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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was just trying to read my car manual this weekend because I had a question about something and it was gibberish. Clearly, the world needs more English majors who can write clearly. It was just shockingly bad. [/quote]

That is why someone with a STEM background with very strong communication skills and writing skills can go far.  Every company needs a strong marketing team, someone who can write the manuals, etc.  But it's hard for an English only major to be strong  in the products of many companies . Hence by both skill sets are important
[/quote]

LOL I’m but a lowly English major but I’m pretty sure I could write a car user manual without an extensive background in STEM. Of course I also took advanced math and science classes because I went to a liberal arts college so maybe that qualifies me to explain what the various lights on the dashboard signify.

STEM people always think they can easily master the humanities and that humanities folks can’t do STEM but that’s just arrogance. [/quote]

My guess is the "advanced math and science classes" you claim you took aren't what a STEM person would consider advanced math and sciences.

I don't think people think they can master the humanities, but they are fairly certain that if they take an upper level English course they will understand the language in which the course is taught and will be able to answer the questions.

I was an econ major (which is a liberal arts major) and took some "advanced math" classes and decided to take a relatively low-level advanced math class for STEM kids.  I couldn't even understand what the professor was writing on the board.  It would be the equivalent of taking an English class where I first had to learn 7th century English prior to even attempting to read the texts and answering the questions.

It's inconceivable that any English major would take such a class...if you actually did and did very well, then you would have switched majors or at least pursued a dual-major because you would have to really love the material to do well.[/quote]
Maybe if you go to a trash school. The average stem student would struggle in a levinas seminar, would stumble through any upper level seminar for religious studies, would fail writing an upper level history paper with proper format, wouldn’t even have the pre reqs needed to begin coursework in the classics or comparative literature, and maybe would be okay with the demanding coursework of an upper division lit class. [/quote]

Correct...they could stumble through the classes which means they would be able to read the books and answer the questions.  This wasn't about doing well in the classes.

The converse is the English lit kid or religious studies couldn't even stumble through the advanced STEM classes.  They might be lucky to score 5 points out of 100...but the reality is they would drop the class on Day 1.

[/quote]
I really don’t think the average engineering student can comprehend Baudelaire, Ezra Pound, Agamben, Hegel, Derrida, close reading of any ecclesiastical writing or the Quran or really any theology, nor could they catch up in a Ulysses seminar. Why I’m having to defend that upper division coursework is, well, upper division? I don’t know.[/quote]

But, I bet they could stumble through while a humanities kid taking the equivalent Math class would get a zero on the tests.  They couldn't even stumble through.  They wouldn't understand a single thing written on the board.[/quote]
Do you understand Derrida? Seriously you seem way out of your element right now but you are talking very boldly. It’s a bit naive thinking you can begin to comprehend fields of study you haven’t actually dug into.[/quote]

A math major could bs their way to a C or a D in a Derrida seminar. Could a philosophy major do the same in Number Theory 2?[/quote]

This is the whole point everybody.  The math major isn't doing well, but at least they are getting a D.  They aren't handing in a blank term paper or not even trying to answer questions on an exam.

I don't think you understand that the converse just doesn't hold true.  The humanities major that on a lark decides to take some of these advanced Math classes will literally score a zero on the tests.  They will hand in a blank piece of paper because they won't have any clue what is being asked.

Rant over![/quote]

But that’s because the humanities major would presumably be missing foundational knowledge necessary to grasp the basics of the class, not because the humanities major is inherently stupider than the STEM major, or because their existing knowledge base is less valuable. A better analogy would be considering how a STEM major would do if dropped into a 300 or 400 level foreign language class. And, for the same reason, I don’t think the STEM majors inability to comprehend the basic texts being read in the class would be that meaningful.

Is reasoning by analogy a humanities skill? Do they not teach it in STEM? [/quote]

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