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Conservatives don't like the term "liberal arts" because it includes the word "liberal."
As someone else said in this thread, they are confusing liberal arts with humanities and "social sciences."
After all, math and science are included in the "liberal arts" too.
Most students in every university have to study liberal arts subjects as part of their general education requirements. Even the *gasp* STEM majors. It is the basis for a well-rounded education.
Physics uses math to describe the physical world. Computer science IS math. What part of computer science would you not consider a branch of mathematics?
I see computer science as using mathematics as a language to describe informational processes.
Conservatives don't like the term "liberal arts" because it includes the word "liberal."
As someone else said in this thread, they are confusing liberal arts with humanities and "social sciences."
After all, math and science are included in the "liberal arts" too.
Most students in every university have to study liberal arts subjects as part of their general education requirements. Even the *gasp* STEM majors. It is the basis for a well-rounded education.
Most of the geologists in the petroleum industry have geological engineering degrees (different than geotechnical engineering degrees) - probably at fewer than 10 schools. Unless things changed in the last 10 years, a kid studying general geology at some liberal arts college is unlikely to see the inside of a petroleum company.
I was in geosciences at Oregon State, which was full of "kids studying general geology at some liberal arts school", and not only did every single one of them have a full ride to grad school but they all had lucrative industry jobs (mostly petroleum) waiting for them at their end of their degree.
Geology grad students out of Penn State, Michigan, Arizona, UTAS, Berkeley, Santa Barbara, Colorado, and UW-Madison are unlikely to see the inside of a petroleum company?
Bingo, academic progress. Whereas most SOCIETAL and TECHNOLOGICAL progress comes out of the hard sciences. Bill Gates, Jobs, NASA engineers....you know the people that all invented the computers these liberal arts students use on a daily basis....they didnt get English degrees.
Um, Jobs went to Reed, the most liberal arts of liberal arts schools, and said that his most important class there was calligraphy. Gates went to Harvard, also a strongly liberal arts school, and never majored in any thing but basically exclusively studied liberal arts fields while he was there.
So much of this thread revolves around what is and is not a liberal art.
But the fact is, even the humanities, fine arts, and social science majors of the world are doing extremely well. The career success that proceeds out of any given major is quite often more of a function of the career services of that major than the major itself. Engineering and technology programs often have fantastic career support with internships, job placement services, career counseling, and extensive connections to firms with available entry level positions. Science programs are not so great at this (even at the graduate level). Math programs are atrocious at this.
Jump over to the humanities, and far too many programs have absolute no career support for their new grads; at best you have the university career office. Social sciences can vary widely from school to school, with some no better off than the humanities programs and some rivaling the best engineering programs. Fine arts though is the best example of the impact of career support. There are many fine arts programs that boast 100% job placement because that is the focus of the program from day one (e.g. graduate music pedagogy programs have such excellent placement rates). Fine arts institutes like Cleveland and Julliard have career support better than most engineering programs. No one questions your career potential when you attend these schools.
But typical middle of the pack state U fine arts programs are not going to have nothing close to the career support of typical middle of the pack state U engineering programs, and that makes far more of the difference in the career prospects of those majors than the actual field of study.
The problem with the article above is that the idea of college paying off has become a self fulfilling prophecy. Employers want to see college because it's easier for them to weed out job applicants. And it's hard to say whether the degree is getting them the higher pay or whether many of these students would have done well without the degree.
If they can't get a good job without the degree then they wouldn't have done as well without it.
This is more or less what I am seeing today, the Liberal arts are the history, the English, the psychology, sociology etc... whilst the engineering, nursing, mathematics, computer science falls under the STEM label. Now as to whether or not the previous mentioned classification/reasoning is correct, I have no idea.
This. It really doesn't matter that an academic definition of Liberal Arts includes math and science. The reality is, when talking to most people, this is the way they use the term. Those who try to make the academic definition, when we all know very well what everyone means, just sound pedantic. In the end, they actually hurt their own argument because they are relying on STEM for validation.
This. It really doesn't matter that an academic definition of Liberal Arts includes math and science. The reality is, when talking to most people, this is the way they use the term. Those who try to make the academic definition, when we all know very well what everyone means, just sound pedantic. In the end, they actually hurt their own argument because they are relying on STEM for validation.
No. Those who try to separate STEM and the liberal arts are oversimplifying things. All of the liberal arts majors have something in common. They are not applied unless turned into applied programs such as applied psychology. If you think a bachelor's in biology is going to leave you much better off than a bachelor's in a social science, then you are mistaken.
This doesn't only apply to STEM v Liberal Arts; this also applies to Business Administration v Liberal Arts and Other Applied Fields v Liberal Arts. For example, business administration is the most popular major in the country, but many think it's psychology or some other humanities or social science major. There are way more business administration majors than psychology majors, and they have high underemployment rates. I've also heard people many times say that someone should major in criminal justice over psychology or sociology because CJ will actually train you for a job. Well, that is not true. Yes, CJ is supposed to be an applied subject, but it's very social science-oriented. There are hardly any jobs out there that can be had with a CJ degree that can't be had with a psychology or sociology degree. According to PayScale, CJ majors are the most underemployed because they usually end up in law enforcement and security jobs that don't require a degree.
No. Those who try to separate STEM and the liberal arts are oversimplifying things. All of the liberal arts majors have something in common. They are not applied unless turned into applied programs such as applied psychology. If you think a bachelor's in biology is going to leave you much better off than a bachelor's in a social science, then you are mistaken.
This doesn't only apply to STEM v Liberal Arts; this also applies to Business Administration v Liberal Arts and Other Applied Fields v Liberal Arts. For example, business administration is the most popular major in the country, but many think it's psychology or some other humanities or social science major. There are way more business administration majors than psychology majors, and they have high underemployment rates. I've also heard people many times say that someone should major in criminal justice over psychology or sociology because CJ will actually train you for a job. Well, that is not true. Yes, CJ is supposed to be an applied subject, but it's very social science-oriented. There are hardly any jobs out there that can be had with a CJ degree that can't be had with a psychology or sociology degree. According to PayScale, CJ majors are the most underemployed because they usually end up in law enforcement and security jobs that don't require a degree.
I don't agree with that. There are research and testing labs around the country that hire biology majors right out of college. I have friends who have walked into jobs doing lab testing for oil refineries. Pharma research labs, and some environmental organizations hire biology majors.
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