[timun]

Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald

[...] STEM, STEM, STEM. SAIT, SAIT, SAIT. You are talking the difference between the architect and the draftsman. There are few architects out there, but there are ton of draftsmen. [...]

Originally Posted by bizaro86

I'm not sure I agree a humanities focused classical education makes an architect. Imo that's a STEM degree.

Originally Posted by MarchHare

That's not what Lanny is saying. His point is that completing a purely STEM-focused degree will turn out a graduate who is perfectly capable of designing structures and drawing blueprints, but if you want someone to create something that is a beautiful example of both form and function, they're going to also take "useless" liberal arts courses in subjects like Art History, Philosophy, Literature, Classics, etc.

I find Lanny's anecdote pretty funny, because in my experience we have the exact opposite problem: many architects out there, but (too) few (good) draftsmen.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say we have lots of architectural grads being pumped out of universities across this country who are quite adept at the "'useless' liberal arts courses", but are also completely incapable of designing a realistic structure and crafting a good set of drawing plans.

And it's not just architecture that has this problem: I am an engineering consultant, and I see it in my own field. We have too many "book smart" engineering grads coming out of school with all the requisite courses for a CEAB-accredited degree completed, but they know #### all about how to design and build anything. Frankly I was one of them, to a degree, and as much as I came to loathe my first job out of university I did get the opportunity to learn a lot as an EIT, and for that I am (somewhat) thankful.

Overall my sentiments about this issue echo what many others have already written in this thread: over the last 50 years we've slowly but surely raised the bar on the minimum amount of education an 'employable' person 'needs' from high school to a four-year degree, because we have a glut of university grads who otherwise have no available positions in their field of study. We have shifted the universities' focus from offering a broad higher education to a select few to providing very specialized programs that often result in no appreciable improvement in a graduate's employability to just about anyone with a pulse. We're now asking our universities to do the impossible: ensure grads get well-paying jobs afterward. That's really what vocational schools were for, but those institutions are unfairly stigmatized as "lesser". I'm not sure how we solve this problem, but I think it won't really start until employers get rid of absurd minimum educational requirements.