Quote:
Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald
Yeah, you kind of missed the point. The humanities introduce a new context to the technical education you pursue. Frank Gehry credits his love for art and culture as what drove many of his design choices. It was his connection to, and love for, the humanities that made him a visionary and one of the greatest architects in history. The humanities gives us perspective a strictly technical education does not, and the benefit is seen the work produced. The same can be said for any discipline. The more well rounded you are, the better you will be in everything you take on.
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I didn't miss your point, I just disagree with you. Having humanities included in any education is obviously important, but the relative weighting is a matter that can and should be debated. I suggest in many programs (including specifically architecture) more time on technical matters and less on humanities would improve outcomes both at the individual and societal level. You're free to disagree, but that doesn't mean I missed your point. Gehry's love for the humanities may have made him a great architect, but his buildings are all structurally sound as well. If they weren't nobody would be discussing his work later. You can generalize that to almost any field - visionary thought is wonderful, but it is only applicable after a strong foundation of technical basics have been achieved. And in many cases our education system fails at providing that base level knowledge.
And that really has nothing to do with the fundamental issues that are facing our system of higher education.
When the universities are asking for funding, they always say they are important contributors to students economic wellbeing and that the increased earnings of students pay society back for the cost of educating them.
But that isn't true for many programs any more, because as has been noted the average B.A. isn't providing people the classical education to be a diplomat anymore. Instead, it's providing barely literate graduates without basic reasoning skills. This is a problem of both the input (students who shouldn't be there) and of the process (providing poor quality education with underpaid/overworked sessional instructors and low standards).
Whenever anyone suggests that universities change to focus on more marketable programs, the hue and cry that it isn't about money comes to the fore. But it's coming to the point where the universities aren't going to be able to continue getting funding for degrees that fail at teaching BOTH critical thinking and specifically marketable technical skills.
Speaking personally (and acknowledging n=1 here) I took no humanities courses in university whatsoever. I do however have arguably the best humanities high school education available in Alberta (Full IB at Western Canada, higher level English/history with scores of 7/7 in both). That was a big advantage over the other engineers (mainly because I know the difference between an adverb and an adjective, not so much because I understand allusions to 'waiting for Godot', or because I comprehend the humour in 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'). And that seems to have been enough for me to make a full time living as a writer with enough time to spare to argue about all sorts of things on CP during the day, which I suspect is more than a great many BA holders can say about their degrees.
So while I think the humanities should probably be part of every degree, I also think the vast majority of the money and time spent on humanities specific degrees (and most degrees in general) is probably wasted. Since a great deal of that money and time is government funded, that is a matter of public interest.