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I don't think anyone is arguing that we remove liberal arts from the K-12 curriculum. There should be more to education than just vocational training, especial
by fiftyfifty 7y ago
I don't think anyone is arguing that we remove liberal arts from the K-12 curriculum. There should be more to education than just vocational training, especially at the younger grade levels. If we want to have a functional democracy we need educated voters, and they should have a broad base of knowledge including the liberal arts.
At the college level I think the colleges themselves are to blame for all the animosity towards the liberal arts, they've priced themselves completely out of the market. Not too long ago it wasn't a big deal to spend four years getting a liberal arts degree and then going on to an MBA, Law or sales or even a STEM field to make a living afterwards. That's exactly what the author's wife of this article did by the sounds of it. Now that path might mean tens of thousands of dollars of debt just for the BA, so the pressure is on to make that investment worth while and for many it's not.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- madengr 7y agoI don’t know anyone in tech who has a liberal arts degree, and I graduated 25 years ago. The authors wife probably doesn’t actually develop the tech, rather management.
- triceratops 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Crockford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Holland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Holland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs (admittedly he dropped out)
- vaughnegut 7y agoEqually anecdotal, but I am in tech and have a liberal arts degree, and have a coworker who is the same. I also know a few others. In most cases these are people who found the job market rough with a BA (or MA), and fell in love with tech. Some universities deal with this demand by offering a "Certificate" or something equivalent in tech for students so that they can learn the fundamentals even though they're from a liberal arts (or other background, but have a degree). Even going back like 50 years, my father studied liberal arts but was offered an opportunity to do an advanced degree in computer science, provided he completed core courses (in additions to the ones he'd already done). I suppose my point is that this may not be as rare as it seems, and is increasingly common as a BA becomes a dime a dozen (although not intrinsically valueless) and the growth in tech jobs continues (for now).
- analog31 7y agoWell, if you count math and physics as liberal arts, as the ancients did, then there's me. Granted, electronics and programming were my hobbies.
- username90 7y agoMath and physics goes under STEM, so in the context of this article they are not liberal arts.
- solresol 7y agoLarry Wall (the Perl guy)?
- rayiner 7y ago> If we want to have a functional democracy we need educated voters, and they should have a broad base of knowledge including the liberal arts. This is a shibboleth. A functional democracy, needs kids who know how to think in terms of statistics, cause and effect, and logic versus fallacy.
- selimthegrim 7y agoYou mean a non sequitur.
- selimthegrim 7y agoShibboleth doesn’t parse here.
- rayiner 7y agoYou’re right it’s not a great fit. What I meant was “something we as a society reflexively say” (which shibboleth kinda captures) “which is obsolete” (which shibboleth does not).