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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   25739 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 25, 2024

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I disagree that the general undergraduate population doesn’t benefit from exposure if not from gen-ed courses

That's literally why there's high school.

The fact that US high schools aren't up to that is no reason to waste a university education on that stuff (except for the small minority who're rich enough to study just for leisure).

That's literally why there's high school

That may have been true in the past, but ever since graduation rates became a target to optimize for this is no longer the case. Turning high school into daycare was the most effective way to make number go up.

An easy counterpoint is that both should account for some liberal arts education, and at differing levels of rigor; that there’s specific benefit in high school for a future plumber, and specific benefit in college for a future banker, etc.

I mean, it makes sense to require eg engineering students to take some English and history classes for gen-ed reasons. To the extend that 'they should have done this in high school' is true, it's mostly an argument for moving engineering, computer science, medicine, etc out of a university setting and into their own institutions- that is, trade schools.

Like, universities originated for the study of the liberal arts. The entire reason job tracks(with a few exceptions like teaching and law) go through university is so that they can have gen ed requirements attached, and I suspect that getting rid of gen ed requirements would be a nail in the coffin of the university's prestige over trade schools.

The entire reason job tracks(with a few exceptions like teaching and law) go through university is so that they can have gen ed requirements attached

"Gen ed requirement" is distinctly a US feature, found mostly in US universities and universities influenced by the US model. In the UK and continental Europe, you get to pick a specialization and perhaps may pick an elective or minor, but no always.

it makes sense to require eg engineering students to take some English and history classes for gen-ed reasons.

Snarkly, I think it makes sense for humanities students to take some math and physics classes for gen-ed reasons. I see lots of pontificating from the self-declared "educated" classes that clearly lack an understanding of calculus and other entry-level numeracy concepts.

I am entirely in agreement. When my GED gives me a better understanding of statistics than you you shouldn't be allowed to graduate from college is my attitude, even if it's a degree in psychology or communications or some other kind of bullshit that came out of someone's ass.

This but unironically. When STEM students take humanities distribution classes, they take the same lower-level classes students of the humanities take themselves. When humanities students take distribution classes, they take dumbed-down "math for English majors" classes which the STEM majors can't take for degree progression. We should eliminate that and until it's eliminated, ignore all calls for well-roundedness of STEM majors.

The idea is that virtually everyone, as a free and politically engaged liberal subject, will have to deal with questions of politics, culture, and ethics; but not everyone will have to deal with STEM in the sense of actually requiring technical knowledge. On this particular day, there were probably more people who had to engage with questions about transsexuality (and therefore might benefit from an understanding of the history and philosophy of the concepts of sex and gender) than questions about calculus or linear algebra (particularly if we exclude people who require that sort of knowledge for their professional work). The humanities are thought to contribute to the education of a "well-rounded" individual because the humanities are everywhere while STEM knowledge is primarily utilized by professionals (and is therefore closer to a type of vocational training).

I say this as someone who makes a living as a software engineer. Knowing how to code is obviously useful for making money, but I don't think it really makes someone "well-rounded" in the way that studying history or art does, and certainly not in the way that studying philosophy does.

This isn't really well-roundedness, then, it's humanities-supremacy.

Coming from the other side, I’d say that numeracy and clear logical reasoning is probably more important to creating the mythical “well rounded citizens” than humanities. The reason is that almost every decision made in policy or even discussion of policy positions requires logic and statistics. The idea that you can have a productive conversation about things like economics without understanding utility curves and statistics is crazy. Figuring out the percentages of trans people in a population and what the percentage of increase is kinda matters if you’re trying to make a case that the entire thing is biologically based. Algorithmic logic is extremely useful in learning to plan and communicate a plan precisely. And as far as understanding anything in science, understanding the statistics and how probabilities work and so on is critical to understanding what is going on.

Obviously, I think a well rounded person would know all of the above. The thing is though, that we’re actually nearly backwards where there’s more emphasis on exposing people to the humanities in ne form or another over and above giving people the tools to understand their very scientific and mathematical world. The results, as far as I can tell, is a world where people fall for conspiracy theories, but don’t understand science. They can’t understand science or technology because they re not forced to learn those things after high school, if they had much exposure in high school.

it makes sense to require eg engineering students to take some English and history classes for gen-ed reasons.

Why on earth would it? They've already taken those in high school.

Not in the UK, you study one subject all the way through.

Not totally familiar, but doesn't the UK have some system where not every high school diploma allows college admission(like elsewhere in Europe)?

I've never heard of that. The UK and European systems are pretty different. In the UK it basically boils down to your A-levels (usually you take 3-5 subjects). Any university can make you an offer, but whether they will depends on your grades. You can only apply to 5 universities, and only one of Oxford/Cambridge. So you put down one stretch goal, one safe choice, and then three you like.

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