of skills and a general foundation of knowledge, I think I’d pick MIS.</p>

<p>It’s very versatile. You can use it for IT work, government, and general business. When I made hiring decisions I liked MIS because even if they weren’t interested in actually doing tech related job, I knew they had the aptitude.</p>

[Sligh_Anarchist]

<p>

When I made hiring decisions I liked MIS because even if they weren’t interested in actually doing tech related job, I knew they had the aptitude.

</p>

<p>I don’t mean to be confrontational or aggressive, but what kind of position were you in to make hiring decisions? Aren’t you an MBA student with only a few years of experience? That’s what I’ve gathered from reading these threads – please correct me if I am wrong!</p>

[BIGeastBEAST]

<p>^^^^ I am a current MBA student.</p>

<p>I graduated gollege at 22, I’m almost 29 now.</p>

<p>In my previous job, I hired for the division I supervised. The final say went to my boss, usually two interviews - but my recommendations always stood.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

I don’t mean to be confrontational or aggressive, but what kind of position were you in to make hiring decisions? Aren’t you an MBA student with only a few years of experience? That’s what I’ve gathered from reading these threads – please correct me if I am wrong!

</p>

<p>I wouldn’t judge someone by his current status. A lot of things BigEast says, I hear from experienced people who have gone through the hiring process. Further, having been at the stage where he actually went through interviews and stuff like that, bigEast may be familiar with the issues of getting one’s career started (as opposed to general hiring decisions, which have to sort through candidates who have considerably more work experience … at which point your major really doesn’t matter).</p>

<p>

If we are talking about practicality (lets subtract engineering for a second), and I had to pick one major that provided a good overall basis of skills and a general foundation of knowledge, I think I’d pick MIS.

</p>

<p>I guess the impression I get about hiring is if you have a major that certifies you to have skills related to the type of person they’re looking for, then it comes down to specific fit. E.g. someone I know who was hired at Google, with a math degree, who had lots of programming training, along with significant internships, and generally a bright fellow. His job doesn’t explicitly involve math, but it got him in the doorway, and his hard work making himself marketable got him through the doorway and into the position.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>

if I were graduating tomorrow, I’d much rather be holding a college diploma in one of the majors I listed, rather than a LA major

</p>

<p>Sure, I like my math major, I just know for a fact that you have to do some serious work to make sure you’ll get a good job. I guess you surely know all this, but for the sake of newbies to this topic, I felt I should put it out there that a math major is hardly a ticket to a good job to someone who doesn’t put in a lot more effort being marketable. If concentrating primarily on applied things, it’s a lot easier.</p>

[BIGeastBEAST]

<p>^^^^</p>

<p>One benefit math majors have is that many people aren’t mathematically inclined, and tend to believe that people who are mathematically inclined, especially people who can do a full major in math, are exceptionally intelligent.</p>

<p>I’m not real familiar with a math program, but I do work with several people who majored in Statistics or Applied Statistics, and it seems to be a pretty solid major. In the business world, statistics are often the product that projects are based on and decisions are made from.</p>

<p>It seems very practical.</p>

[mathboy98]

<p>^ Yeah, that’s the thing, anyone with a math degree who learns statistics + some good amount of programming is set to at least be trainable for a pretty good job.</p>

<p>That’s true from what I hear too. Even engineers and computer science majors at my school, which is very solid for those majors, tend to think someone aiming to do serious studies in math is very exceptional or something, having struggled with the more basic material themselves at some point. This holds true even more of a PhD. And these remarks probably carry over to some extent to a physics theory person, because I know plenty of engineers are terrified by the higher level physics courses, if indeed they have to take them.</p>

<p>The thing is, a math program in the standard sense teaches you “how to think” while not teaching real world data analysis, programming, etc, which are important to make day to day decisions, and actually implement ideas into software that can then be used. This transition is very doable for a motivated individual, but not one every theoretically oriented person is willing to make.</p>

<p>This is not a good excuse not to major in math, because indeed, math majors tend not to require very many courses, and in order to develop the reasoning facility (which is certainly something most of the quantitative world lacks) and familiarity with how to actively think about the subject (rather than learn the names of a few results and throw them out), this seems to be the minimum. But to <em>actually be able to apply math</em>, I think you have to be pretty serious. And I’m talking math the way it’s taught in school, not a somewhat related degree such as the Statistics degree. It’s almost certain that graduate training is necessary, because it takes a very long time to get a feel both for the subject math and how to actually use it. By nature, the training begins with fundamentals, because it kind of has to - the subject is fundamentally not an applied discipline.</p>

<p>I make this long post, because the transition from basic math => university level significant math reasoning => using THAT level of reasoning in applications is actually a very, very significant leap. I think to put it this way, you need to spend several years training in math and sampling applications of it, and then do graduate training (though certainly not necessarily a PhD) in some area where you want to actually apply the subject specifically, and deeply study how to do so.</p>

<p>Now there’s another story which says that as a math major, you can forget about math and learn other skills like stats and programming, and get a good job <em>because you are perceived as smart and have applicable skills</em>. This is also true.</p>

[BIGeastBEAST]

<p>Math and Science majors also do a much better job at demonstrating aptitude. The nature of the programs requires a person who has a high aptitude, and it is assumed that to complete the coursework the individual is intelligent.</p>

<p>This doesn’t mean personable, sharp or likeable, just intelligence and strong aptitude. Of course, it takes an interview to get a feeling for their persona and aptitude for the actual job (for example communication and interpersonal skills if needed). No one gets hired sight unseen.</p>

<p>This is much more important for your first job, first march into the workplace. After that, applicants are really measured by their performance in an interview, previous work performance, skill, and work related training.</p>

<p>Work related training is often overlooked on this board, msotly because many posters haven’t yet required any. But it is a major component of career advancement, as many of you will see in the future.</p>

[PBrad1792]

<p>

The nature of the programs requires a person who has a high aptitude, and it is assumed that to complete the coursework the individual is intelligent.

</p>

<p>This comes across as a bit arrogant. The nature of foreign language programmes requires significant discipline and time commitment, do you not think that people recognize this as well? Like I said, reading Homer and Virgil in the original is just as hard as mastering Calculus, and probably takes more time. People realize this too. Same with modern languages. How many times have you heard someone say “He speaks x-number of languages!” to describe a persons intelligence? The idea that science and maths are perceived to be harder than all of the humanities is BS. </p>

<p>I know a bunch of people who are amazing at math, but avoid languages because it intimidates them. Classics, Comparative Literature, Foreign Language degrees are all difficult, and perceived to be difficult.</p>

<p>EDIT: Just to be clear, my problem with your statement is that it seems to imply that only maths and sciences require competence and that the public senses this, which is a fantasy.</p>

[BIGeastBEAST]

<h2>Like I said, reading Homer and Virgil in the original is just as hard as mastering Calculus, and probably takes more time. ~ TonyBallioni</h2>

<p>You are arguing EXTREME examples. Few LA majors have that sort of language ability, in fact they represent an extremely small minority.</p>

<p>I respect language skills (I don’t lump them into the useless category at all), but your example represents such a small percentage of LA majors, it’s not really relevant.</p>

[PBrad1792]

<p>^Classics majors at are required to read Homer and Virgil in the original, before moving on to advanced study in Latin and Greek (Chapel Hill requires 5 advanced Latin courses beyond Virgil and 3 advanced Greek beyond Homer for a Classics major with a Greek and Latin concentration and Latin emphasis). If they want to move on to the PhD a sound reading knowledge of French and German are also required.</p>

<p>Depending on the school, Comparative Lit. majors are required to be able to read literature from 2-3 different languages.</p>

<p>Then you have the standard foreign language majors.</p>

<p>I am not arguing an extreme. Language is at the heart of the liberal arts. I will grant you that there are not as many Classics or Comparative Lit. majors around, but standard foreign languages are in this category, and all of the above majors combined are certainly not an extreme. Also, I have heard you call Classics and Comparative Lit. useless before.</p>