<p>Are you suggesting that somehow the liberal arts caused these people to be in the powerful positions they are in now? I think it’s more related to their natural intelligence, drive, and perhaps a bit of luck more than anything. </p>
<p>I can accept that there are different aptitudes and talents. I think only a small minority of people can do engineering, it’s not for everyone, and neither is college, in the traditional sense. What I can’t accept is the degradation of standards in the majority of liberal arts programs that allow people with little aptitude and talent to earn a degree. Furthermore, I cannot allow you to push false information onto curious students looking to major in liberal arts at a non-elite University. We CANNOT mislead these students about their potential exit opportunities. The old adages about graduating from college as a guarantor of success in life are no longer true, the world is changing.</p>
<p>@noimagination</p>
<p>By raising standards, you would ensure that access is restricted. You can’t have it both ways. I don’t think raising the standards would make the students “rise up to the challenge”, it would just make them quit. When you speak of critical thinking skills, do you mean IQ? You can’t teach IQ. Smarter people usually have better critical thinking skills. </p>
<hr>
<p>Anyone with sufficient cognitive ability (IQ 130+) can treat himself to a wonderful liberal arts education for a 100 dollar bill at the used book store, or for free at the library. If he can find some fellow intellectuals to discuss the reading with, I think it can equate to a course being taught by a Professor.</p>
Well, sure. I don’t think everyone needs to go to college or pursue a career that requires a high IQ. My point is simply that access should be restricted based on whether one can hack it, not based on other factors that may be controlled by lurking variables such as wealth. Essentially the same is true of engineering and accounting now.</p>
Are you actually being serious? If 8-9% of F500 CEOs are liberal arts, and 40% of college degrees are liberal arts, you realize that is actually a poor performance, right?</p>
<p>No, I don’t. Perhaps too much was read into my comment – no statement that tech majors could not be qualified for upper management, but that liberal arts majors could ALSO be qualified for upper management. </p>
<p>True, dedicated tech businesses will have tech managers up the line. My reference is to larger organizations, where the engineering tech line work is one component of (and reporting up to) a larger complex organization.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How about you apply some of your superior critical analysis talents to that statement? Do you think all LA students have any interest in business careers? Of those that do, what percentage wants to work in a major corporate setting rather than more entrepreneurial, creative settings? There are many paths to fulfilling careers for LA students, this just demonstrates one facet of what LA students may achieve depending upon where they focus their talents. If LA degrees were worthless, shouldn’t the Fortune CEO cohort be zero? ;)</p>
<p>Ah, so it is raw talent, drive and luck for success with the “inferior” majors, but manifest destiny for success resulting from rigorous training with the tech majors? Gotcha.</p>
<p>I wonder if all those WV miners would be alive today if Massey’s CEO wasn’t a number-crunching accounting major. I bet he took some econ courses on externalities as well. Too bad he didn’t value improving himself or see any larger social responsibility in his job description. But, those miners were probably IQ100 or less, so no great loss, eh?</p>
<p>Um, no, I did not imply that it is “manifest destiny” for success with tech majors. They can fail to. It’s just that a STEM education would be far more likely to put a student in place for initial success, a decent paying job. </p>
<p>Clueless Dad, why are you setting up all these straw men all over the place? It’s kind of annoying. And then you constantly try to hint that majoring in liberal arts makes one moral, as opposed to STEM/Business fields, which makes one a bad person? This is confusing. Did your liberal arts education fail to teach you the value of a thing I like to call “reason”? </p>
<p>Liberal arts programs tend to grade liberally and are also centers for liberal indoctrination as well. This is not good for society.</p>
<p>^ Ah, there we have it; the problem is the pinko profs brainwashing students.</p>
<p>I’m quite comfortable with a well-read and educated populace deciding what is good for society – I’d just like to gt more well-read into the education. </p>
<p>But I’ll keep your application for “decider” of what is good for society on file, Mr. McCarthy.</p>
What was your initial point, that liberal arts degrees are superior to tech degrees if one wants to become a F500 CEO? That’s purely false and needs no further comment. If you’re playing the odds then engineering is the best option. There is no other point to make.</p>
<p>I think both sides are being a bit narrow minded and making too many generalizations. Balance is key people, the argument should be whether or not this balance is being maintained, not attacking one another.</p>
<p>I think the LA side is too harsh Engineers - calling them narrow and what not - but at the same time the anti-LA people, IMO, are not valuing the concept of knowledge enough. Economical progress isn’t everything in society, we need civil and social growth as well. </p>
<p>@navy, just a genuine question regarding </p>
<p>“I can accept that there are different aptitudes and talents. I think only a small minority of people can do engineering, it’s not for everyone, and neither is college, in the traditional sense. What I can’t accept is the degradation of standards in the majority of liberal arts programs that allow people with little aptitude and talent to earn a degree.”</p>
<p>does this not apply to all majors, not only liberal arts? There are plenty of state colleges that offer engineering majors as well… Sure its still better than a LA degree from that same school (in terms of financial investment) but it doesn’t necessarily guarantee financial stability either.</p>
<p>^
An engineering major, even at a third-tier University, is going to have decent standards (ABET). Thus the quality difference between a top-tier engineering program and a third-tier engineering program is not as vast as the quality difference between a top-tier liberal arts program (ivy/top LAC) and a third-tier liberal arts program. It doesn’t guarantee financial stability, but it gives much better exit opportunities upon graduation. </p>
<p>Cluelessdad. I would like you to respond to my assertion that liberal arts standards are low at non-elite Universities. What do you think about this? You’ve never addressed this point in any of your responses.</p>
<p>^ <em>sigh</em> I suspect we are just doomed to talking past each other given irreconcilable views of the world – one man’s straw man is another’s concrete example (should dead miners really just be dismissed as a rhetorical device?). Where I previously posted an olive branch that liberal arts majors and technical majors simply have different aptitudes, you responded that technical major aptitudes were superior. It’s a superiority/ranking mindset I simply reject. </p>
<p>The drop out rate at less selective colleges is quite high, reaching 1/3 or greater of admittees; so weeding out does occur. Can a liberal arts major graduate with an unimpressive transcript and be in a world of hurt for future prospects? Sure. I don’t recommend a liberal arts major at all for a casual student. </p>
<p>If it makes you feel better that the tech major would be kicked out and liberal arts grads may escape with a degree with transcripts full of Cs, OK. That does not mean the quality of a liberal arts education available to engaged students at less selective colleges is low (the water is there if the horse wishes to drink). I know of many cases of liberal arts grads from less selective colleges who have gone on to grab the world by the tail.</p>
<p>We are simply philosophically opposed: you focus on minimum objective standards, I focus on human potential and opportunity. I don’t feel the need to burnish my credentials or my kids credentials by artificially limiting access to knowledge. Someone who develops an educated mind does stand out, they are not hard to spot in the crowd.</p>
<p>A prior post stated I wrongly claim technical majors are narrow. They are narrow by design and make no curriculum room for broader study, so not sure why that was a controversial statement.</p>
<p>@clueless, i wasn’t referring to you lol i was just commenting from observation</p>
<p>@navy
“An engineering major, even at a third-tier University, is going to have decent standards (ABET). Thus the quality difference between a top-tier engineering program and a third-tier engineering program is not as vast as the quality difference between a top-tier liberal arts program (ivy/top LAC) and a third-tier liberal arts program. It doesn’t guarantee financial stability, but it gives much better exit opportunities upon graduation.”</p>
<p>Idk where you’re located but I’m in SoCal so I’ll have to use local schools as examples… UCLA is a good school but it isnt exactly a top tier LAC. Nevertheless, I wouldnt say a student from somewhere like CSU Chico with a degree in some type of engineering has better exit opportunities than a UCLA grad with a degree in psychology or polisci.</p>
<p>I gotta agree with clueless, its incredibly biased to say that technical major aptitudes are superior. Lawyers aren’t exactly dumbasses and really, the type of skill required in engineering and some liberal art majors are different. Of course there are extremes, I am in no way advocating, like you said, the pothead who majors in Russian literature. But you can’t’ bash on LA as a whole just because of those outliers. </p>
<p>The same argument could be made for engineering majors. In a sense, its the easy way out. Student A doesnt know what he wants to do, has no real passions, doesn’t really care, just wants to make a decent living and be the average joe and just die. He decides to major in some type of engineering, but doesn’t do so with passion. Graduates, ends up with mid-salary job and stays at that position til the day he retires. Sure, he “contributed” to society by not being a bum, but he hasn’t really done anything to make society any better.</p>
Designing a new bridge or planning a nuclear waste disposal site requires competence, not passion. Obviously your hypothetical engineer would be happier if he loved his job, but the overall societal contribution is not reduced.</p>
<p>However, I think it’s fairly silly to argue over contributions to society. Technical fields would be overwhelmingly victorious in a purely utilitarian calculus, but I suspect that most defenders of the liberal arts would contend (very reasonably) that this is not everything.
Using a tragic incident to imply some failing of countless uninvolved parties is sickening and wrong. Please don’t do that again.
The lack of minimum objective standards makes it difficult for employers to identify liberal arts grads who might contribute greatly to their businesses. I think this is a terrible shame, because as you point out there are countless skilled thinkers who major in the liberal arts at lower-ranked schools and have the potential to achieve highly. But as long as an English major can skate by easily, the degree will not be recognized for the bastion of critical thought it could represent. Look at what is happening in this thread. Many (including, from time to time, myself) are disparaging centuries-old disciplines in the humanities based on the poor performance of students in today’s colleges and universities.</p>
Ummm, I’m quite sure a ChemE from CSULB has better jobs upon graduation than a UCLA grad in psych. Honestly, that’s not even a question in my mind. Average income upon leaving UCLA with a liberal arts degree is probably 40k/year. ChemE from virtually any school is 50K+.</p>
<p>Noimagination, I appreciate your balanced posts and concern for the value of liberal arts education.</p>
<p>However, speaking from experience, it really is not difficult to identify quality liberal arts grad job candidates. For all the claimed “softness” of LA majors, resumes/GPAs/transcripts do reliably identify the students of depth and drive. The non-engaged students simply do not pull As or even consistently Bs in upper division coursework, nor do they tend to communicate well orally (some surprises here) or in writing (rarely surprises here) demonstrating depth and versatility of mind. I have found this to track through selectivity levels of colleges, although grading norms can vary by college (e.g., Bs can be strong grades at some LACs/WCs).</p>
<p>The more difficult question to assess with LA grads is if they truly are motivated to be in a business setting – this is the area where LA grads need to sell themselves to prospective employers since tech/business majors have already pre-sold their willingness to “work for the Man”.</p>
<p>LA are inherently more subjective than tech majors, hence the “soft major” view from many of the tech camp. Kick more marginal students out for the greater good of the LA cause? I’m not concerned that LA will disappear because some weaker students may be in the mix; I’d rather see those students get exposed to some breadth of education rather than none at all. Anyone who does not take the quality of their education into their own hands has only themselves to blame for limited prospects. </p>
<p>And having the state central plan access to intellectual pursuits sends shivers down my spine … (noting that you also disagree with enrollment limitations).</p>
<p>I don’t want “state central planning” of access to intellectual pursuits. In fact, I’d prefer the state stay out of it as much as possible. Seeing as how all the private lenders got axed a few weeks ago in favor of state central planning, my dream is crushed. </p>
<p>A smaller number of weak students would major in liberal arts if they saw the full costs of their decisions. Because of government subsidies, they do not, and even then, still end up with debt. We shouldn’t just throw everyone handfuls of cash because they decide to go to college. </p>
<p>As I mentioned before, a liberal arts education is available at your public library for free, or at your local bookstore for 100$, provided you have the cognitive ability for autodidacticism. I learned more on my own than I ever did in my lower and upper-division liberal arts classes. </p>
<p>The upside I see to receiving a liberal arts education from a real institution rather than on your own is the opportunity for discussion and the free flow of ideas between students and instructors (though this can replicated somewhat in a few online forums<em>not this one</em>). At lower institutions, where a large percentage of the students are not engaged, this type of passionate discussion can be absent, stripping away a vital part of a liberal arts education. I’ve been in too many classes (upper and lower division) that bored me to death, because only a few members of the class had anything productive to say, and the majority of the students only spoke up to ask for simplifications and summaries of topics or to make obvious forced comments. This is not fun, and I would have much rather spent my time huddled in a corner with the homeless people in the public library, they provide much more entertaining intellectual conversation.</p>
<p>"
Quote:
Idk where you’re located but I’m in SoCal so I’ll have to use local schools as examples… UCLA is a good school but it isnt exactly a top tier LAC. Nevertheless, I wouldnt say a student from somewhere like CSU Chico with a degree in some type of engineering has better exit opportunities than a UCLA grad with a degree in psychology or polisci.
Ummm, I’m quite sure a ChemE from CSULB has better jobs upon graduation than a UCLA grad in psych. Honestly, that’s not even a question in my mind. Average income upon leaving UCLA with a liberal arts degree is probably 40k/year. ChemE from virtually any school is 50K+."</p>
<p>I was referring to the exit opportunities that navy is talking about. Exit opportunities, in my opinion, does not necessarily mean avg. income. And like classicskid said, higher income =/= higher level of happiness</p>
<p>@navy, i think its unfair to say that
“As I mentioned before, a liberal arts education is available at your public library for free, or at your local bookstore for 100$, provided you have the cognitive ability for autodidacticism. I learned more on my own than I ever did in my lower and upper-division liberal arts classes.”
The point of a LA (or any, for that matter) professor is to expand our knowledge and give us their insight to what we’re trying to learn. Professors, even at low schools, are professors for a reason. I don’t believe that they have nothing valuable to teach us.</p>
<p>I was talking about money. But you’re right, higher income =/= higher level of happiness. But are you suggesting that a UCLA psych grad has more opportunities for a higher level of happiness than the CSU ChemE grad? Please explain the mechanism by which this superiority of happiness supposedly occurs. I want to know.</p>