BigRobSA said:

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AgCMT said:

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I make a good living with my liberal arts education speaking for engineers.

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You only hire mute engineers!?

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Most engineers could benefit from a toastmasters class. When it comes to communicating what is in their head to others, they may as well be mute.

A university degree is not supposed too be a vocational degree. More about who you are rather than what you do.
However, emphasizing "college" as a paradigm for life success, we have WAY too many kids going to university. Probably should be less than half that are going now. This is the real problem. Making all university degrees vocational is not a good thing. And really, other than engineering and education, few degrees have a clear vocation as a result.

The world needs experts in ancient Asian potter (just not very many of them) and any other esoteric degree you can name.

Also, many conflate "liberal arts" and "fine arts". Math and science are liberal arts.

Just like the trope (and John Adams comments) I really wish I'd taken some art appreciation, philosophy and music course.

Supply and demand is broke in education.

Brunner88 said:

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Supply and demand is broke in education.

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The thing I find funniest about these threads is the LA folks defending their degrees against strawmen and not realizing they're exemplifying their lack of critical reasoning.

We all know SOME arts grads do great.

But for every successful arts grad there are unsuccessful ones and folks who failed / dropped out with nothing but debt and lost time.

And the "OJT is all you need" argument is actually an anti credentialing argument rather than a pro-arts one (correlation of high performers doing college and earning well =/= causation).

Again: use private $ how you wish. But the public should have a say in how public $ is spent (state school programs & federal loans)

Engineers are a master race unto themselves. Don't you people know this?

The engineers on TexAgs stand out like a sore thumb.

They're the ones who can't form a complete sentence.

Here's my response to the same brilliant topic two weeks ago:

Quote:

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Yeah! let's get rid of that embarrassing Norman Bourlog Institute at A&M that works wonders on a daily basis in soil and crop technology. The Texas A&M Forest Service? Who needs it. County Ag extension offices? Nope. Looks like a cost center (see point 3).

And that Presidential Library and the associated Bush School with its wide, varied and world-renowned programs and degrees? Bulldoze it.

And who needs graduates with an understanding of economics and the impact of market forces on everything from local allocation of resources in the public and private sectors to international policy making? Nobody, that's who.

And we sure don't want to educate and train the next generation of journalists to be actual journalists and not glorified op-ed writers. Producing professionals who present the facts without "unnamed sources" and actual legwork? Sounds like witchcraft! Let's just get rid of the whole thing instead.

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Get Off My Lawn said:

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Brunner88 said:

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Supply and demand is broke in education.

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But for every successful arts grad there are unsuccessful ones and folks who failed / dropped out with nothing but debt and lost time.

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Sure. But how is this different from any other type of degree? Or for that matter, life endeavor?

BS and MEng in NUEN here. I agree with you and IMO most engineers do.

cecil77 said:

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BS and MEng in NUEN here. I agree with you and IMO most engineers do.

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Respect!

I have a buddy in Newport News with a similar educational background.

cecil77 said:

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Also, many conflate "liberal arts" and "fine arts". Math and science are liberal arts.

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I don't think that is at all true. They are sciences.

I think that for undergraduate purposes, the major difference between a BA and a BS is in the non-major courses. Also, I'm not sure, but I think that a BA in a science field will make it harder to pursue an advanced degree in that field.

You can take Math as a liberal arts degree, but I have only met one person who probably got a BA instead of a BS in Math. In his case, he tried to get the department to allow him to get his MS in Math with a minor in English.

Too much generalization with broad brush on both sides in this thread.

BigRobSA said:

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AgCMT said:

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I make a good living with my liberal arts education speaking for engineers.

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You only hire mute engineers!?

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That really did make me laugh. We do not want the majority of our engineers to speak with our customers. Primarily because we don't want to run them off.

Where I lack in the ability to solve differential equations, they lack in the ability to hold a sales conversation. However, put two engineers together and they won't shut up.

akm91 said:

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Too much generalization with broad brush on both sides in this thread.

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New to the internet?

AggieDruggist89 said:

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Fallacy of the OP is the discount of further studies beyond undergrad education.

Many undergrad LA major students end up going to medicine, law, and finance.

STEM isn't the only way.

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. If they are going into medicine they better be taking a bunch of science courses

B-1 83 said:

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dmart90 said:

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Wrong.

Useless degrees like gender studies or insert minority here studies degrees need to go away. Classic liberals arts degrees are still, and will continue to be, valuable.

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Sir, this is F16 and you will be labeled a "Concerned Moderate" for such logical poppycock

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B-1 83, was your post meant to be pejorative of F16?

RAB87 said:

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TheBonifaceOption said:

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OP doesn't understand western civ.at.all.

You are stuck in this weird paradigm where the chief end of education is employment. God help us.

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The chief end is productivity - the ability to contribute something to society. Which usually does translate to employment. Modern Liberal Arts programs have become nothing but ideological indoctrination centers that result in "destructivity".

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I know your type doesn't really want to hear logic. But in undergrad I majored in History with a focus on terrorism, I have a MA in History focusing on historical memory and how people conceive of their history. I have 2 AA degrees in Middle Eastern languages.

I'd consider all of these to be liberal arts degrees.

I've spent a career hunting terrorists, building relationships with Arab governments and now teaching a new generation of officers how to engage with the region. I directly use the skills I learned from my degrees every single day.

You can generalize all you want about liberal arts degrees, but in a well balanced education, even for an engineer, there is room for subjects like history, polisci, etc.

Your crusade should not be against degrees in the arts, but rather in ensuring that these programs are still fostering an environment that values a variety of views and not just the new woke views that have started to dominate these fields.

Tex100 said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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Fallacy of the OP is the discount of further studies beyond undergrad education.

Many undergrad LA major students end up going to medicine, law, and finance.

STEM isn't the only way.

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. If they are going into medicine they better be taking a bunch of science courses

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They get those in medical school, a broad liberal arts education in undergrad, to include the sciences, helps them better relate to and communicate with a wide range of patients, and understand the nuance of the ethical considerations they have to grapple with in serving their patients.

Not everyone in the world needs to be in healthcare, business or engineering.

oldyeller said:

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Tex100 said:

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AggieDruggist89 said:

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Fallacy of the OP is the discount of further studies beyond undergrad education.

Many undergrad LA major students end up going to medicine, law, and finance.

STEM isn't the only way.

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. If they are going into medicine they better be taking a bunch of science courses

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They get those in medical school, a broad liberal arts education in undergrad, to include the sciences, helps them better relate to and communicate with a wide range of patients, and understand the nuance of the ethical considerations they have to grapple with in serving their patients.

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My Radiologist was an English Lit major.

Not kidding.