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The description of "being locked into a narrow programming language" really doesn't help the case of the author. What does it mean for a programming language to

The description of "being locked into a narrow programming language" really doesn't help the case of the author. What does it mean for a programming language to be "narrow"? That also implies a conflation of programming methodology with programming languages, which really hurts the author's case since they don't really know their facts when they're arguing for how the humanities supposedly makes one more "versatile", relative to someone coming from STEM. It's also a poor reflection of their rigour when it comes to "critical thought".

deleted 4y ago
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kazinator 4y ago
The author seems to overlook that people with majors STEM have decent backgrounds in humanities, because they still take the courses and maybe even minor in something in the humanities. You might be able to get through some vocational school without an exposure to topics not related to the intended job, but the university experience is much better rounded regardless of what people major in. Likewise, humanities majors earn their science credits. The humanities contains hard disciplines. Mathematics is categorized in the humanities. So is philosophy, and universities tend to teach logic under the umbrella of philosophy. Philosophy, math, logic: all brutal at the third and fourth year levels.
- cercatrova 4y ago
  How is mathematics categorized in the humanities when it's literally the M in STEM?
  - kazinator 4y ago
    That's the way it is. Math is one of the Liberal Arts, going back centuries, whereas the STEM acronym is recent. That said, some schools offer degrees under science---if you major in math, you get a B.S.. Whereas in others you get a B.A. By one measure of what is a Liberal Art, people with math degrees can be just as unemployable as historians or political scientists. The question is what's the M doing in STEM, really, besides completing a pronounceable dictionary word. For instance, in the phrase "STEM jobs", only the STE are jobs; nobody works in mathematics, as such, other than academics.
    - nunez 4y ago
      Exactly this. BA in Math and BS is Math are very, very different
lapcat 4y ago
> The description of "being locked into a narrow programming language" really doesn't help the case of the author. I don't think the author is trying to make a "case". The author is just a newspaper columnist writing about degree regret. The author was merely trying, and failing, to explain why some people promote humanities degrees. Note that there was not a direct quotation in that paragraph. In the next paragraph there was a direct quotation from Quinn Dombrowski, but Dombrowski did not exactly say what was said in the previous paragraph.

deleted 4y ago

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kazinator 4y ago

The author seems to overlook that people with majors STEM have decent backgrounds in humanities, because they still take the courses and maybe even minor in something in the humanities. You might be able to get through some vocational school without an exposure to topics not related to the intended job, but the university experience is much better rounded regardless of what people major in. Likewise, humanities majors earn their science credits. The humanities contains hard disciplines. Mathematics is categorized in the humanities. So is philosophy, and universities tend to teach logic under the umbrella of philosophy. Philosophy, math, logic: all brutal at the third and fourth year levels.

cercatrova 4y ago
How is mathematics categorized in the humanities when it's literally the M in STEM?
- kazinator 4y ago
  That's the way it is. Math is one of the Liberal Arts, going back centuries, whereas the STEM acronym is recent. That said, some schools offer degrees under science---if you major in math, you get a B.S.. Whereas in others you get a B.A. By one measure of what is a Liberal Art, people with math degrees can be just as unemployable as historians or political scientists. The question is what's the M doing in STEM, really, besides completing a pronounceable dictionary word. For instance, in the phrase "STEM jobs", only the STE are jobs; nobody works in mathematics, as such, other than academics.
  - nunez 4y ago
    Exactly this. BA in Math and BS is Math are very, very different

lapcat 4y ago

> The description of "being locked into a narrow programming language" really doesn't help the case of the author. I don't think the author is trying to make a "case". The author is just a newspaper columnist writing about degree regret. The author was merely trying, and failing, to explain why some people promote humanities degrees. Note that there was not a direct quotation in that paragraph. In the next paragraph there was a direct quotation from Quinn Dombrowski, but Dombrowski did not exactly say what was said in the previous paragraph.