That anti-intellectual thing

[Mr. Boyce]

It's interesting to see how this general question has turned into an "us vs. them" thing of "damned conservative" vs. "weird liberal."

 

Here's a good article, and I encourage you to read it, despite the work of clicking the mouse.

 

http://chronicle.com/article/From-Technologist-to/128231/

 

 

(reading period)

 

OK. I like the liberal arts considerably, but there still IS a disjunct between what the liberal artists can do, and what the local HR director has been told he has to find. . . and we all know, by now in the year 2011, that Brand USA needs more STEM folks.

[skeptic]

Found this particularly interesting and applicable for those willing to look beyond their noses, so to speak. You need to read the whole piece to get the best idea as to what the author is speaking. But here are a few quotes I pulled out that I thought addressed the issue well and are food for "thought".

 

"I no longer assume that machines can solve all of our problems for us. The task of thinking is still ours.

 

When you are no longer engaged only in optimizing your productsand you let go of the technotopian viewyour world becomes larger, richer, more mysterious, more inviting; more human.

 

What is the point of a comfortable living if you don't know what the humanities have taught us about living well?

 

The thought leaders in our industry are not the ones who plodded dully, step by step, up the career ladder. The leaders are the ones who took chances and developed unique perspectives.

 

Products must appeal to human beings, and a rigorously cultivated humanistic sensibility is a valued asset for this challenge. That is perhaps why a technology leader of the highest statusSteve Jobsrecently credited an appreciation for the liberal arts as key to his company's tremendous success with their various i-gadgets."

 

Locally, we have a very small university (about 350), St. Thomas Aquinas, a Catholic university if it is not obvious that still teaches in the manner of the17th and 18th century. They have no majors, no texts per se, and study Latin and religion. All classes are based on the Socratic method of group discussion and interaction. Yet, the graduates tend to go on to very successful careers in many varied fields, based on the foundation of their studies there. They are so well received in the academic communities, that they are in the top 100 schools in many areas of comparison, even though they are tiny.

 

This lends a certain amount of veracity to the discussion in this article. JMHO of course.

 

[Mr. Boyce]

Very solid comments above. I would flip something you said and ask, "what if you are a well-trained liberal artist, and want to actually make something, or build something, rather than talk about aspects of it"?