Colleges firing humanities professors

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/education/2023/10/08/miami-university-to-reinvent-18-majors-with-low-enrollment/70984039007/

More humanities major cutting.
It says Miami U
I think its Miami U of Ohio

"Students at Miami University may no longer be able to major in some humanities programs, such as American studies, religion or health communication."

So they can major in something less oddly specific for undergrad. This isn't death of humanities.

"Miami is considering consolidating 18 of its major programs"

It's not death yet, but you can see the trend.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/education/2023/10/08/miami-university-to-reinvent-18-majors-with-low-enrollment/70984039007/

More humanities major cutting.
It says Miami U
I think its Miami U of Ohio

Miami U is actually ranked #133 and yet if you read the article, they mention how the student body is shrinking.

This will be the prominent trend in college over the next 20 years. Way more schools shrinking vs. staying the same or growing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have long believed that the college market was in a bubble that would burst. This is why I haven't funded our 529s at the level suggested-- I hear 120k per kid, and I don't believe the market will hold at prices that high into the next decade.[b] I'm in a position to pay cash for basically any college without much angst, so the only reason to fund a 529 is the tax advantages. I don't believe the tax advantages outweigh the risk of the market popping and college prices coming back down to earth.

I think many colleges are going to go broke, or consolidate with other colleges if they are lucky. Laying off professors is only the beginning, and it won't only affect liberal arts. People now understand that college isn't that great for social mobility for people who have too many class "tells," and they would be much more economically mobile in a high paying trade jobs like electrician, welder, high end carpentry, etc.

I thought the same way as you. And alas, here I am without college savings, paying outrageous tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have long believed that the college market was in a bubble that would burst. This is why I haven't funded our 529s at the level suggested-- I hear 120k per kid, and I don't believe the market will hold at prices that high into the next decade. I'm in a position to pay cash for basically any college without much angst, so the only reason to fund a 529 is the tax advantages. I don't believe the tax advantages outweigh the risk of the market popping and college prices coming back down to earth.

I think many colleges are going to go broke, or consolidate with other colleges if they are lucky. Laying off professors is only the beginning, and it won't only affect liberal arts. People now understand that college isn't that great for social mobility for people who have too many class "tells," and they would be much more economically mobile in a high paying trade jobs like electrician, welder, high end carpentry, etc.

Disagree to a point.

A college education is better at moving LMC to MC, and MC to UMC for STEM majors.

My parents are uneducated immigrants. We were LMC to MC. My parents worked factory jobs. I went to a no name statue u, and started earning six figures by 30, and this was 20+ years ago. Of course, it depends on your major and job. I work in tech.

But, for humanities, I tend to agree with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The world does not need more history, philosophy, literature, religious studies students. Students who are going into these fields have not been advised properly.

Everyone is learning humanities. Including STEM students. Look at their course work, more than 60% in humanities.

You dont need a major in history. Who would need history majors? History teachers/professors, yes. That is a tiny portion of the population. The numbers graduating in that major are multiples of those actually needed.

How do we know? The market is a good mechanism for what skills are valuable. If you paid attention in humanities courses, you would have learned about it.

- STEM professional

Who do you think is going to teach them if you lay off the professors? The vast, vast majority of students ANY humanities professor at a non-elite, undergraduate college teaches are not majors. They are students who are going to need to be able to write and speak and do research in their careers. Yeah, STEM students too.

So true. My Chemistry/Chinese double major kid found out the Asian history class involves a whole different level of reading and writing (much more extensive) than his Chemistry classes.
I truly believe it will serve him well later in life.

UMD requires essentially a minor for CS majors. Kind of hoping he takes advantage of one of the non-technical minors that require fewer prerequisites like philosophy or linguistics rather than math or robotics.

? that's news to us. DC is a CS major at UMD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The world does not need more history, philosophy, literature, religious studies students. Students who are going into these fields have not been advised properly.

Everyone is learning humanities. Including STEM students. Look at their course work, more than 60% in humanities.

You dont need a major in history. Who would need history majors? History teachers/professors, yes. That is a tiny portion of the population. The numbers graduating in that major are multiples of those actually needed.

How do we know? The market is a good mechanism for what skills are valuable. If you paid attention in humanities courses, you would have learned about it.

- STEM professional

I dunno but I think a lot of people in foreign policy positions have a liberal arts background. Some even in, yikes, history.

And the track record of American foreign policy success really shows the value of that liberal arts training, lmao.

The people setting policy aren't the academic experts.

then this is a moot point.
-dp

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The world does not need more history, philosophy, literature, religious studies students. Students who are going into these fields have not been advised properly.

Everyone is learning humanities. Including STEM students. Look at their course work, more than 60% in humanities.

You dont need a major in history. Who would need history majors? History teachers/professors, yes. That is a tiny portion of the population. The numbers graduating in that major are multiples of those actually needed.

How do we know? The market is a good mechanism for what skills are valuable. If you paid attention in humanities courses, you would have learned about it.

- STEM professional

Who do you think is going to teach them if you lay off the professors? The vast, vast majority of students ANY humanities professor at a non-elite, undergraduate college teaches are not majors. They are students who are going to need to be able to write and speak and do research in their careers. Yeah, STEM students too.

So true. My Chemistry/Chinese double major kid found out the Asian history class involves a whole different level of reading and writing (much more extensive) than his Chemistry classes.
I truly believe it will serve him well later in life.

UMD requires essentially a minor for CS majors. Kind of hoping he takes advantage of one of the non-technical minors that require fewer prerequisites like philosophy or linguistics rather than math or robotics.

? that's news to us. DC is a CS major at UMD.

Upper level concentration outside of CS.
https://undergrad.cs.umd.edu/upper-level-concentration

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The world does not need more history, philosophy, literature, religious studies students. Students who are going into these fields have not been advised properly.

Everyone is learning humanities. Including STEM students. Look at their course work, more than 60% in humanities.

You dont need a major in history. Who would need history majors? History teachers/professors, yes. That is a tiny portion of the population. The numbers graduating in that major are multiples of those actually needed.

How do we know? The market is a good mechanism for what skills are valuable. If you paid attention in humanities courses, you would have learned about it.

- STEM professional

Who do you think is going to teach them if you lay off the professors? The vast, vast majority of students ANY humanities professor at a non-elite, undergraduate college teaches are not majors. They are students who are going to need to be able to write and speak and do research in their careers. Yeah, STEM students too.

So true. My Chemistry/Chinese double major kid found out the Asian history class involves a whole different level of reading and writing (much more extensive) than his Chemistry classes.
I truly believe it will serve him well later in life.

UMD requires essentially a minor for CS majors. Kind of hoping he takes advantage of one of the non-technical minors that require fewer prerequisites like philosophy or linguistics rather than math or robotics.

? that's news to us. DC is a CS major at UMD.

Upper level concentration outside of CS.
https://undergrad.cs.umd.edu/upper-level-concentration

oh, interesting. Didn't know that. DC is a dual degree major with math, so maybe that's why this wasn't on their radar. Good to know, though. I guess it's another thing that sets UMD CS a part from some other programs. DC is very much a STEM person.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The world does not need more history, philosophy, literature, religious studies students. Students who are going into these fields have not been advised properly.

Everyone is learning humanities. Including STEM students. Look at their course work, more than 60% in humanities.

You dont need a major in history. Who would need history majors? History teachers/professors, yes. That is a tiny portion of the population. The numbers graduating in that major are multiples of those actually needed.

How do we know? The market is a good mechanism for what skills are valuable. If you paid attention in humanities courses, you would have learned about it.

- STEM professional

Who do you think is going to teach them if you lay off the professors? The vast, vast majority of students ANY humanities professor at a non-elite, undergraduate college teaches are not majors. They are students who are going to need to be able to write and speak and do research in their careers. Yeah, STEM students too.

So true. My Chemistry/Chinese double major kid found out the Asian history class involves a whole different level of reading and writing (much more extensive) than his Chemistry classes.
I truly believe it will serve him well later in life.

UMD requires essentially a minor for CS majors. Kind of hoping he takes advantage of one of the non-technical minors that require fewer prerequisites like philosophy or linguistics rather than math or robotics.

? that's news to us. DC is a CS major at UMD.

Upper level concentration outside of CS.
https://undergrad.cs.umd.edu/upper-level-concentration

oh, interesting. Didn't know that. DC is a dual degree major with math, so maybe that's why this wasn't on their radar. Good to know, though. I guess it's another thing that sets UMD CS a part from some other programs. DC is very much a STEM person.

I agree 100%

[Anonymous]

I personally would like people who design apps and whatnot to have taken philosophy, so that they can think about privacy ethics and justice and algorithmic bias and all that good stuff. My daughter is going to law school and wants to do intellectual property and she majored in philosophy. I want people who design weapons and self-driving cars to have taken philosophy so they can think about responsibility and the trolley problem, etc. I'm sure some of you think there's an app they can use to learn philosophy and Chinese, etc. but i think we still need some philosophers around. Check out some of the brilliant philosophers of technology at places like Cal Tech, doing really interesting work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I personally would like people who design apps and whatnot to have taken philosophy, so that they can think about privacy ethics and justice and algorithmic bias and all that good stuff. My daughter is going to law school and wants to do intellectual property and she majored in philosophy. I want people who design weapons and self-driving cars to have taken philosophy so they can think about responsibility and the trolley problem, etc. I'm sure some of you think there's an app they can use to learn philosophy and Chinese, etc. but i think we still need some philosophers around. Check out some of the brilliant philosophers of technology at places like Cal Tech, doing really interesting work.

Mixed opinions about Mark Cuban, but a link below from 6 years ago sharing his thoughts on a philosophy degree. I send this as a parent of a CS major.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/02/20/mark-cuban-philosophy-degree-will-be-worth-more-than-computer-science.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally would like people who design apps and whatnot to have taken philosophy, so that they can think about privacy ethics and justice and algorithmic bias and all that good stuff. My daughter is going to law school and wants to do intellectual property and she majored in philosophy. I want people who design weapons and self-driving cars to have taken philosophy so they can think about responsibility and the trolley problem, etc. I'm sure some of you think there's an app they can use to learn philosophy and Chinese, etc. but i think we still need some philosophers around. Check out some of the brilliant philosophers of technology at places like Cal Tech, doing really interesting work.

Mixed opinions about Mark Cuban, but a link below from 6 years ago sharing his thoughts on a philosophy degree. I send this as a parent of a CS major.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/02/20/mark-cuban-philosophy-degree-will-be-worth-more-than-computer-science.html

when I was a CS major eons ago I had to take a philosophy/ethics class as part of my major.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I personally would like people who design apps and whatnot to have taken philosophy, so that they can think about privacy ethics and justice and algorithmic bias and all that good stuff. My daughter is going to law school and wants to do intellectual property and she majored in philosophy. I want people who design weapons and self-driving cars to have taken philosophy so they can think about responsibility and the trolley problem, etc. I'm sure some of you think there's an app they can use to learn philosophy and Chinese, etc. but i think we still need some philosophers around. Check out some of the brilliant philosophers of technology at places like Cal Tech, doing really interesting work.

Mixed opinions about Mark Cuban, but a link below from 6 years ago sharing his thoughts on a philosophy degree. I send this as a parent of a CS major.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/02/20/mark-cuban-philosophy-degree-will-be-worth-more-than-computer-science.html

+1. The ability to analyze the big picture, use inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary approaches, and to summon creative and novel ways to solve problems will be increasingly valuable as AI takes over (has already taken over) skills like programming and accounting. AI draws upon what is already available on the internet, it cannot come up with original ideas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if the hate against liberal arts is not a bug but a feature of a system that more and more seems to be capitalizing on people’s fears so the status quo isn’t challenged. And I say this as someone who works in a science based/“practical” field.

Side note: Why is this phrase so popular now? Within the past year or two, everything is said to be "not a bug but a feature."

The status quo would be to keep the liberal arts departments, wouldn't it? They're eliminating departments that fewer students are majoring in bc they don't need as many profs to teach those classes, since not as many students are taking the classes.

It's bot language.

It's derived from gaming. Actually. Specifically, I believe, EverQuest: "not a bug but a feature" describes an accidental result from coding that isn't going to be fixed. Its meaning has been somewhat inverted since.

I don't see the point of a stem-focused society. They write terrible literature, create bad art, and have really boring cocktail party conversation. You can argue that humanities aren't "profitable," but only because you lack the vision to understand what a world based entirely on zero-sum humans all focused on engineering and their army of desperate company town servants would look like.

I'm in a writer's group with a lot of STEM graduates. Bright people. Nice folks. Bad at world building.

There's quite a lot to be said for the joy of learning something for its own sake. Studying something you're passionate about because you love it. I'm truly sorry you sad engineers will never know it, and even sorrier when I have to edit the crap you write.