Reply to STEM Delusions

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "STEM Delusions"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I was a female STEM major in the late 80s-early 90s. Not very common.

In our school district it’s been nothing but STEM since my firstborn (2005). Writing fell to the wayside. Reading is down due to iPhone/social media usage. Schools aren’t even requiring full novels to be read. Most exams are multiple choice only on a laptop.

We put our kids in Jesuit high schools - left public. They are equally as strong in STEM and English/humanities/languages. I am such a huge proponent of a true liberal arts education.  Look at these big tech billionaires with zero ethics or empathy. A lot of that is STEM only focus.

Most kids were told STEM is the only employable field and everyone got the memo and that’s the field (and finance) everyone is headed for.  It’s saturated.

[b]Without knowledge of other cultures, religions, history, literature we get the dystopian world we are currently living in.[/b] [/quote]

Me too! I yearn for a world where we used to have high child mortality, low life expectancy, low literacy, high poverty, and lots of everyday violence.

You know, the good old days!
 [/quote]

Yes. That’s what Trump and RFK JR are handing to you—the 1800s.

You can’t see the forest for the trees.  An organic chemist, a microbiologist, a geneticist are all part of a liberal arts education at top colleges.

They are intertwined. 
Signed, a molecular biologist with a liberal arts undergrad whi applied much of that liberal arts education in the work I do today (philosophy, history, writing, analyzing)[/quote]

Liberal arts education is not the issue. The issue is useless arts majors, gender studies majors and other useless majors. [/quote]
Less than 1% of majors are the issue? What a lazy argument.[/quote]

For background, I am right wing.  The "gender studies" canard is what the right wing uses as an example, to try and convince the Rubes in the Republican party to discount education.  Of course there are barely any "gender studies" majors, but that's not the point.

They say "oh the ivy league is a bunch of gender studies losers", and then slobber over Ted Cruz or John Kennedy (Louisiana) because they have ivy league or equivalent degrees.  It is ignorant, and a major reason why they have failed as a party.  When my kid was getting ready to go to an Ivy, some of the local boomer cons would make comments.  "I would rather my grandson go to trade school" .  Well, good.  Let them go to trade school (nothing wrong with that).

But if you have a smart kid, and you are talking about gender studies as a reason to not have them enter the crucible and defend their positions and compete intellectually with the brightest kids, and maybe even evolve on some positions...then you are a loser.  It's the main reason that the right wing in this country are losers.

The humanities are important, and STEM is important.  That's why you need good scores in all of your high school classes to be admitted, not just one or the other.

Sorry for the tangent, but as a quick and final note:  The percentage of students who are right wing at the ivies ranges from a low of about 15% at Brown to 50/50 at Cornell.  Princeton is about 35% and even the "liberal" Columbia has about 25%.  Columbia also has more students who attend weekly religious  services than most state schools in the south.  That is all from the FIRE survey of students.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics