Poll: The Liberal Arts and You; The Importance of the Liberal Arts in the Modern World

[CosmicCommander]

As a future studier of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, I'd see my education most likely balancing both the liberal, technical, and even the vocational "arts". I'd agree that the Liberal arts are less about objective fact, and more about opinions and beliefs. It's a fact that opinions and beliefs aren't nearly as important as knowledge of how the world works, and how to apply said knowledge.

In the end, those who focus on the Liberal arts probably aren't going to end up contributing much to the economy or finding employment outside of Government, academia or artistic endeavors- the latter is extremely hard to be successful in, and the former two just push forth the vicious circle.

 

[GiantRaven]

I am doing a Masters Degree in film. Will it help by job prospects? No probably not. Am I hugely enjoying it? Do I feel it makes me a better person? Do I belive in art for arts sake? Yes, Yes and FUCK YES.

Damn straight. Do a course because you like the subject, not because you want get a higher paying job.

 

[BGH122]

At least it isn't Women's Studies.

Or African American Studies (or really any specific social group studies). Those are truly worthless (and generally full of misinformation).

I don't think Liberal Arts are worthless, but I certainly wouldn't take such a diverse range of subjects. It seems to me that it's a jack of all trades master of none situation. People always reference to the renaissance men like Da Vinci who mastered multiple subjects, but such reference is unrealistic. Modern science is too complex compared to renaissance science to become a worthwhile contributor without specialising.

In the infancy of science when people knew little it was possible for a well educated and intelligent person to make contributions to multiple fields. That's now very, very hard. A Bsc of a modern day science knows vastly more than any renaissance man, but vastly less than would be needed to contribute effectively to its progress.

I am doing a Masters Degree in film. Will it help by job prospects? No probably not. Am I hugely enjoying it? Do I feel it makes me a better person? Do I belive in art for arts sake? Yes, Yes and FUCK YES.

Damn straight. Do a course because you like the subject, not because you want get a higher paying job.

Depends who'll be paying for the course and how much it'll cost. If a course won't yield a job paying more than a max of £30k P.A. for life then it probably isn't worth £18-27k (UK average for the coming year)

 

[GiantRaven]

Depends who'll be paying for the course and how much it'll cost. If a course won't yield a job paying more than a max of £30k P.A. for life then it probably isn't worth £18-27k (UK average for the coming year)

Well I guess my course in Music Technology is functionally useless then, seeing as I'm highly unlikely to be getting a job in the music industry at any point ever. Oh, wait, no it isn't because I enjoyed myself learning about the subject and getting to do some fun creative stuff.

 

[BGH122]

Depends who'll be paying for the course and how much it'll cost. If a course won't yield a job paying more than a max of £30k P.A. for life then it probably isn't worth £18-27k (UK average for the coming year)

Well I guess my course in Music Technology is functionally useless then, seeing as I'm highly unlikely to be getting a job in the music industry at any point ever. Oh, wait, no it isn't because I enjoyed myself learning about the subject and getting to do some fun creative stuff.

If you paid £27k to enjoy yourself for three years then why not spend £27k sitting around playing video games? Both are functionally useless and cost the same. I'll amend my previous statement slightly in that if the price of the degree gets you into a job that required that degree and that you'll enjoy then it's worth the money. Even if a job in music is poorly paid, if it requires that degree and you'll enjoy the job then the degree was worth it.

Obviously one oughtn't take a degree one hates just for money because one'll go on to hate the job, but one also oughtn't look at a degree as a source of fun because degrees are a means to an end.

Science is largely about knowing facts- how to work formulas, how to do x y and z in a lab, what various particles do and the functions of cells etc. Now, from what i know science students may be sometimes expected to argue a case, but the greater emphasis is however just about knowledge. In humanities, you've got to do both to equal measure. You may, for instance, have to know what the socio-economic affects of the Black Death were, but also argue wherever you agree or not with the notion that these affects are related to, say, the Reformation. The knowledge that science teaches it's students is indeed however more useful. Knowing how certain particles behave in cold air or underwater say is useful to many people whom want to manufacture products. However, whilst the knowledge humanities teaches may have fewer practical applications, we have to do more with that knowledge than science students.

Nah we argue points too. Here's some examples of 'science arguments' (dun dun duuunnnnn):

Psychology: Did Bandura (1963) show that children will learn immoral behaviours observationally and what effect could this finding have upon media laws?

Biology: What evidence supports the symbiotic theory of mitochondrial development in the human eukaryote? For what reason might this symbiosis have occurred?

Chemistry: Kekule's model of benzene suggested the following cyclohex-1,3,5-triene structure:

Suggest reasons why Kekule's model doesn't conform to modern understanding of benzene with reference to reactions (displayed formulae) and methods of spectroscopy.

Physics: The dynamo theory of Earth's magnetic field posits that a rotating, convecting, electrically conductive fluid could produce a magnetic effect over astronomical timescales. Argue for or against the Kinematic theory.

My point is this: In a perfect world the teachers role should be like the role of a DM or game designer. They should challenge the students, not coddle the talented. They should not favor one field over another, instead allowing the student to go as in-depth into fields they enjoy. A teacher should always encourage the student to overcome the challenges that the teacher has set in front of them, but always tailor the challenges to the student. Yeah, this is difficult for a teacher to do this with 20+ students, but then again, that's why when Einstein tutored children he would always tell the parents to pull them out of the public schools.

Which is why this theory doesn't work.

In 2000 there were 76.6 million students in the US education system. There's a population of 316 million people of all ages. If everyone had a private tutor who taught 8 hours of a subject a week per student, five days a week (as in the current system) then we would require 15.32 million teachers. We currently have 3,823,142 teachers in the US. We'd have to have five times as many teachers as we currently have, costing roughly 4.86 trillion dollars per year, up from $0.972t per year. To put that into perspective, that's over twice the entire US federal revenue for 2011 in a federal budget that's already got a $1.65 trillion deficit.

The idea of personalised education is perfect, but utopian.

Spoiler: calculations

Hours in a teacher's working day: 18-9=9
Hours in a teacher's working week: 9*5=45
Pupils per week: 45/8=5 (Rounded down: must be integer)
Number of teachers: 76.6 million/5=15.32 million

Current US cost: $972b
Predicted US cost: $972*5=$4860b

 

[Tyynn_Kaann]

The idea of personalised education is perfect, but utopian.

Just because it seems unattainable doesn't mean we shouldn't work towards it.

Just sitting around saying "this is the type of education we can afford" is all well and good, but like Extra Credits said in "Gamification," we're still using methods of education that were established at the turn of last century. The fact is that the education system now doesn't work. The level of engagement that our students experience in education just isn't standing up to the many engaging forms of entertainment. When a student would rather watch TV than learn you know you're in trouble. Students have to feel more connected to their education somehow, and one way to do that is make the education an extremely personal experience.

And yes, your calculations are impressive, but keep in mind that I never said the system would be public. If you agree with Obama's methods of economy (side rant... incoming...*beep*... averted) then surely the idea of freeing up that $972b is an appealing one, and that $4860b isn't going to be a number that the average parent will ever see, just like we never see the trillions of dollars that the United States spends on food.

Besides, your calculations cut a lot of corners and make a lot of assumptions. Some of that current US cost isn't on teachers. Some of it is on building and maintaining schools. We won't need 5 times the amount of schools. We might not even need as many schools because anywhere could be an educational setting. A huge chunk of that is on grants and those will continue to be given on a basis of merit, so those wouldn't be scaled up either. Trying to calculate the impact of an idea like this is something for a board of trained economists. All people like you and I can do is make estimations.

And then of course, there are all the adjustments that would be made to the system that would be made after experimentation. Maybe 1 on 1 isn't the most efficient way to do it. Maybe groups of four with similar interests (a D&D group of students, hah.) would be just as engaging and less expensive.

 

[BGH122]

Just because it seems unattainable doesn't mean we shouldn't work towards it.

Just sitting around saying "this is the type of education we can afford" is all well and good, but like Extra Credits said in "Gamification," we're still using methods of education that were established at the turn of last century. The fact is that the education system now doesn't work. The level of engagement that our students experience in education just isn't standing up to the many engaging forms of entertainment. When a student would rather watch TV than learn you know you're in trouble. Students have to feel more connected to their education somehow, and one way to do that is make the education an extremely personal experience.

I agree that the current education system is a barely working relic (there's a great RSA video on the matter I could link), but I'm not entirely sure what's meant by 'personalisation' in this context. Personalise what? The classes? Teach more maths to kids who're good at maths and more art to kids who're good at art? The teaching style? Didactic versus interactive etc? Class sizes?

If we personalise everything for every student then we need to have teachers for every student that are best suited to that particular personalisation for each subject and it becomes exponentially more costly with each added student.

I think there needs to be a better attempt to instil the quest for knowledge in kids. I was a really lazy student throughout comprehensive school (to be fair it was a remarkably shit school that allowed students to coast and not really attend or try if they could achieve the C minimum for the statistics), it wasn't until I studied philosophy with an incredible teacher who challenged my every assumption that I began to actually want to learn. I'd always wanted to be an actor (do nothing, get paid to be pretty) until I studied philosophy and realised I wanted to be a scientist.

But I'm not sure how to globalise that experience.

And yes, your calculations are impressive, but keep in mind that I never said the system would be public. If you agree with Obama's methods of economy (side rant... incoming...*beep*... averted) then surely the idea of freeing up that $972b is an appealing one, and that $4860b isn't going to be a number that the average parent will ever see, just like we never see the trillions of dollars that the United States spends on food.

Besides, your calculations cut a lot of corners and make a lot of assumptions. Some of that current US cost isn't on teachers. Some of it is on building and maintaining schools. We won't need 5 times the amount of schools. We might not even need as many schools because anywhere could be an educational setting. A huge chunk of that is on grants and those will continue to be given on a basis of merit, so those wouldn't be scaled up either. Trying to calculate the impact of an idea like this is something for a board of trained economists. All people like you and I can do is make estimations.

Yep, true. The calculations were indeed a rough estimate.

And then of course, there are all the adjustments that would be made to the system that would be made after experimentation. Maybe 1 on 1 isn't the most efficient way to do it. Maybe groups of four with similar interests (a D&D group of students, hah.) would be just as engaging and less expensive.

That's also a good idea which would be pretty hard to put together. How do we tell which students are interested in a given thing? Self-reporting methods like questionnaires? Self-reporting has been shown time and again to be very shoddy at finding out what an individual actually thinks because individuals aren't very good at being in-tune with what they really think (or sometimes they don't want to report the truth because they're embarrassed etc). This would also require specialised teachers to be effective. If the D&D group of kids is taught by a teacher who likes football and thinks such kids are 'nerds' then it's going to have precisely the opposite intended effect. This brings us back to the problem of an exponentially growing education system.

 

[Toriver]

Being a graduate of a liberal arts college myself, I can pretty easily say the third option is right. Today's job market is geared towards extremely focused specialization in education, and the liberal arts are the exact opposite of that. The liberal arts turn a person into a "jack of all trades, master of none" in a world where one must be a master of at least something to get ahead. If you know a little bit about a lot of things, but don't know a lot about any particular thing, tell me honestly, what good does that do you? You learn "how to learn" in a focused, specialized course of study just as much as any liberal arts student. So really, aside from some vague "versatility" which is only useful if one needs to know only the very basics of a bunch of things, there really is no "real world" advantage any liberal arts graduate of any major has over a more specialized, focused major, and then, due to not being able to delve as far into one subject in their education, they may even fall behind their more specialized peers in their given major subject, given the same amount of time and credits. In my own experience, I was a Political Science major. I know my major does not exactly have the greatest amount of job opportunities available without law school on top of that anyway, but in my job search, I noted that even for those opportunities that required the focus within the Political Science major that I took, with the same required educational level, the companies asked for skills within that focus that seemed pretty basic that I did not have. I saw many terms I did not know and skills I never learned. And again, this was for the same required education level, not higher. I feel that the liberal arts focus of my college is to blame for this, for two reasons:
1) In my own education, I had to spend a lot of my time on classes I needed to take to graduate in order to ensure I got a "liberal arts" education on top of my standard political science education; this cut into the time I could have been spending going deeper into my own subject
2) This is probably the more accurate reason: I feel my Poli-Sci classes were watered down in order to allow them to be eligible for fulfilling requirements for that "liberal arts" education, to attract more non-majors into the class so they could keep up. Basically, only the basics were taught, even to majors, so that non-majors, who were likely to never use this knowledge again in their own fields, could pass the class.

If you want a decent job, having only a liberal arts education is a HUGE waste of time.

That said, if you already have a good source of income lined up, and you have the time to do it, a liberal arts education can be a good way to enrich your life and keep alive fascinating and powerful studies and knowledge that may otherwise be lost to "impracticality". If being something of a Renaissance man is something you want to pursue as a life goal, or you just want to be more of a man of knowledge or a straight-up intellectual, then I would say a liberal arts education would be great for you. It can also be a nice addition to any resume or CV, so long as it plays a backup role to a more focused knowledge or experience base. Then you can say in your interview at your local IT company, "Why yes, I do know 5 different programming languages extensively, AND I can prepare basic economic reports and have some cultural and historical background knowledge of Latin America that can aid in our overseas marketing, should you ever need such services."

But, that's just my opinion. Take it with just a grain of salt or the entire surface area of the Utah salt flats.

 

[tigermilk]

I am doing a Masters Degree in film. Will it help by job prospects? No probably not. Am I hugely enjoying it? Do I feel it makes me a better person? Do I belive in art for arts sake? Yes, Yes and FUCK YES.

Damn straight. Do a course because you like the subject, not because you want get a higher paying job.

Thanks, I really appreciate that. Education for educations sake FTW. I will be feeling differently in a couple of days when I am pulling an all nighter trying to finish a 5000 word essay! But until then thankyou (well thankyou even when I am stressing your comment will offer some consolation).

 

[funguy2121]

Personally, the liberal arts are a topic that I have, until recently, disregarded. Furthermore, I would go so far as to say I would put down the idea of the liberal arts as a useless set of studies.

However, after reading a lot on the topic, and talking to quite a few people involved both in education and business, I've found that this superficially impractical group of studies is in fact deeply rooted in the fabric of what we call society.

My question to the people of this fine community;
What do you think of the liberal arts? Why do you think, in recent years, governments have indeed been cutting funding to many universities and secondary schools for their liberal arts programs, in favour of engineering, sciences, and labour related programs?

Also; how many of you all have received a liberal arts education and what do you think it has done to affect your decisions or life since?

I'll focus on the bolded question only.

Though I'm a US citizen, I know someone who attended Middlesex's philosophy master's program right before they started trying to cut it last year. I've also done some research into what's happening elsewhere in the UK, and in Turkey and Puerto Rico and elsewhere.

It's the cuts. Our (meaning the good ol' USandA) government fucked up, and we've integrated ourselves so thoroughly into everyone else's economy that the global economy is now plummeting as well. So I suppose you can blame the housing bubble here, or perhaps Alan Greenspan. But basically, it's the cuts.

OK, I'm going to contradict myself here and address one more thing: Philosophy. A liberal art, one without which we would not have math, science, technology, democracy or socialism, property rights or civilization. I suppose you could argue that it's no longer relevant. To that I'd say, take a look at the economic state of the world.

Edit: Forgive my lack of thorough-ness. I didn't mean to imply that these governments weren't fucking up on their own before the US dominoes started to fall - but it certainly has exacerbated matters.

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

Everyone I know that has a liberal arts degree is working the same level job they had in high school. I mean I could read before college, I do see the point in going into a program that teaches me how to read more better than before. I wanted to learn how to do something that would get me a job. That is why I'm an accountant with average grades and my brother is a sandwich maker with good grades and an english major.

And I'm superman.
Claims are easy to make.

I don't follow...are you saying my claims of being an accountant are fictitious?

I'm pretty sure it's more like dismissing anecdotal evidence as grounds for a general claim. Citing a study following college graduates' post-college careers would be a better evidence.

 

[II2]

No education is "worthless". But:

Humanities and Liberal Arts provide a good general understanding of a lot of scientific disciplines. If you have the time and money to indulge an education in them, it'll help you in a general sense, but it's definitely not an education route that ends in jobs and careers, unless you plan on seeking employment in academics and education (in the most direct sense).

Unless you can take said education and channel it into a production you can sell, you won't find many "looking for modern Renaissance Man" in the classifieds.

One plus though is that they do tend to confer a lot of advance standing and academic benefits towards future education if you're planning to using it as a ramp up to a more specific College or Uni major.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Nah we argue points too. Here's some examples of 'science arguments' (dun dun duuunnnnn):

I think I love you

Sooo...a liberal arts degree. I believe that is the most expensive way of becoming a waiter, or be a hobo upon graduation. *sigh* and I wish I were less than half sarcastic.
The thing is, the liberal arts college and the college of natural science are the two largest colleges at my university (for the initiated, this type of college refers to a group of subjects which share some common characteristic and have some degree of autonomy with regard to spending). Now I happen to be firmly entrenched in the sciences, but I do have an appreciation for literature, art, and music. Yet that does not mean that the study of art (I'll just refer to the various branches of liberal arts as that) contributes anything worthwhile to humanity. When has a novel ever cured a disease? When has a painting ever built a supercomputer? Has a symphony ever sent a probe to the edge of our solar system? I'm sure a historian can back this up even without understanding it: quantum theory was the most important discovery of the 20th century. Don't make me come up with some stupid way of mockingly comparing psychology to the discovery of polymers.

Please, don't mistake this for some sarcastic mocking of the liberal arts guys (though they deserve it!). Arts is important. Very, very important. Science is merely discovery, we unravel the mysteries of the universe. We do not, strictly speaking, create anything. No equation, law, or theory will ever compare to Beethoven in beauty or elegance, no synthetic compound can match the works Keats or Hesse in their majesty, not even the cleanest graph can match a painting. What science allows us is to understand the universe, while art allows us to express it. We create the pieces that engineers *shakes fist* and others put together to make the lives of all people on this planet. We make the world go round, and have in fact discovered why the world does go round and round. I do not resent the liberal arts people or the people studying it, but there are a specific group of them that I loathe.

Let me tell you a story. Math majors at my university are required to take 6 junior level credits outside of the natural sciences (don't ask, nobody knows why). I ended up taking a sociology class in globalization. The professor was a moron, lecturing on how the world bank with their cold hearted capitalist agenda was deliberately (or at least accidentally due to their incompetence) screwing poor countries in Africa so that they could be exploited. Now, I had some doubt about that, and tried to find some data. Turns out that's not the case. While Africa hasn't exactly become a beacon of civilization, the conditions have improved in the countries she was describing. So I guess data or trends mean nothing. The rest of the reading material was almost exclusively based on anecdotes, until the very end of the course when we discussed climate change. To her credit, she actually assigned the IPCC report on climate change for reading, but the concept of statistical certainty eluded her. Sorry luv, 95% confidence doesn't mean we're almost sure, in fact there is no element of subjectivity in these reports, but nice try though.

These are the people I hate. The "you can't know everything, dude" crowd. If you have that mindset, I suggest you avoid doctors, since knowing the difference between penicillin and cyanide can't be known, right? Yes, I know more than you guys, and I see more beauty in the world than you ever could. If you're studying liberals arts just so you can have a degree, just drop out. You won't get far in life. Feel free to quote me on that...

I rambled on long enough, here's something from some important bloke from Caltech [sub][sub]on whom I have a major mancrush[/sub][/sub]:

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars ? mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is "mere". I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination ? stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern ? of which I am a part... What is the pattern or the meaning or the why? It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little more about it. For far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined it. Why do the poets of the present not speak of it? What men are poets who can speak of Jupiter if he were a man, but if he is an immense spinning sphere of methane and ammonia must be silent?

 

[BGH122]

I think I love you

Cool! Love you too.

I agreed with you almost wholly except your evaluation of psychology. Psychology is a science still in its infancy. It's currently at a stage where it's fumbling through the problems, like sampling bias and temporal consistency, that the real sciences solved long ago, but it has potential. It's useful when it tells us what general patterns lie behind human cognition and behaviour. I doubt many scientists would deny the use of the findings of psychology as relates to biases in thought, confirmation biases etc, as such findings have made we scientists more aware of our own inner driving functions and what we should be looking out for when we're deciding how to interpret the facts of the matters with which we deal.

Where psychology becomes worthless is the impermanent psychologies: the social psychologies, the psychologies that measure 'what people think at the time of the study' such as gender studies and so on. Unless you're attempting to prove a permanent rule, like Tajfel's, Kelman and Moscovichy's underlying group psychologies, then don't bother. It isn't useful to the development of human knowledge to know that people in time x thought y. Why? Because we're the first ever species that we know of that's got the intelligence to change its own destiny and in the presumed lifespan of our species our personal existences and beliefs are as irrelevantly insular as a single speck of sand on a beach. Unless you're proving something that's presumably always going to be of use, or will be a valid building block for those who come after you, then it's not worth studying.

Another thing you picked up on in your post was the standard of sociology today. I admit, sociology really irks me. The proper function of sociology is to document phenomenon with explaining them: x happened at y date in z locality. This allows hypothesis generation for the medical, psychological and biological sciences. Sadly, sociology has become a 'science' unto itself, allowed to advise government and guess at the causes of the phenomena it examines. Such behaviour is invalid. It necessarily shows only correlations by its very nature and such findings cannot prove anything other than the fact that the correlation appeared to exist at the time of the study. Its sole function is hypothesis generation for experimental science, but too often does it overstep its bounds.

Disclaimer: I'm very drunk right now, but I reckon I'm more or less coherent.

 

[thethingthatlurks]

I think I love you

Cool! Love you too.

I agreed with you almost wholly except your evaluation of psychology. Psychology is a science still in its infancy. It's currently at a stage where it's fumbling through the problems, like sampling bias and temporal consistency, that the real sciences solved long ago, but it has potential. It's useful when it tells us what general patterns lie behind human cognition and behaviour. I doubt many scientists would deny the use of the findings of psychology as relates to biases in thought, confirmation biases etc, as such findings have made we scientists more aware of our own inner driving functions and what we should be looking out for when we're deciding how to interpret the facts of the matters with which we deal.

Where psychology becomes worthless is the impermanent psychologies: the social psychologies, the psychologies that measure 'what people think at the time of the study' such as gender studies and so on. Unless you're attempting to prove a permanent rule, like Tajfel's, Kelman and Moscovichy's underlying group psychologies, then don't bother. It isn't useful to the development of human knowledge to know that people in time x thought y. Why? Because we're the first ever species that we know of that's got the intelligence to change its own destiny and in the presumed lifespan of our species our personal existences and beliefs are as irrelevantly insular as a single speck of sand on a beach. Unless you're proving something that's presumably always going to be of use, or will be a valid building block for those who come after you, then it's not worth studying.

Another thing you picked up on in your post was the standard of sociology today. I admit, sociology really irks me. The proper function of sociology is to document phenomenon with explaining them: x happened at y date in z locality. This allows hypothesis generation for the medical, psychological and biological sciences. Sadly, sociology has become a 'science' unto itself, allowed to advise government and guess at the causes of the phenomena it examines. Such behaviour is invalid. It necessarily shows only correlations by its very nature and such findings cannot prove anything other than the fact that the correlation appeared to exist at the time of the study. Its sole function is hypothesis generation for experimental science, but too often does it overstep its bounds.

Disclaimer: I'm very drunk right now, but I reckon I'm more or less coherent.

No worries, I was a bit inebriated myself, hence some of the more hilarious examples of terrible writing.

Ah yes, I suppose I was a bit hasty in my lumping psychology in with everything else. I have never actually taken a psychology course, so I had no way of knowing whether it would be different from the other liberal arts courses I've taken. Ironically enough, I have to rely on my own subjective experiences with psychology students and the anecdotes of others to make my judgments. The applications of psychology may indeed be incredibly useful as you described, but I sadly have no way of knowing that for certain.
But you're right with regard to sociology. This wasn't an introductory course I took, so I have no way of knowing whether this professor was merely an exception or a typically example of how sociology is taught. Which is all the more distressing when you realize that the study of globalization is at least partially scientific. You generally have a clear cause, and consequences. It is demonstrable how, for example, how the building of maquiladora factories in the north of Mexico from the 1960s onward was facilitated by by the availability of cheap yet quality labor, low regulations, and ease of re-import of the finished goods into the US. From there one can make predictions regarding population change in this particular area of Mexico due to monetary influxes from wages and so forth. Granted, this isn't a particularly strong example, but it's far more useful to look at statistical trends than it is to read the diaries of a factory worker and then blame the "abhorrent" conditions on capitalism.

 

[burningdragoon]

Going to Liberal Arts school is fine. I went to one in fact. Majoring in a liberal arts field is also fine really. It doesn't generally have a direct career path associated with them unless you become a teacher, but if it's what you want to study then that's good. What I do think is a little bit worthless is when your major is "Liberal Arts." One of my friends is getting a "Masters in Liberal Arts" which, to me, seems like a waste of time really. Seems like you are just getting your degree in 'going to school'

Edit: About the poll/to say it simply
Getting a 'liberal arts' education? Good.
Majoring in a 'liberal arts' field? (English, History, Philosophy, Art, etc) Fine.
Majoring in 'Liberal Arts'? Not so good.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Liberal arts are cool. I go to a liberal arts college. That said, America doesn't produce nearly as many science and math majors as the rest of the wrold and needs to keep up. Liberal arts are cool but there must be something your working towards or your education isn't going anywhere. (Looking at you dance majors!)

 

[BGH122]

Ah yes, I suppose I was a bit hasty in my lumping psychology in with everything else. I have never actually taken a psychology course, so I had no way of knowing whether it would be different from the other liberal arts courses I've taken. Ironically enough, I have to rely on my own subjective experiences with psychology students and the anecdotes of others to make my judgments. The applications of psychology may indeed be incredibly useful as you described, but I sadly have no way of knowing that for certain.

No worries, I've only studied up to A-Level Psychology myself (the equivalent to the intermediate stage before the Bsc, not the Ba) so my knowledge of how it's carried out at the Bsc level isn't deep. However, somewhat ironically, A-Level psychology is the only A-Level science I've studied that's devoted 1/3 of the course to scientific theory and statistics. The rest seem to take a 'if you wanna learn that shit then go study Philosophy of Science' attitude, which is a real shame because students ought to know how the scientific method works so that they can avoid pitfalls.

But you're right with regard to sociology. This wasn't an introductory course I took, so I have no way of knowing whether this professor was merely an exception or a typically example of how sociology is taught. Which is all the more distressing when you realize that the study of globalization is at least partially scientific. You generally have a clear cause, and consequences. It is demonstrable how, for example, how the building of maquiladora factories in the north of Mexico from the 1960s onward was facilitated by by the availability of cheap yet quality labor, low regulations, and ease of re-import of the finished goods into the US. From there one can make predictions regarding population change in this particular area of Mexico due to monetary influxes from wages and so forth. Granted, this isn't a particularly strong example, but it's far more useful to look at statistical trends than it is to read the diaries of a factory worker and then blame the "abhorrent" conditions on capitalism.

This was my experience of sociology too. Psychology and sociology were taught in the same department at my college and every lesson the psychology students would listen to the sociology class with heavy sighs as another purported evil of our phallocratic, capitalist, oligarchical society was laid out with little to no supporting causal evidence.

It really annoys me when subjects attempt to try their hand at other subjects' domains. Sociology delves into half-arsed psychology, half-arsed empirical economics, half-arsed scientific theory and then just makes vague guesses at conclusions that it doesn't have the necessary evidence to support. This is a real shame because practised correctly sociology could be a great source of hypothesis generation for scientists. Its efficacy at highlighting 'at risk' groups for clinical psychologists and doctors has been wonderful, but too often people go into sociology to lend pseudo-legitimacy to left-wing rants.

As a side note, is psychology a 'liberal art' in the US? Even the Bsc?

 

[thethingthatlurks]

Ah yes, I suppose I was a bit hasty in my lumping psychology in with everything else. I have never actually taken a psychology course, so I had no way of knowing whether it would be different from the other liberal arts courses I've taken. Ironically enough, I have to rely on my own subjective experiences with psychology students and the anecdotes of others to make my judgments. The applications of psychology may indeed be incredibly useful as you described, but I sadly have no way of knowing that for certain.

No worries, I've only studied up to A-Level Psychology myself (the equivalent to the intermediate stage before the Bsc, not the Ba) so my knowledge of how it's carried out at the Bsc level isn't deep. However, somewhat ironically, A-Level psychology is the only A-Level science I've studied that's devoted 1/3 of the course to scientific theory and statistics. The rest seem to take a 'if you wanna learn that shit then go study Philosophy of Science' attitude, which is a real shame because students ought to know how the scientific method works so that they can avoid pitfalls.

But you're right with regard to sociology. This wasn't an introductory course I took, so I have no way of knowing whether this professor was merely an exception or a typically example of how sociology is taught. Which is all the more distressing when you realize that the study of globalization is at least partially scientific. You generally have a clear cause, and consequences. It is demonstrable how, for example, how the building of maquiladora factories in the north of Mexico from the 1960s onward was facilitated by by the availability of cheap yet quality labor, low regulations, and ease of re-import of the finished goods into the US. From there one can make predictions regarding population change in this particular area of Mexico due to monetary influxes from wages and so forth. Granted, this isn't a particularly strong example, but it's far more useful to look at statistical trends than it is to read the diaries of a factory worker and then blame the "abhorrent" conditions on capitalism.

This was my experience of sociology too. Psychology and sociology were taught in the same department at my college and every lesson the psychology students would listen to the sociology class with heavy sighs as another purported evil of our phallocratic, capitalist, oligarchical society was laid out with little to no supporting causal evidence.

It really annoys me when subjects attempt to try their hand at other subjects' domains. Sociology delves into half-arsed psychology, half-arsed empirical economics, half-arsed scientific theory and then just makes vague guesses at conclusions that it doesn't have the necessary evidence to support. This is a real shame because practised correctly sociology could be a great source of hypothesis generation for scientists. Its efficacy at highlighting 'at risk' groups for clinical psychologists and doctors has been wonderful, but too often people go into sociology to lend pseudo-legitimacy to left-wing rants.

As a side note, is psychology a 'liberal art' in the US? Even the Bsc?

If you don't mind me asking, are you currently pursuing a degree in science? You definitely have the thinking skills for it.

As far as overreaching of subjects is concerned, I've got another example: one of my chemistry professors introduced the concepts of crystal field theory with a much more simplistic approach based on group theory. Now group theory is part of algebra, and not chemistry. Yet the application fit, the explanation, although largely superficial and devoid of any derivation, was quite good, and there was the "if you want to learn more, take course X taught by Dr. Y." So one subject venturing into another's domain can work quite well. In fact it is the norm in the sciences, no one subject can explain a phenomenon without invoking a more detailed model from another subject. XKCD actually summed the extent of this interdependence up quite nicely:

Spoiler

So if venturing past your area of expertise isn't really a problem, why does sociology and related subjects keep screwing it up? Well, there's the confusion caused by statistics. The very first thing students in the sciences are taught is that correlation doesn't not necessarily imply causation. For example, the number of gay marriages in the eastern US has risen sharply since 2000, as has the availability of cheap broadband internet access. Therefore, internet causes teh ghey. Both are entirely true claims, but they are not related. Hence, no causation. Secondly, you have a limited scope of variables. My sociology class was largely concerned with monetary fluctuations in developing countries, which then marginalize the effects of natural phenomena and disasters could have had on the populations. Furthermore, there is an element of agenda pushing. You described it as the evils of our society, I would call it the needless glorification of the culture of less developed nations.

Yes, the department of psychology is part of the college of liberal arts, at least at my university. The languages, religious/asian/african-american studies, classics, history, government, anthropology, philosophy, geography and economics are all thrown in as well.