Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:51     Subject: Re:So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Liberal arts is in theory a fantastic intellectual foundation for life and a career, but in practice its been wrecked by wokeness. Everyone recognizes this and is staying away.

If we can reform the liberal arts, it will flourish again.

It did not die out due to wokeness. Liberal arts degrees have been declining for many years in part due to the growth in the tech sector, and more students majoring in business.


And why are people so interested in majoring in "business" which typically not a rigorous degree where you learn boring things that were just picked up on the job by intelligent, well-rounded people years ago without the need for any courses? Perhaps its all the stories they hear about people signing for literature courses and having to listen to political drivel rather than actually learn to appreciate literature.

People are interested in majoring in business because there's more money to be made as a business major than an English major.

Seriously, it's not that hard to understand.

FWIW, I am not a progressive, and I dislike that my kids had to read so much woke books in school. One year, the book choices were pretty much all about DEI.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:49     Subject: So many engineering students
I've got a dirty secret, med schools like humanities majors and admit them at higher rate than stembots!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:49     Subject: Re:So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Liberal arts is in theory a fantastic intellectual foundation for life and a career, but in practice its been wrecked by wokeness. Everyone recognizes this and is staying away.

If we can reform the liberal arts, it will flourish again.

It did not die out due to wokeness. Liberal arts degrees have been declining for many years in part due to the growth in the tech sector, and more students majoring in business.


And why are people so interested in majoring in "business" which typically not a rigorous degree where you learn boring things that were just picked up on the job by intelligent, well-rounded people years ago without the need for any courses? Perhaps its all the stories they hear about people signing for literature courses and having to listen to political drivel rather than actually learn to appreciate literature.


People study business because that’s where the money is. Duh.

Our culture is deeply anti-intellectual. Our culture worships money above all. Treating Universities as de facto trade schools (STEM! Business!) does not make for a truly educated populace.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:49     Subject: Re:So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Liberal arts is in theory a fantastic intellectual foundation for life and a career, but in practice its been wrecked by wokeness. Everyone recognizes this and is staying away.

If we can reform the liberal arts, it will flourish again.

It did not die out due to wokeness. Liberal arts degrees have been declining for many years in part due to the growth in the tech sector, and more students majoring in business.


And why are people so interested in majoring in "business" which typically not a rigorous degree where you learn boring things that were just picked up on the job by intelligent, well-rounded people years ago without the need for any courses? Perhaps its all the stories they hear about people signing for literature courses and having to listen to political drivel rather than actually learn to appreciate literature.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:45     Subject: So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why not go to school for something useful like engineering? Liberal arts is basically worthless


Because engineers are chattel, and always will be.


Actually the best read and most thoughtful kids I know are all studying or going into engineering. Things have changed over the past ten years or so. Middle and high schools seem to be actively making subjects like English unpleasant to study. I find that it really is the smart kids that are gravitating toward engineering these days - less so CS right now. If you want brains, engineering and pre-med seem to be where it's at right now. And a lot of those kids read for pleasure and are pretty curious about the world.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:43     Subject: So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why not go to school for something useful like engineering? Liberal arts is basically worthless


Because engineers are chattel, and always will be.


My older son went to school for engineering and he steered our younger son in a different direction. He is studying computational math and applied statistics.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:33     Subject: Re:So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Liberal arts is in theory a fantastic intellectual foundation for life and a career, but in practice its been wrecked by wokeness. Everyone recognizes this and is staying away.

If we can reform the liberal arts, it will flourish again.

It did not die out due to wokeness. Liberal arts degrees have been declining for many years in part due to the growth in the tech sector, and more students majoring in business.


And why are people so interested in majoring in "business" which typically not a rigorous degree where you learn boring things that were just picked up on the job by intelligent, well-rounded people years ago without the need for any courses? Perhaps its all the stories they hear about people signing for literature courses and having to listen to political drivel rather than actually learn to appreciate literature.


I'm not saying this doesn't happen because it definitely does (and I'm not thrilled with it either), but it has been completely blown out of proportion by the right wing propaganda machine. Like so many issues that are even less common yet people are led to believe they are widespread.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:28     Subject: Re:So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Liberal arts is in theory a fantastic intellectual foundation for life and a career, but in practice its been wrecked by wokeness. Everyone recognizes this and is staying away.

If we can reform the liberal arts, it will flourish again.

It did not die out due to wokeness. Liberal arts degrees have been declining for many years in part due to the growth in the tech sector, and more students majoring in business.


And why are people so interested in majoring in "business" which typically not a rigorous degree where you learn boring things that were just picked up on the job by intelligent, well-rounded people years ago without the need for any courses? Perhaps its all the stories they hear about people signing for literature courses and having to listen to political drivel rather than actually learn to appreciate literature.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:23     Subject: Re:So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:Liberal arts is in theory a fantastic intellectual foundation for life and a career, but in practice its been wrecked by wokeness. Everyone recognizes this and is staying away.

If we can reform the liberal arts, it will flourish again.

It did not die out due to wokeness. Liberal arts degrees have been declining for many years in part due to the growth in the tech sector, and more students majoring in business.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:11     Subject: Re:So many engineering students
Liberal arts is in theory a fantastic intellectual foundation for life and a career, but in practice its been wrecked by wokeness. Everyone recognizes this and is staying away.

If we can reform the liberal arts, it will flourish again.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:10     Subject: So many engineering students
Engineering jobs are tough to find right now unless you want to move to somewhere like Detroit and work with hundreds of other cubical drones.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 14:06     Subject: So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:Why not go to school for something useful like engineering? Liberal arts is basically worthless


Because engineers are chattel, and always will be.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 13:57     Subject: So many engineering students
Some engineering schools (example: VT) have intentional weed-out classes meaning their Junior year pool of engineering students is visibly smaller than their Freshman pool. This means that late bloomers get a chance to demonstrate they can do the work.

Other engineering programs (e.g., Caltech) filter heavily on at admissions time and have high graduation rates. A late bloomer might have a harder time getting admitted to one of these.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 13:57     Subject: So many engineering students
Engineering is also often a miserable way to spend four years of college. I studied econ and really didn't work hard. My roommate was an engineer and worked his tail off. I'm now making a lot more money.
Anonymous
Post 05/02/2025 13:56     Subject: So many engineering students
Anonymous wrote:STEM is the new liberal arts. CS and engineering grads working at starbucks! Oh the irony!


Don’t be dumb. Tech is where all the jobs are heading. Get on board or be left behind.