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I think every engineer or applied scientists should be expected to take a reasonable "liberal" education subset - including history, literature and law. I know

I think every engineer or applied scientists should be expected to take a reasonable "liberal" education subset - including history, literature and law. I know that this is very much not in vogue with the latest group-think in college, but I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus. Not because you may need to do a differential or integral, but rather because it teaches you to think differently. The thing that scares me more then anything else is that my view is that The anti-intellectual authoritarianism has spread even to college campuses, where liberal educations are now viewed as tools of oppression rather then as the minimum expectation for a well-informed citizen.

coldacid 8y ago
There needs to be at least a solid understanding of the trivium along with ethics before anyone should be allowed to graduate with any degree (whether for arts, humanities, or STEM). And yes, I think that basic calculus might be a good thing to add to that as well. The problem with a liberal education doesn't lie so much with the subjects of curriculum as much as how leaders in the humanities abuse their knowledge and positions for their own authoritarian leanings. This is what fuels the anti-intellectualism of today which has lead to the latest wave of populist authoritarianism. An educational system geared towards making money off of sheepskin instead of actually enlightening people doesn't help either.
AdamM12 8y ago
I'd say the anti-intellectual authoritarianism has emanated from campuses. That being said when I first went to college I also held the view that mandating some level of humanities was important to be "well-rounded", and on some level still think this is true, but I've since soured on the people who say we need more B-school & Engineering schools students taking these classes to promote so called "critical thinking" as I've felt that "skill" is more a personal mentality than any thing taught in a class. That and I think it is rent seeking by the schools who have less economic resources. Also part of my souring is, which I think you are alluding to, that it seems to be more about indoctrination than anything else.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  No... “rounding” is mostly about being able to coherently think and write, which requires structured practice to achieve competence or mastery. The median engineer is awful at both. I do agree that the dumbing down of universities comes from universities, and the prominence and political power of nonsensical areas of study drags everyone down.
  - cncrnd 8y ago
    The median engineer is not able to coherently think and write? Is the median humanities grad better able to do this? I don't see much of a difference. The majority of engineers I've interacted with have actually been well adjusted people who can coherently think and write.
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      You probably work with a lot of engineers. The time a CS graduate spends learning algorithms and honing fluency in computer languages is spent by a history major reading, analysis and writing papers. On average you tend to be better at things you do a lot. It’s not to say the average engineer cannot think and write, but those aren’t skills you select for. In some cases, you may need engineering talent who can not communicate in your language! Engineers write less and for a different purpose. A technical writer, newspaper journalist and novelist approach a similar action (writing) with a different approach and methodology. There’s a reason why you see attorneys in leadership roles outside of their domain than other professions that attract smart, diligent workers. (There are few doctors in politics or non-medical corporate leadership positions, for example.) They tend to be better at broad-scope analysis and zoom in a deeply technical area with consultative assistance, and they tend to be better able to communicate the outcome of that analysis. They tend to be humanities or social science majors.
  - AdamM12 8y ago
    Median any position is probably not terribly great at it. Agnostic of engineering imo. I do think you need structured practice to get good at anything but I don't necessarily believe that needs to come from a mandated class, i.e. structured self study, nor do I think mandating the class would actually get people to absorb the material. I'd imagine you probably attended some liberal arts classes that had a subset, if not majority, of people who were there simply because it was mandated. Those persons aren't necessarily interested and because of that won't put forth the effort so why waste the teachers time or the students through coercion? Does one really need to master any given skill to "succeed" in life? I think simply being good enough at any given thing you live a good life is a fine bar to set.
scythe 8y ago
>I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus. I agree that mathematics is underappreciated by most people who work in the humanities. But I strongly disagree that they should learn calculus. In fact, I would argue that calculus is the problem with the perception of math in the social sciences. There are plenty of types of math that could potentially be applied in sociology and its variants, particularly mathematical logic and graph theory. Statistics needs no introduction. Calculus by contrast deals with continuous changes in well-defined quantities, which are not like anything a sociologist encounters. I suspect that the reason that many sociologists believe that most of mathematics is basically an extended version of calculus -- as seen in this essay: https://www.edge.org/conversation/rory_sutherland-this-thing-for-which-we-have-no-name https://www.edge.org/conversation/rory_sutherland-this-thing... -- is because a social scientist's primary interaction from math is by way of economics, who do use calculus to track nearly-continuous changes in well-defined quantities. However, economics is unique among the social sciences in that the phenomena it seeks to describe can be readily quantified. This leads to the mistaken belief, evident in the article, that mathematics is only able to contribute to the study of things which are easily quantifiable, which is not true at all! Students in sociology should really be taught statistics and discrete math, with special attention to any techniques that may be useful in describing human behavior.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  Statistics needs no introduction. Calculus by contrast deals with continuous changes in well-defined quantities, which are not like anything a sociologist encounters. Calculus comprises the foundation of statistics. Without calculus you can learn to apply statistical experiments, but you can’t really understand what’s going on. That makes for brittle insight. Just because the set of all humans is strictly finite doesn’t mean the underlying continuity in statistical theory ceases to exist. A two semester sequence of single and multivariable calculus is really not a lot to ask in return for delivering a robust understanding of statistics. It’s not like demanding knowledge of analysis, topology, and measure theory before learning rigorous probability theory.
  - glup 8y ago
andrepd 8y ago
I agree very much. It has always stung a nerve with me, the fact that if you are a scientist with no interest or knowledge in humanities or arts you get (rightfully) labeled an ignorant and a reductionist obsessed solely with his science; yet the reverse, if you have a background in the humanities and know nothing about science or mathematics, is somehow okay or even celebrated in certain circles. You can proudly declare you "understand nothing of that horrible complicated maths and physics". Boggles the mind. Many lawyers, artists, literature scholars, historians, philosophers, etc, simply don't mind being stuck inside a bubble and inside a myopic way to see the world. A different perspective, such as that offered by mathematics, of rigour and analysis, would do them a world of good, so as not to be stuck inside a bubble/echo chamber.
- Fomite 8y ago
  One of the things that drove me nuts at university is how much some STEM students mocked a particular set of "...for humanities" math classes without knowing their content. There were some great applications of mathematical thinking that people were shamed about taking.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    Can you give an example?
    - firebones 8y ago
      I'm not who you are asking, but this book https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Experience-Phillip-J-Davis/dp/0395929687 https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Experience-Phillip-J-Dav... hits some of the philosophy of math. It's been a long time since I've dipped into it, but IIRC, it puts mathematical discoveries and exploration into more of a cultural and philosophical context. I could see this being sampled for a good crossover course that would cover humanities requirements for STEM, and STEM requirements for humanities.
    - Fomite 8y ago
      There's a course called "Math for Social Choice", for example, that focused on how voting works from a mathematical sense in one section, for example.
Chathamization 8y ago
> liberal educations are now viewed as tools of oppression rather then as the minimum expectation for a well-informed citizen. I often hear people say that a college education is about opening the mind, being able to think critically, being able to challenge one's own beliefs, etc. But then I often find the people make those claims not even able to consider the possibility that many people people achieve that without a college education. We should consider that there might be a certain amount of group think and signaling involved, and that a college education might not improve one's critical thinking skills as much as is often assumed.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  I've never understood how a liberal education was supposed to enable critical thinking. In my experience, a STEM education enabled it, because while you can argue any point of view in liberal arts, you cannot pretend that the bridge you designed didn't fall down when it did. You're forced to deal with reality which doesn't care about your biases, fallacies, and dearly held misconceptions.
tzs 8y ago
> I think every engineer or applied scientists should be expected to take a reasonable "liberal" education subset - including history, literature and law. I know that this is very much not in vogue with the latest group-think in college, but I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus That can work. I believe that because you've just described MIT and Caltech. MIT requires everyone to take at least 8 semesters of arts, social science, or humanities course per semester, which works out to on average one such course per semester over the course of their degree. This must include at least one from each of those groups. They must also pick one from a list of several available "fields of concentration" in the arts, social science, or humanities, and take 3 or 4 courses in that field of concentration. Caltech requires 108 units of humanities or social sciences, at least 27 of which must be humanities and 27 of which must be humanities. Caltech has 3 terms per academic year, so that works out on average to 9 units a term. A Caltech unit corresponds to the number of hours a course is expected to take a week (lectures + labs + homework and reading), and 9 units is about an average course. In other words, it is similar to MIT: you are taking at least one such class a term, and it takes about as much time as your typical engineering or science class. On the calculus front, MIT requires everyone to take single and multivariable calculus. Same at Caltech. Both also require everyone to take physics through most of what is covered in, say, the Feynman Lectures, and chemistry.
- nradov 8y ago
  Harvey Mudd College has a similar requirement for STEM majors to take a range of humanities courses.
- hodgesrm 8y ago
  In addition to the study requirements you mention the MIT Hayden Library is one of the best 'small' humanities libraries I have ever visited. I did a lot of homework there for a summer class in technical Japanese in 1990. You can take study breaks by wandering around the stacks, which not large but amazingly well selected. Virtually every book you put your finger on is something worth reading. The Hayden Library opened up a whole world of biblical studies through the works of Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, which were sitting in the shelves a few feet away from my table. It's colored my impression of MIT ever since.
trentmb 8y ago
> but I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus. I always manage to astound people by mentioning that Marx independently developed foundations of differential calculus[1]. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_manuscripts_of_Karl_Marx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_manuscripts_of_Ka...

coldacid 8y ago

There needs to be at least a solid understanding of the trivium along with ethics before anyone should be allowed to graduate with any degree (whether for arts, humanities, or STEM). And yes, I think that basic calculus might be a good thing to add to that as well. The problem with a liberal education doesn't lie so much with the subjects of curriculum as much as how leaders in the humanities abuse their knowledge and positions for their own authoritarian leanings. This is what fuels the anti-intellectualism of today which has lead to the latest wave of populist authoritarianism. An educational system geared towards making money off of sheepskin instead of actually enlightening people doesn't help either.

AdamM12 8y ago

I'd say the anti-intellectual authoritarianism has emanated from campuses. That being said when I first went to college I also held the view that mandating some level of humanities was important to be "well-rounded", and on some level still think this is true, but I've since soured on the people who say we need more B-school & Engineering schools students taking these classes to promote so called "critical thinking" as I've felt that "skill" is more a personal mentality than any thing taught in a class. That and I think it is rent seeking by the schools who have less economic resources. Also part of my souring is, which I think you are alluding to, that it seems to be more about indoctrination than anything else.

Spooky23 8y ago
No... “rounding” is mostly about being able to coherently think and write, which requires structured practice to achieve competence or mastery. The median engineer is awful at both. I do agree that the dumbing down of universities comes from universities, and the prominence and political power of nonsensical areas of study drags everyone down.
- cncrnd 8y ago
  The median engineer is not able to coherently think and write? Is the median humanities grad better able to do this? I don't see much of a difference. The majority of engineers I've interacted with have actually been well adjusted people who can coherently think and write.
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    You probably work with a lot of engineers. The time a CS graduate spends learning algorithms and honing fluency in computer languages is spent by a history major reading, analysis and writing papers. On average you tend to be better at things you do a lot. It’s not to say the average engineer cannot think and write, but those aren’t skills you select for. In some cases, you may need engineering talent who can not communicate in your language! Engineers write less and for a different purpose. A technical writer, newspaper journalist and novelist approach a similar action (writing) with a different approach and methodology. There’s a reason why you see attorneys in leadership roles outside of their domain than other professions that attract smart, diligent workers. (There are few doctors in politics or non-medical corporate leadership positions, for example.) They tend to be better at broad-scope analysis and zoom in a deeply technical area with consultative assistance, and they tend to be better able to communicate the outcome of that analysis. They tend to be humanities or social science majors.
- AdamM12 8y ago
  Median any position is probably not terribly great at it. Agnostic of engineering imo. I do think you need structured practice to get good at anything but I don't necessarily believe that needs to come from a mandated class, i.e. structured self study, nor do I think mandating the class would actually get people to absorb the material. I'd imagine you probably attended some liberal arts classes that had a subset, if not majority, of people who were there simply because it was mandated. Those persons aren't necessarily interested and because of that won't put forth the effort so why waste the teachers time or the students through coercion? Does one really need to master any given skill to "succeed" in life? I think simply being good enough at any given thing you live a good life is a fine bar to set.

scythe 8y ago

>I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus. I agree that mathematics is underappreciated by most people who work in the humanities. But I strongly disagree that they should learn calculus. In fact, I would argue that calculus is the problem with the perception of math in the social sciences. There are plenty of types of math that could potentially be applied in sociology and its variants, particularly mathematical logic and graph theory. Statistics needs no introduction. Calculus by contrast deals with continuous changes in well-defined quantities, which are not like anything a sociologist encounters. I suspect that the reason that many sociologists believe that most of mathematics is basically an extended version of calculus -- as seen in this essay: https://www.edge.org/conversation/rory_sutherland-this-thing-for-which-we-have-no-name https://www.edge.org/conversation/rory_sutherland-this-thing... -- is because a social scientist's primary interaction from math is by way of economics, who do use calculus to track nearly-continuous changes in well-defined quantities. However, economics is unique among the social sciences in that the phenomena it seeks to describe can be readily quantified. This leads to the mistaken belief, evident in the article, that mathematics is only able to contribute to the study of things which are easily quantifiable, which is not true at all! Students in sociology should really be taught statistics and discrete math, with special attention to any techniques that may be useful in describing human behavior.

throwawaymath 8y ago
Statistics needs no introduction. Calculus by contrast deals with continuous changes in well-defined quantities, which are not like anything a sociologist encounters. Calculus comprises the foundation of statistics. Without calculus you can learn to apply statistical experiments, but you can’t really understand what’s going on. That makes for brittle insight. Just because the set of all humans is strictly finite doesn’t mean the underlying continuity in statistical theory ceases to exist. A two semester sequence of single and multivariable calculus is really not a lot to ask in return for delivering a robust understanding of statistics. It’s not like demanding knowledge of analysis, topology, and measure theory before learning rigorous probability theory.
- glup 8y ago

andrepd 8y ago

I agree very much. It has always stung a nerve with me, the fact that if you are a scientist with no interest or knowledge in humanities or arts you get (rightfully) labeled an ignorant and a reductionist obsessed solely with his science; yet the reverse, if you have a background in the humanities and know nothing about science or mathematics, is somehow okay or even celebrated in certain circles. You can proudly declare you "understand nothing of that horrible complicated maths and physics". Boggles the mind. Many lawyers, artists, literature scholars, historians, philosophers, etc, simply don't mind being stuck inside a bubble and inside a myopic way to see the world. A different perspective, such as that offered by mathematics, of rigour and analysis, would do them a world of good, so as not to be stuck inside a bubble/echo chamber.

Fomite 8y ago
One of the things that drove me nuts at university is how much some STEM students mocked a particular set of "...for humanities" math classes without knowing their content. There were some great applications of mathematical thinking that people were shamed about taking.
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  Can you give an example?
  - firebones 8y ago
    I'm not who you are asking, but this book https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Experience-Phillip-J-Davis/dp/0395929687 https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Experience-Phillip-J-Dav... hits some of the philosophy of math. It's been a long time since I've dipped into it, but IIRC, it puts mathematical discoveries and exploration into more of a cultural and philosophical context. I could see this being sampled for a good crossover course that would cover humanities requirements for STEM, and STEM requirements for humanities.
  - Fomite 8y ago
    There's a course called "Math for Social Choice", for example, that focused on how voting works from a mathematical sense in one section, for example.

Chathamization 8y ago

> liberal educations are now viewed as tools of oppression rather then as the minimum expectation for a well-informed citizen. I often hear people say that a college education is about opening the mind, being able to think critically, being able to challenge one's own beliefs, etc. But then I often find the people make those claims not even able to consider the possibility that many people people achieve that without a college education. We should consider that there might be a certain amount of group think and signaling involved, and that a college education might not improve one's critical thinking skills as much as is often assumed.

WalterBright 8y ago
I've never understood how a liberal education was supposed to enable critical thinking. In my experience, a STEM education enabled it, because while you can argue any point of view in liberal arts, you cannot pretend that the bridge you designed didn't fall down when it did. You're forced to deal with reality which doesn't care about your biases, fallacies, and dearly held misconceptions.

tzs 8y ago

> I think every engineer or applied scientists should be expected to take a reasonable "liberal" education subset - including history, literature and law. I know that this is very much not in vogue with the latest group-think in college, but I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus That can work. I believe that because you've just described MIT and Caltech. MIT requires everyone to take at least 8 semesters of arts, social science, or humanities course per semester, which works out to on average one such course per semester over the course of their degree. This must include at least one from each of those groups. They must also pick one from a list of several available "fields of concentration" in the arts, social science, or humanities, and take 3 or 4 courses in that field of concentration. Caltech requires 108 units of humanities or social sciences, at least 27 of which must be humanities and 27 of which must be humanities. Caltech has 3 terms per academic year, so that works out on average to 9 units a term. A Caltech unit corresponds to the number of hours a course is expected to take a week (lectures + labs + homework and reading), and 9 units is about an average course. In other words, it is similar to MIT: you are taking at least one such class a term, and it takes about as much time as your typical engineering or science class. On the calculus front, MIT requires everyone to take single and multivariable calculus. Same at Caltech. Both also require everyone to take physics through most of what is covered in, say, the Feynman Lectures, and chemistry.

nradov 8y ago
Harvey Mudd College has a similar requirement for STEM majors to take a range of humanities courses.
hodgesrm 8y ago
In addition to the study requirements you mention the MIT Hayden Library is one of the best 'small' humanities libraries I have ever visited. I did a lot of homework there for a summer class in technical Japanese in 1990. You can take study breaks by wandering around the stacks, which not large but amazingly well selected. Virtually every book you put your finger on is something worth reading. The Hayden Library opened up a whole world of biblical studies through the works of Robert Alter and Frank Kermode, which were sitting in the shelves a few feet away from my table. It's colored my impression of MIT ever since.

trentmb 8y ago

> but I also believe that humanities should master at least basic calculus. I always manage to astound people by mentioning that Marx independently developed foundations of differential calculus[1]. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_manuscripts_of_Karl_Marx https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_manuscripts_of_Ka...