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This is a topic that has entertained for at least a century: which is more important - STEM or the liberal arts? It's a false dichotomy but that doesn't stop people jumping on their bandwagons. Debate is surging as multiple programs aim to encourage enrollment in STEM programs at the college level. Sadly, some politicians are seizing the opportunity to further polarize and dumb-down public opinion by suggesting education assistance should only be offered for STEM courses. And some liberal arts advocates push back with similarly stereotyped views on the limitations of STEM. I'd be interested to see what level of debate this topic stimulates in this forum.
For the record, I think both are important. It would be a grey and Orwellian world where only STEM education was promoted.
Given the fact that most visitors of this site probably got STEM education the opinions here might be somewhat skewed this way. I am no exception. And perhaps my opinion is even more skewed because I grew up and was educated in USSR. As far as I remember USSR did not have a notion of liberal arts. The high education system in general was different than it was (and still is) here. There was no notion of bachelor and master degrees. Young men and women went to high school to get a profession. It could have been a technical one (an engineer) or something else. Something else was mostly doctors, lawyers and teachers (no managers or politicians or religion-related professions). High education took 4 to 6 years depending on the field. Most colleges took 5 years to get a degree. The courses were all preset (no election) depending on the chosen profession. Regardless of the field, all programs included some core courses (languages, history and even physical education). One of the main differences I see is that there was no artificial separation between advanced degree and bachelor degree. Those who, say, went to study law did not have to wait four years to actually start studying law. As I understand, many liberal arts colleges serve as a prep schools for lawyers, doctors etc. While I understand the importance of studying the disciplines commonly associated with liberal arts I still think that in many cases it is too wasteful for a person to wait until reaching age of 21-22 yo before he or she can start learning the actual craft of the profession. It is also wasteful for a society in general. Obviously Soviet system had its own shortcomings. Not being very flexible is one of them. On the other hand from my experience and experience of those I know I believe that flexibility might be overrated. The main goal of education (at least for smart and creative people) is to teach people some fundamentals and to teach them how to study, present, think and solve technical (and other) problems. Regardless of the degree of flexibility, after graduation engineer will never be fully prepared for a specific job (situation is probably a little different for doctors and some other professions).
Now as a parent, I would definitely not want my child to go to liberal arts college unless she or he is fully committed to become a doctor or a lawyer. If I was worth $100+ I probably would not mind them going to liberal arts (or whatever) college either
Interesting contrast. But then at least some aspects of the arts also flourished (and seemed to be highly valued, at least from a Western perspective) in the USSR during that period. So perhaps we have something to learn from that system. You do raise an interesting question - what is the purpose of a higher education? I studied physics and then nuclear physics for my graduate degree and I can't say either of them have been directly relevant to my career. But I did learn how to think critically and systematically (I think) and that was useful.
Our society needs both STEM and liberal arts to be healthy. When I was pursuing my degree in Electrical Engineering I avoided taking a foreign language because I couldn't see how that would be helpful to me in chip design. Once I started working in industry at Intel we had a chip project where a CPU block was coming from Intel Japan, and being able to speak Japanese would've been incredibly useful to our team and work.
Eventually I studied Japanese for one year while at CrossCheck, a small testability start-up in Silicon Valley with 100% of the customer base in Japan. Now that was a good investment for my technology career.
Liberal arts and sciences education is critical, considering a lot of leaders and managers in private businesses or government are not from STEM background. They need to make a lot good decisions everyday. For example, I did a quick check about college majors for US Presidents since 1945. Among them, probably President Carter is the only one with STEM related major.
Our society needs both STEM and liberal arts to be healthy. When I was pursuing my degree in Electrical Engineering I avoided taking a foreign language because I couldn't see how that would be helpful to me in chip design. Once I started working in industry at Intel we had a chip project where a CPU block was coming from Intel Japan, and being able to speak Japanese would've been incredibly useful to our team and work.
Eventually I studied Japanese for one year while at CrossCheck, a small testability start-up in Silicon Valley with 100% of the customer base in Japan. Now that was a good investment for my technology career.
True - but where then would that put a degree in philosophy or English literature, or music? Do we measure higher education in terms of utility or are there other factors to consider? Is it valuable to develop (in higher education) a sense of beauty or ethics or the human condition? These don't have direct utility but they could be considered important what goals we should aspire to beyond job-related value and how to better understand the experiences of others.
Not saying I know the answers - perhaps the purpose of higher education should be rethought, but however we do that, I'd like to hope there would be more to to it than utility. Perhaps the Russian system does have something to teach us?
Like so much of what passes for debate these days, the STEM vs Liberal Arts debate has descended into an either or choice. Like other responders to the original post, my EE education included a number of non-technical electives, that really weren't elective at all. The curriculum expected even STEM students to have a more rounded education, so a defined number of course hours from non-technical courses were required. The elective part meant that I could choose the courses from a menu to satisfy the requirement. My choices included Psychology, Philosophy, Economics, and World Politics, among others. As another poster noted, phys ed was also mandatory (sound mind, sound body). One of my EE lab instructors would banish students to a remedial writing lab if lab reports were not written in proper English.
In those "olden times" there was some agreement about what constituted an education, regardless of the field of study. Even today, there are subjects (most from those classified as Liberal Arts) where some familiarity is required to be a productive citizen. Additionally, many of the Liberal Arts courses expand one's ability to think critically, beyond that critical thinking required in the STEM fields. Lastly, as another poster mentioned, my engineering degree meant that as I left university, I could now begin to learn the craft/profession of engineering.
An interesting development I just noticed - there is an initiative to extend STEM to STEAM where the "A" is for art, specifically design art, to encourage creativity in design in STEM fields. Hardly embracing the liberal arts in general but a baby step in the right direction.
