That is what someone said to me through the internet… and it made me wonder… if the school is not a liberal arts school, what kind(s) of schools can they be?
tech. MIT, RPI, CalTech. But yeah, it’s a stupid statement. Even the most “liberal arts” liberal arts colleges (Williams, Swarthmore, etc.) have plenty of “practical” degrees that lead to employment.
I’d be interested in the context in which the comment was made.
As I’ve said before, take any opinion, no matter how stupid, dumb, ridiculous, illogical, ignorant, etc, and someone will have it.
Cuz the L word. I’d laugh, except it is so depressing. You’d hate for people to get a broad education in many subjects, you know?
Well, I suppose the good thing is it shows you that commenter’s level of intelligence/experience (or lack thereof) so you know it when there are other comments they make.
I would wonder if they were a teen. (Some) teens really do think they know everything. It’s only laps around the sun and further experience that teaches them differently - assuming they step outside their bubble anyway. Those who don’t can keep their incorrect “knowledge.” None of us (humans) know what we’re not exposed to.
Is this just the ranting of a frustrated parent whose kid can’t find a job? To me, it sounds like an off the cuff remark rather than something that the person really believes should happen.
While I don’t know the full context from where the statement sprung, I’m willing to bet that the culprit for the emotional outburst was the “L” word… :))
What is the “L” word?
Arts, music conservatory, STEM, university, seminary, military are some other types of schools.
Pre-professional schools or vocational schools: business/finance, nursing, engineering.
I am a huge fan of liberal arts education. It teaches critical thinking.
One of the best bankers I have worked with was a philosophy major.
@gallentjill The word before “arts” in the post title.
Ahhh!!! Thanks.
“I am a huge fan of liberal arts education. It teaches critical thinking.”
Exactly. Sounds like the poster of that comment could have benefitted from a liberal arts education. 
Liberal arts could just as well be called conservative arts, since the process is that of conserving knowledge by making it more widely known. Of course, colleges also work to extend knowledge, though that is emphasized more at research universities (but certainly not absent at liberal/conservative arts colleges)
@oldfort - Engineering is not a preprofessional or vocational major, it is a professional major. The “first professional” degree in engineering is a 4 year bachelor’s degree. It isn’t “preprofessional” in the sense that one first attends an undergraduate school then must go on to another one for the first-professional degree (though many engineers have graduate engineering degrees).
Incidentally, all ABET accredited schools of engineering require a significant liberal arts and sciences component. Engineering students do not take only engineering courses.
Have a friend who recruits tech people for $200k+ jobs. His current favorite majors to hire include comp lit and phil.
I put engineering as vocational major, not pre-professional.
@oldfort- Engineering is a learned profession not a vocational trade. It is taught at the undergraduate level as a first-professional major, so it is an undergraduate professional major not a vocational one. If you classify any training or education that contributes to practicing a profession or occupation directly as opposed to pure liberal arts then you also must put medicine, law, architecture, et al into that category as well as they are also “vocational”. Engineering (along with theoretical physics and theoretical/analytical mathematics) is the hardest undergraduate major there is. Nationwide, 53% of those who start out as first-year engineering students do not finish in engineering.
Incidentally, engineering is responsible to a large extent for our current longevity. The lion’s share of advances in medicine which have materially extended human life (artificial organs, automated blood analysis, heart-lung machine, MRI, CAT, electrocardiograph, EEG, ultrasound, robotic surgery and robotic prostheses, nanotechnology in drug design, and many, many others) for example are the result of engineering (and the underlying science of course). The single biggest advance that extended life - remarkably - is not any advance in medicine - but, rather a feat of engineering. The development of sanitary water and sewage treatment systems - which put an end to waterborne diseases which prior to the development of those systems were the primary cause of death in the pre-industrial world.
A “vocation”? Yeah, sure. There is nothing a person does every day that does not benefit from engineering and the work of engineers. LOL.
@engineer80 That does not make it a “liberal arts” major, which is the point of this thread. Physics & math, yes. Engineering, no. And don’t go toe to toe with @oldfort on intellect, you WILL lose.