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What if the problem is that the humanities are getting worse? The ancient definition of a liberal arts education was language (typically ancient Greek), mathema
by will4274 8y ago
What if the problem is that the humanities are getting worse? The ancient definition of a liberal arts education was language (typically ancient Greek), mathematics, literature (often poetry), physical sciences, and history. During my time at University, I found that students in STEM were required to take classes in literature, language, and history. At my University, it was 8 of 40 classes - 20% of the work over four years, including 2 at a second year level of above. On the other hand, the humanities majors had to take only a tiny bit of math and science (just 3 classes), without any level requirements and humanities students often delighted in taking STEM classes without any real rigor. Advocates of the humanities and a liberal arts education often claim that humanities majors are more likely than STEM majors to be well rounded, but my experience has typically been the opposite - I often have interesting conversations with software engineers about history and politics, but I can't recall an interesting conversation with a humanities major about machine learning / AI or economics.
- dredmorbius 8y agoThe Seven Liberal Arts were literally the trivium and quadrivium. The first were the humanities: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. They were followed by the scientific arts: mathematics, trigonometry, music, and astronomy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education The evolution of higher education is itself fairly fascinating. The United States produced fewer high school graduates in 1900 than it doees PhDs today, as a fraction of the population.
- yontherubicon 8y agoIn the article, there was a graph that indicated that degrees Interdisciplinary studies were actually increasing. TBH, I think you've identified the real problem here: Having a degree in the Humanities no longer means a well-rounded educated individual. It simply means a person who can't do math.