Comment Re:Oh, gag me. (Score 2) 564
Science/math folks easily understand when non-science folk get things wrong. It's obvious. And so we know they need better science ed.
What's harder to see and not as clear cut is when science/engineering people (usually the low to mid-level people) are boring people who cannot think. Dull, spudly people you don't want to work with.
They don't need to take the humanities for the reasons from the article, they need to take the humaninties because they want to. When you find you don't want to, change colleges, change courses. You're getting a crap education when history isn't fun.
Yes, skip Plato. Skip the oldest deadest white guys. You can read the cliff notes there. But when you go to IIT you know to do your damnedest to avoid the required COBOL class they taught until something like 10 years ago. You know to skip the into to programming class they still try to make you take. Colleges make money on the stock crap. Skip that when you can. Skip the intros. You can get that from a book.
Whereas small group seminars in the humanities are chances to try to think. They teach you how to talk and integrate information from the news and from different countries/cultures. Take a class on Melville. Take a class on the history of detective fiction. And take linguistics, polysci and art. Otherwise why the hell are you wasteing your money going to a University? Go to a trade school. Be a drone. Reach the mid-level and stagnate. Because that's who you want to be.
Don't bitch about the humanities versions of the COBOL class without bitching about the CS department's COBOL class in the same breath. It's the same thing. Don't bitch about well-educated humanities people being morons without looking in the mirror and seeing the disfunctional troll you personally sculpted by avoiding investigating culture all your life.