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Want Innovative Thinking? Hire from the Humanities

1 points by amahadik 16y ago

onan_barbarian 16y ago
If I remember correctly, I believe IBM used to apply this reasoning back in the 1980s. Having done humanities subjects as well as CS, I would say that the workload was quite potentially similar in difficulty and sophistication and would likely stand people in good stead, as the article says... IF you did the readings for the humanities courses, which quite a number of people doing a Bachelor of Arts really obviously didn't. It was obvious you could skate by with the equivalent of a B- or C+ while doing 15 hours a week total work, which usually inspired great quantities of rage and disdain from the engineering/science students.
jacques_chester 16y ago
Here's something I learnt from the humanities: distinguishing between necessary and sufficient causes of events. Steve Jobs taking a calligraphy class was necessary, but not sufficient, to create the Macintosh. He still needed a team of those tedious non-humanities folks -- not least of whom was Woz -- for Apple to succeed. Bill Gates and Zuckerberg had educations rich in the humanities. But that was not enough: they also had a deep background in actual programming. The humanities by themselves are not enough. You need the rubber as well as the road.
- rdouble 16y ago
  In the case of all those mentioned it seems like what you want to do is drop out of college entirely. Related, apple was staffed by total weirdos for its first 8-10 years, people who neither fit the stereotype of engineer or humanities major. See any article at folklore.org
  - jacques_chester 16y ago
    > In the case of all those mentioned it seems like what you want to do is drop out of college entirely. I picked examples that I'm familiar with. In another field I'm confident that the pattern repeats -- that humanities is an edge but not a base. Slightly OT -- one of my dreams upon makin' bacon is to go here for a few years: http://stjohnscollege.edu/ http://stjohnscollege.edu/

1 points by amahadik 16y ago

If I remember correctly, I believe IBM used to apply this reasoning back in the 1980s. Having done humanities subjects as well as CS, I would say that the workload was quite potentially similar in difficulty and sophistication and would likely stand people in good stead, as the article says... IF you did the readings for the humanities courses, which quite a number of people doing a Bachelor of Arts really obviously didn't. It was obvious you could skate by with the equivalent of a B- or C+ while doing 15 hours a week total work, which usually inspired great quantities of rage and disdain from the engineering/science students.

jacques_chester 16y ago

Here's something I learnt from the humanities: distinguishing between necessary and sufficient causes of events. Steve Jobs taking a calligraphy class was necessary, but not sufficient, to create the Macintosh. He still needed a team of those tedious non-humanities folks -- not least of whom was Woz -- for Apple to succeed. Bill Gates and Zuckerberg had educations rich in the humanities. But that was not enough: they also had a deep background in actual programming. The humanities by themselves are not enough. You need the rubber as well as the road.

rdouble 16y ago
In the case of all those mentioned it seems like what you want to do is drop out of college entirely. Related, apple was staffed by total weirdos for its first 8-10 years, people who neither fit the stereotype of engineer or humanities major. See any article at folklore.org
- jacques_chester 16y ago
  > In the case of all those mentioned it seems like what you want to do is drop out of college entirely. I picked examples that I'm familiar with. In another field I'm confident that the pattern repeats -- that humanities is an edge but not a base. Slightly OT -- one of my dreams upon makin' bacon is to go here for a few years: http://stjohnscollege.edu/ http://stjohnscollege.edu/