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I found my computer science education to be pretty lightweight and not tremendously useful or beneficial to me. I found my english, psychology, history and phi

I found my computer science education to be pretty lightweight and not tremendously useful or beneficial to me. I found my english, psychology, history and philosophy educations, which I took dead seriously as you did, to be tremendously useful. They didn't force me to learn, and the classes were relatively easy if you just wanted to pass, and I saw plenty of classmates learn nothing but still pass or get high marks. But for those who take it seriously, it is nothing short of enlightening. You can skim through it and get your A+ and go on to the next stage of your rat-race, but you're shortchanging yourself. I pity those who don't understand what the great scientists and artists of the past called "enlightenment". It's something you can only get from a serious study of the liberal arts. It has nothing to do with making money, although it can certainly help with making money, even if it doesn't lead to some well-defined corporate career. Engineers scoff at me when I talk about phenomenology or existentialism or the value in mythology, fiction, critical analysis, personality theory. I pity them. They don't know what they're missing.

bane 15y ago
I absolutely agree. The courses I've consistently gotten those most out of over the years were not my engineering courses, but my non-engineering. I use history, literature, music, art, speech etc. pretty much every day. My engineering courses got me my job, my "soft" courses made me good at it.
- mgkimsal 15y ago
  Excellent point, and my experience is similar. My degree is in philosophy. Already knew programming before high school, and my hobby computer work kept those skills up to date while I was focusing on other stuff - "unrelated" stuff like music, art, foreign languages, English, literature, history - these are things that made it easy for me to relate to people who weren't programmers (for example, everyone else in a company outside IT). While the cynic in me might say you just need to keep up with American Idol and an occasional Fox news broadcast to be able to chitchat with most Americans... I'm not feeling that cynical tonight ;) I'm certainly no expert on any of those subjects I studied in college, but I'm also not afraid of them either. For me, philosophy was a way of developing my critical thinking and logic skills (which I already had from programming at an early age) outside of computers and seeing how to apply them constructively to a wide range of topics/issues (religion, law/politics, ethic, etc). Taking even more computer science and progamming courses in university would have bored me to death (well, it started to when I tried it).

bane 15y ago

I absolutely agree. The courses I've consistently gotten those most out of over the years were not my engineering courses, but my non-engineering. I use history, literature, music, art, speech etc. pretty much every day. My engineering courses got me my job, my "soft" courses made me good at it.

mgkimsal 15y ago
Excellent point, and my experience is similar. My degree is in philosophy. Already knew programming before high school, and my hobby computer work kept those skills up to date while I was focusing on other stuff - "unrelated" stuff like music, art, foreign languages, English, literature, history - these are things that made it easy for me to relate to people who weren't programmers (for example, everyone else in a company outside IT). While the cynic in me might say you just need to keep up with American Idol and an occasional Fox news broadcast to be able to chitchat with most Americans... I'm not feeling that cynical tonight ;) I'm certainly no expert on any of those subjects I studied in college, but I'm also not afraid of them either. For me, philosophy was a way of developing my critical thinking and logic skills (which I already had from programming at an early age) outside of computers and seeing how to apply them constructively to a wide range of topics/issues (religion, law/politics, ethic, etc). Taking even more computer science and progamming courses in university would have bored me to death (well, it started to when I tried it).