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I could not disagree more thoroughly. The fact that I've had the opportunity to learn about a broad range of domains in addition to my technical focus has allo

I could not disagree more thoroughly. The fact that I've had the opportunity to learn about a broad range of domains in addition to my technical focus has allowed me to not only have a better understanding, appreciation, and direction in my interactions with the broader world, it lets me draw parallels between similar scenarios in distinct fields, learn from the experiences of others, see novel solutions to entirely distinct problems, and all in all have a more holistic view of <insert hand waving> Life. I would not be the engineer I am today if I did not spend a portion of my time learning about "what native Americans lived in Virginia" (Would heavily recommend Ken Burns's "The West", speaking of similar topics, that man is a hero to the presentation of american history), and as such I'm a strong advocate for giving _everyone_ the opportunity to learn about things that may not have any direct benefit, not only because you don't know until you've tried (and benefits as I said can be very transitive) but also because learning in and of itself I see as very central to the human experience.

tptacek 10y ago
I don't know that we have to litigate whether general learning is worthwhile; I think we only have to deal with the question of whether it's worth tens of thousands of dollars that millions of incoming college students don't really have. If you could cut a full year off the work needed for a professional degree by losing "which native Americans lived in Virginia", and thus spare millions of students the expense of a full year in college, you would be materially helping not only current college students but also people who are forced to debate whether or not to attend because of the expense.
- existencebox 10y ago
  Let me be clear, I was perhaps addressing the parent more literally than I should have, in the broad sense of cross-domain learning for the sake of learning. I agree wholeheartedly that the opportunity cost of that learning should be taken into account, but my earlier point was made with the implicit assumption that there are methods that don't come with such an overhead. (e.g. choosing to take Latin during my CS degree would not have meaningfully changed my costs had I cut it out, and the benefits have become increasingly clear over the years. Most of this learning, however, I'd say has taken place outside of any institution that incurs a monetary cost, and the minor time-cost is largely what I was defending)

tptacek 10y ago

I don't know that we have to litigate whether general learning is worthwhile; I think we only have to deal with the question of whether it's worth tens of thousands of dollars that millions of incoming college students don't really have. If you could cut a full year off the work needed for a professional degree by losing "which native Americans lived in Virginia", and thus spare millions of students the expense of a full year in college, you would be materially helping not only current college students but also people who are forced to debate whether or not to attend because of the expense.

existencebox 10y ago
Let me be clear, I was perhaps addressing the parent more literally than I should have, in the broad sense of cross-domain learning for the sake of learning. I agree wholeheartedly that the opportunity cost of that learning should be taken into account, but my earlier point was made with the implicit assumption that there are methods that don't come with such an overhead. (e.g. choosing to take Latin during my CS degree would not have meaningfully changed my costs had I cut it out, and the benefits have become increasingly clear over the years. Most of this learning, however, I'd say has taken place outside of any institution that incurs a monetary cost, and the minor time-cost is largely what I was defending)