Liberal arts education.
Forums › General Discussion › Liberal arts education.-
What are y'all's thoughts on this? Should an engineer be required to take things like psychology and history? I was against it at first, but now I realize the usefulness of it. I might not use the things I learned, but I believe I am a more, well rounded person for taking part in liberal arts classes. I have a better understanding of how things work, and my people skills have increased tremendously.
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I would say yes. You never really know what's going to be useful in your life until the time comes. I didn't know why, as an English major, I was forced to take twelve hours of a foreign language when I was younger. Now it makes perfect sense: there will be many times I'll need to be able to translate a text. So you know. Just because the need isn't immediately apparent doesn't mean it won't be.
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In undergrad i went for business administration. To get my degree I had to pass a art or music class. I do not have an artistic bone in my body and failed 4 classes for "not trying". Much of my money was given away trying to pass a music class that holds no value for a business major.
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Pass or fail, you still learned something, and I believe that should be the main goal of education, not trying to find a lucrative career.
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☣ 🎸ӈɪƖƖßıƖƖγ🎸☣ wrote:
The main goal of public education in HS yes. The main goal of a college I'm paying between $15k-$50k a year should be to train me for my career. Instead they put in liberal arts requirements to keep kids in school longer so they can drive up their income. Then people graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Great systemPass or fail, you still learned something, and I believe that should be the main goal of education, not trying to find a lucrative career.
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Funky Buffalo wrote:
That is why I think our education system needs to be socialized, but the liberal arts needs to stay in it.☣ 🎸ӈɪƖƖßıƖƖγ🎸☣ wrote:
The main goal of public education in HS yes. The main goal of a college I'm paying between $15k-$50k a year should be to train me for my career. Instead they put in liberal arts requirements to keep kids in school longer so they can drive up their income. Then people graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Great systemPass or fail, you still learned something, and I believe that should be the main goal of education, not trying to find a lucrative career.
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☣ 🎸ӈɪƖƖßıƖƖγ🎸☣ wrote:
If I don't have to pay for it then I have no problem with them staying in. If I'm paying to be trained as a engineer and I have to take a physical education class to get my degree that's 🐃💩Funky Buffalo wrote:
That is why I think our education system needs to be socialized, but the liberal arts needs to stay in it.☣ 🎸ӈɪƖƖßıƖƖγ🎸☣ wrote:
The main goal of public education in HS yes. The main goal of a college I'm paying between $15k-$50k a year should be to train me for my career. Instead they put in liberal arts requirements to keep kids in school longer so they can drive up their income. Then people graduate with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Great systemPass or fail, you still learned something, and I believe that should be the main goal of education, not trying to find a lucrative career.
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I'm not arguing that its ok to pay for it, I'm saying that it is essential to make you a more desirable person. Would you want somebody to be an engineer who had no kind is social classes? They might be good at math, but they have no insight to what people want, and how they react to things.
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First hand knowledge - the majority of large corporate employers are looking to hire people that show independent thought and creativity along with the knowledge required to fill the position.
This is the result of ending up with say....20 top of the class engineers hired and not a one is able to come up an idea or solution different from the next. -
Seventyseven wrote:
👍 Liberal arts gives you that creativity and independent thought. Nicely put.First hand knowledge - the majority of large corporate employers are looking to hire people that show independent thought and creativity along with the knowledge required to fill the position.
This is the result of ending up with say....20 top of the class engineers hired and not a one is able to come up an idea or solution different from the next. -
The mode of thinking in which college is there to "prepare for careers" is what has ruined college. If you want to be prepared for a job, go to a technical school or just go work, universities are there for high education not to teach you what you need to do to do some job.
No decent art teacher grades you on how artistic you are. Art is about conceptual thinking and abstraction. Unless you got a super shitty run of teachers, you failed because you didn't really bust the needed ass to improve your skills in any of those areas.
College is too expensive and too easy. Everyone goes now and leaves with tons of debt. College should be essentially free and super fucking hard.
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I'd like to argue that liberal arts requirements should be expanded, as the people don't seem very well equipped for modern life. (In my opinion.) Look at the debt crisis, people should understand debt, inflation, and investing in general. I also wouldn't mind some self sufficiency education so the people aren't as reliant on a system that's been built against them. (Again, only my opinion)
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I'd like to add, I graduated in 2008 with an undergrad degree in business management. My opinion is that my education was inadequate. It didn't prepare me well for business or my life. University education, especially undergrad, is dumbing down at a fast rate. The students are often too immature to make good use of their opportunity, and this hurts the mature and intelligent students because the requirements are soooo easy. Self study and entrepreneurialism is the only way to go for anyone considering business.
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rascuache wrote:
Engineering is super fucking hard, and I spend a lot of time in the lab, working with circuits and different things; however, I do agree that it's too expensive.The mode of thinking in which college is there to "prepare for careers" is what has ruined college. If you want to be prepared for a job, go to a technical school or just go work, universities are there for high education not to teach you what you need to do to do some job.
No decent art teacher grades you on how artistic you are. Art is about conceptual thinking and abstraction. Unless you got a super shitty run of teachers, you failed because you didn't really bust the needed ass to improve your skills in any of those areas.
College is too expensive and too easy. Everyone goes now and leaves with tons of debt. College should be essentially free and super fucking hard.
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Liberal arts degrees do not instill creativity in people. Like funky buffalo said, he failed 4 art classes because he wasn't creative. Engineers are by nature creative (albeit in an engineering way), they don't need the odd finger painting class to get that. Engineering is very technical, and an engineer with a liberal arts degree probably missed out on a few decent classes in favor of being more well rounded. Jack of all trades, master of none. No thanks, i'd like the folks building my house and making my nuclear power to be masters, not jacks.
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But don't even get me started on business degrees. My first degree was a BS in Nuclear Engineering. My second was a BBA in Economics. The econ classes were as intense as any chemistry, physics, or calculus classes (and thank god for all those calc classes I took), but organizational behavior and marketing? Laughable. Can you believe people actually get phd's in common sense? Because of classes like those, business degrees are useless unless you specialize (econ or acct) or continue education (MBA, JD).
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And whoever it was that said college is not to prepare you for a career, yea, maybe for humanities or english students. But Engineering? Physics? Economics? Statistics? Law? Medicine? OJT and tech schools, my ass.
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Art is a hell of a lot more demanding than just "odd finger painting." If that's what one expects then its no surprise that one would fail at it.
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Ojibwe wrote:
That's the one thing you picked up from all that? Wow. Btw, I had to take an art class for my BBA. Got the highest A in the class. Still think it's stupid.Art is a hell of a lot more demanding than just "odd finger painting." If that's what one expects then its no surprise that one would fail at it.
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Would just plain engineering classes teach me to be more literate, or how to think critically?
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Art can give you another way of looking at the world, a good thing for an engineering student to have. Just as engineering, anatomy, biology, and literature can make one a better artist.
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☣ 🎸ӈɪƖƖßıƖƖγ🎸☣ wrote:
For literacy, use a dictionary. Or just read books.Would just plain engineering classes teach me to be more literate, or how to think critically?
Critical thinking isn't taught. Critical thinking is just a fancy way of saying reasoning. Anyone is capable of reasoning their way through a problem. It's one of the defining characteristics of being human. Some people are better at it, some people get better with experience. Some people just stumble through their lives without having the slightest idea what is going on around them.
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★Λubergine★ wrote:
Wow .Respect ✊✊✊But don't even get me started on business degrees. My first degree was a BS in Nuclear Engineering. My second was a BBA in Economics. The econ classes were as intense as any chemistry, physics, or calculus classes (and thank god for all those calc classes I took), but organizational behavior and marketing? Laughable. Can you believe people actually get phd's in common sense? Because of classes like those, business degrees are useless unless you specialize (econ or acct) or continue education (MBA, JD).
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This is a ridiculous argument. I've never heard anyone with a masters degree or above who has actually been through a liberal arts based education argue how great it is. Why? Because once they go on to graduate school they learn how effective a skills based education is. You can live or work in the building that the engineer who did really well in Woman's Studies built, I'll go with the guy who spent 4 years studying advanced engineering.
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I've found that the most important thing is 'giving a shit'.
The people who do 'give a shit' about their job, whatever it may be, are always more successful than those who don't 'give a shit'.
If your liberal arts classes instill this in you, then all well and good, personally I am a sceptic.
To those of you still in education, yet to choose a career, whatever you choose, approach it with the correct attitude and enjoy your work. -
★Λubergine★ wrote:
I don't know if its like this for everybody, but I didn't reach my critical thinking ability until I was asked thought provoking questions. Having an expert teach you is better than teaching yourself IMO.☣ 🎸ӈɪƖƖßıƖƖγ🎸☣ wrote:
For literacy, use a dictionary. Or just read books.Would just plain engineering classes teach me to be more literate, or how to think critically?
Critical thinking isn't taught. Critical thinking is just a fancy way of saying reasoning. Anyone is capable of reasoning their way through a problem. It's one of the defining characteristics of being human. Some people are better at it, some people get better with experience. Some people just stumble through their lives without having the slightest idea what is going on around them.
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I would expect an engineering course to provide problems for you to resolve and not have art and history as prerequisites to being able to complete them. You can still be an arsehole artist - just passing a class does not make you a nice person.
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El Chubaneebre wrote:
It makes you a more knowledgeable person.I would expect an engineering course to provide problems for you to resolve and not have art and history as prerequisites to being able to complete them. You can still be an arsehole artist - just passing a class does not make you a nice person.
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I've got a different perspective to offer. I did have to take the art appreciation and philosophy classes, but I work with a lot of highly educated people (pilots) that didn't go to college, and many of those who did were able to get by with just the necessities.
One could certainly argue that all the extra classes are just to rise tuition costs, and to an extent it does. The other thing it does is developes people's ability to think beyond their area of expertise. The BS philosophy classes I had to take turned out to be among the most beneficial classes I took. I can't say the same about post modern European history, but maybe I just had a bad professor.
Most degrees require 120 some credits, some fields just don't require that much education. Given the choice between marketing and photoshop, even if you are a computer science major, give me marketing. Why? It's timeless. It's a skill that will always have value.
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☣ 🎸ӈɪƖƖßıƖƖγ🎸☣ wrote:
Fair enough, but I did physics and chemistry in my senior years at high school ....... ask me a physics or chemistry question now? (30 years later).El Chubaneebre wrote:
It makes you a more knowledgeable person.I would expect an engineering course to provide problems .... You can still be an arsehole artist - just passing a class does not make you a nice person.
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mojopilot wrote:
Did you just say marketing is a skill?? Hahahahahahaha. Marketing professors do impress me quite a bit. Seriously, they get paid well to work 3 half days a week teaching common sense. Fucking brilliant!Given the choice between marketing and photoshop, even if you are a computer science major, give me marketing. Why? It's timeless. It's a skill that will always have value.
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