
On path to riches, no sign of fluffy majors  - cwan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/if-money-matters-this-report-is-a-major-deal/2011/05/23/AF7r459G_story.html?hpid=z3
======
true_religion
Historically, the liberal arts were practiced by the rich.

Engineering, and to a lesser extent the professional fields like Law and
Medicine were intended to let smart bourgeoisie bootstrap themselves.

I doubt there is anyone anywhere who has taken on an english major and said
"this will make me my first $1,000,000". So why is this common sense knowledge
constantly peddled around as something "new" in newspapers?

~~~
jonnathanson
More to that point, liberal arts were practiced by the rich in societies with
_rigid class structures_. If you were the scion of a comfortable fortune, you
majored in the "classics" or the liberal arts because you wanted, more or
less, to have the background to enable you to live an exciting and fulfilling
life of leisure. To make great conversation at cocktail parties and charity
balls. To provide the intellectual background behind gentleman-scholarship and
amateur pursuits. To help you toy around with a novel or two. And so forth.

This isn't the way our society works anymore, and the liberal arts curricula
never really adapted with the times. To some extent, liberal arts is still a
valuable major for those wanting to pursue Law, and whose colleges do not have
a discrete "pre-law" curriculum. Other than that, however, liberal arts is
fairly impractical. Still valuable for intellectual development, but
intellectual development of a sort that's not prized or valued or applicable
to modern working society.

~~~
_delirium
That's the typical stereotype of liberal-arts education's history, but I don't
think it's that historically accurate, though it probably does describe some
of the Victorian era's schooling more specifically. But the traditional
liberal arts weren't greatly separated from what we now think of as the
sciences, though they were indeed separated from engineering and crafts.
"Amateur pursuits" typically included not only "toy[ing] around with a novel
or two", but also toying around with a telescope and a beaker or formula or
two; most great scientists and mathematicians before the modern era were a
product of liberal-arts education.

It's also been popular in the American context, which isn't a society that has
a rigid class structure. That at least used to be connected with a certain
view of democracy and self-government, which held that liberal-arts education
was a prerequisite for a working democratic society (e.g. Thomas Jefferson's
views).

~~~
true_religion
I'll grant you that---I forgot about the time period where "natural
philosophy" was science.

------
brockf
Anecdote: I'm 22, have a successful web application business that earns more
than any of those median earnings, and am scaling my involvement (and
earnings) down to begin my PhD in cognitive science (under the umbrella of
psychology, for most).

Why would I leave the "path to riches" to earn - at best - the same as I've
made as a teenager? Meaning. Research and teaching give meaning to an
otherwise dull life of emailing people I've never met about issues that no one
will remember in a few years time. It's fun to work with people, fun to talk
about issues that no one quite understands (language acquisition, in my case),
and exhilarating to teach students who will hopefully outperform me in every
way.

This community is largely driven by money. People ask "How hard is it to make
an app that makes $XXXX in revenue?" at least once per week. But there are
other things that provide meaning and drive in people's lives. I've forgotten
it on a fair share of occasions, but I hope I never look down on someone who
dedicates four years (or more) of their time to studying the arts/humanities
as opposed to the "hard" sciences or engineering.

~~~
drinian
It's a lot easier to go look for meaning once you have a solid financial base.

~~~
potatolicious
The trouble is defining "solid".

I will agree - if you are having trouble making rent and keeping food in the
fridge, you're probably not having a very good time looking for meaning in
life.

But do you really need to _maximize_ your income? Do you need a $300K job in
finance or a $120K job writing code?

~~~
drinian
Right. I should clarify that in my own case, that meant getting the computer
science degree, working for three years to pay off my debt, and then feeling
quite comfortable taking a few years off to go backpacking around the world. I
knew I could come back to my trade.

I also have a degree in history, so I did pursue liberal arts at the same
time. But I knew that wasn't enough for a complete life, in my case.

------
JonnieCache
If I had an english degree, rather than the usual tired excuses, I'd go around
telling people:

 _"The study of humanities imbues us with a rich internal, emotional wealth
such that graduates do not feel the compulsive need for ultimately harmful
acquisitive obsessions throughout their lives, whereas holders of science
degrees are condemned by their mechanistic brainwashing to toil furiously for
worthless material rewards."_

Fortunately I did CS though. Humanities students are free to license it from
me.

~~~
martythemaniak
Maybe I didn't spend enough time in humanities courses (my engineering degree
allowed for only 1 humanities course in 4 years), but let's be honest -
there's a remarkably large number of really stupid engineers. I don't mean
stupid in the classic sense, since they can understand their discipline and
perform their work, but they have zero intellectual interests or pursuits
outside of their field. Try starting a discussion on politics or history or
any of the other humanities topic, and you're not likely to get very far.

~~~
pjscott
Incidentally, it also works the other way around. There are a lot of people in
every branch of the humanities who have no intellectual interests outside
their field. Try starting a discussion about anything that isn't a humanities
topic and see how far you get.

Well-roundedness is not something one gets just from studying the humanities.
Knowledge of science, mathematics, and basic engineering are also essential.
This gets overlooked a lot in discussions where the issue is framed as "high
salary versus a well-rounded education".

~~~
m3koval
I agree. The term "well-rounded" is often bastardized to mean "well-versed in
humanities." It is particularly noticeable in college: engineers are required
to take a large number of humanities courses, but people studying liberal arts
only have to take one or two technical courses. Because of this, the average
engineer is exposed to both technical disciplines and the humanities, whereas
the average liberal arts student only sees the humanities.

Unless we redefine well-rounded in a way that is contrary to its original
meaning, engineers may very well be more well-rounded than people studying
humanities.

------
bluekeybox
I studied art on my own for a long period of time, and I find that it helped
me understand things like information design, human resource management, and
promotion strategies -- many of the "soft skills" that most engineering
schools do not stress upon.

I believe that education in humanities does not incapacitate people in any
way, and the "critical thinking" skill it teaches is actually an extremely
worthwhile and essential skill. However, there is a perception (based on some
legitimate evidence) that it is easier to "wing it" in college if you are
majoring in humanities. In other words, the very best humanities graduates may
indeed be all very smart, however the portion of people who winged it while in
college is probably higher among the humanities majors (it's hard to get away
with a wrong math answer). So if you have little people experience, hiring an
engineering graduate can be a "safer" bet depending on your industry. Which
leads to engineers being biased to hiring other engineers. I personally
believe that both "soft" and "hard" skills are desirable (but of course I am
biased myself since I believe that I possess both...)

~~~
imgabe
I agree that critical thinking is an important skill, but doesn't a science /
engineering education teach this just as well?

~~~
bluekeybox
The way I see it, the difference between the main method taught in the hard
sciences (the empirical or scientific method) and between critical thinking as
taught in the humanities is that the latter does not frown upon "intuitive"
knowledge the way the first one does.

In the empirical method, you are encouraged to put on a blindfold and pretend
to be perfectly unbiased when making a decision. That works very well for
things about which you can actually pretend to be unbiased. Less so for things
where you have to make conclusions based on your life experience.

Critical thinking (as opposed to the scientific method) becomes important when
doing things like hiring people. I cannot afford to go outside, put on a mask,
randomly sample people, spend a few years with each, write down the results,
and generate a correctly averaged profile of my perfect employee. On the other
hand, I do have an intuitive "feeling" for what type of people I am compatible
with, what type of person is most likely to be smart and productive, and I
have to make decisions based on this. At the same time I have to take into
account my own biases.

Critical thinking as taught in the humanities is about balancing biases, while
the empirical method as taught in the hard sciences is about attempting to
remove bias altogether. The latter is superior but very expensive.

------
Homunculiheaded
I did an undergrad in English and then went on to do grad work in CS, I
definitely feel that a background in the humanities has been able to give me
insights into technical problems that people with purely technical background
do not typically seem to have (not to mention all the communication skills
that come in handy). My personal opinion is that degrees in the humanities are
excellent, but that they should be followed up with a more pragmatic graduate
degree (or pragmatic skill-set if grad school isn't your interest). There is
way too much of a divided between technical fields and the humanities, and
most people I've known are trained to think that interest in one completely
excludes interest in the other.

~~~
irahul
> I definitely feel that a background in the humanities has been able to give
> me insights into technical problems that people with purely technical
> background do not typically seem to have

People with technical backgrounds have insights on things which you won't have
when you are beginning. More often than not, insights originate from relevant
background.

Not trying to prove you wrong or anything, but can you quote one or two
specific examples of these insights which you think people coming from
technical background don't seem to have.

> not to mention all the communication skills that come in handy

In my experience, technical people have above average communication skills. I
am talking communication skills - not social skills(how to be nice when you
actually aren't). Technical people hone their communication skills the same
way you do - they read and write a lot - blogs, mails, books etc. Sure they
aren't going to go win a booker(neither do most of English majors; if we are
talking literary achievement of that scale, you undergrad isn't going to be a
significant impact) but as far as communication goes, that doesn't seem to be
a problem.

Take HN for example. There are a lot of people with purely technical
background here. Do you think HN crowd has poorer communication skill compared
to your non-technical crowd?

> most people I've known are trained to think that interest in one completely
> excludes interest in the other.

I don't know about people you know but I would rather read "Coders at work",
GEB, "You must be joking, Mr Feynman" etc than Ancient Indian civilizations or
romans contribution to science.

I haven't been trained not to like it. I simply have no interest or use for
it.

~~~
Detrus
>More often than not, insights originate from relevant background. Not trying
to prove you wrong or anything, but can you quote one or two specific examples
of these insights which you think people coming from technical background
don't seem to have.

<https://github.com/jashkenas/> was an English major I think, his JavaScript
projects are one home run after another- Docco, Underscore, Backbone,
CoffeeScript.

<http://www.flight404.com> still wouldn't call himself a proper programmer,
since he writes crappy code, but through his mix of art and programming he
popularized a new computer graphics trend. Processing, OpenFrameworks probably
wouldn't be where they are today without him.

Steve Jobs' famous example is when he took a typography course, learned the
importance of proper text design. In a speech he said if he didn't include
those insights in the Mac, PCs would not have them for decades, since they
copied the Mac. He's probably right, programmers left to their own devices
would have stuck with typography from terminals.

The Flash movement was driven by programmers interested in art.

Software engineering on its own is a pretty narrow interest. A surefire way
for technological/human progress to get stuck is to focus on a single
discipline. Chasing salaries in the hip disciplines makes sense for
individuals but sucks for economies, imagine if we had more patent troll
lawyers.

~~~
irahul
Jeremy Ashkenas writes good code, and that doesn't have anything to do with
his English Major. The discussion was about being from non-cs gives you some
insights which cs doesn't, which is simple, plain wrong. A person from non-cs
background can have insights about cs only when he have picked up the relevant
background, at which point he isn't non-cs anymore.

Look, I am not saying people who haven't majored in CS can't write good code.
I am taking exception to the remark that you can do your undergrad in English,
join a CS grad program and have insights about CS owing to your English
program. That simply can't happen.

Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates et al. didn't finish college. That
doesn't imply not finishing college gives you insight college doesn't.

~~~
Detrus
How do you come to the conclusion that a coder's projects have nothing to do
with previous experience? Docco comes straight from literate programming and
the English major is a major influence at least in project choice. It's not
about CS insights, it's the non-CS insights at work here. Underscore is
nothing new in CS, it's just well crafted, has a good API. How come similar
projects by CS majors went nowhere? I think the ugly syntax did them in.

Code quality probably isn't influenced by unrelated experience, but the
decision making, what projects to choose, how extensive they should be, what's
important, is heavily influenced by outside experience.

Look at the example of startups. Often engineers who start them focus on cool
technology, lose sight of the business, customer needs, can't come up with
reasonable product ideas etc. They need guidance from people who ran a
software business, made these mistakes and understood what's important.

It's the same with any other additional discipline, if you major in English
prior to programming you're better positioned to make a word processor or
document startup. I think you'd also be better at designing clear APIs and
readable code, documentation for others. So many CS-only majors are horrible
there. If you majored in design, better at making design tools.

Sure you can pick up skills after getting a CS a degree and the startup
approach could give you that. But is that a better approach than majoring in
art then picking up CS?

When you have too many college grads coming into a field, taught similar
curriculum and Java, you have narrow group think. A person that comes at CS
from a different angle will make a bigger difference in CS than those grads.
It's an outside perspective, helps in any field.

Another example who isn't a CS major is Ryan Dahl, maker of Node.js. Lots of
CS graybeards laugh at his naive efforts and spaghetti, but for some reason
his project is popular. Perhaps those who weren't brainwashed by college CS
tend to stand out? Let's do a study on that.

~~~
irahul
> How do you come to the conclusion that a coder's projects have nothing to do
> with previous experience? Docco comes straight from literate programming and
> the English major is a major influence at least in project choice.

I didn't say previous experience doesn't play a part - I said his English
major doesn't play a part in his writing good code. I might be wrong - only
Jeremy can answer this.

And how do you come to the conclusion English major is a major influence in
Docco? Knuth is credited as conceiver of literate programming and for all we
know, Jeremy just liked it and ported it.

> It's not about CS insights, it's the non-CS insights at work here.
> Underscore is nothing new in CS, it's just well crafted, has a good API.

From Jeremy's attributions, underscore.js is largely a port of Ruby's
Enumberable and Python's itertools. The api, more or less, is loyal to the
source.

> Look at the example of startups. Often engineers who start them focus on
> cool technology, lose sight of the business, customer needs, can't come up
> with reasonable product ideas etc. They need guidance from people who ran a
> software business, made these mistakes and understood what's important.

Yes, need guidance from people who have experience in running software
business and undestand what is importance. They don't need guidance from
people with irrelevant background.

> It's the same with any other additional discipline, if you major in English
> prior to programming you're better positioned to make a word processor or
> document startup.

There are products which were designed to serve the creator and were a big
success. There are products which the creators didn't design for themselves
which still managed to succeed. All we have here is anecdotes. I don't agree
with your definitive assertion that English majors are better positioned to
make a word processor.

> I think you'd also be better at designing clear APIs and readable code,
> documentation for others. So many CS-only majors are horrible there.

Pretty much everyone is horrible at designing good apis. Again, I don't follow
how and why English majors would be better at designing apis.

> If you majored in design, better at making design tools.

I am not contesting relevant experience helping you being good in a particular
domain.

> But is that a better approach than majoring in art the picking up CS?

To each its own; for me, majoring in CS and picking other things later is
better.

> When you have too many college grads coming into a field, taught similar
> curriculum and Java, you have narrow group think. A person that comes at CS
> from a different angle will make a bigger difference in CS than those grads.
> It's an outside perspective, helps in any field.

May be it does. But you are generalizing a lot here. CS programs aren't a
narrow group think you make them out to be. To make a bigger difference, it
doesn't just take someone with outside perspective - it takes someone who
knows all the rule better than anyone by heart and then breaks the rules he
doesn't find proper. You need to understand the inside perspective and why
things are the way they are before injecting outside perspective.

> Another example who isn't a CS major is Ryan Dahl, maker of Node.js. Lots of
> CS graybeards laugh at his naive efforts and spaghetti, but for some reason
> his project is popular.

Ryan Dahl isn't a CS major but he clearly understands CS. I am not saying
someone who doesn't have a degree in CS can't do anything proper with CS; that
was never the point. From his reddit AMA, he has put a lot of work towards his
CS education. He just didn't write Node.js because his non cs background gave
him some unique insights.

And the CS greabeards have done a lot as well. Just that they don't agree with
Ryan Dahl doesn't mean anything - both groups have done good work.

> Perhaps those who weren't brainwashed by college CS tend to stand out? Let's
> do a study on that.

Again, how does CS brainwash? And how do you propose we do the study? I don't
think Jeremy Ashkenas would like to come over and participate in a polarized
discussion.

~~~
Detrus
You'd do the study by finding out people's educational background and seeing
what kind of projects they made. Popular vs large but unpopular projects for
example. Popularity might not seem like a CS metric, but it's progress in
another direction.

Literate programming and writing essays in English major is the connection. He
appreciated Knuth's ideas enough to seriously use them.

Any large scale educational curriculum "brainwashes." It makes lots of people
think the same, have the same ideas. How many CS grads make their own CMS
early on?

And we're all generalizing here, these textwall discussions will go nowhere.

My point was after a certain amount of time and progress, after a certain
number of people join a discipline, progress in it slows. It's a law of
diminishing returns. When large numbers are attracted to an industry because
of high salaries, it seems to hurt the discipline. Same idea as too many cooks
in the kitchen, too many programmers on a single project, only on a different
scale.

Maybe that's why CS and software hasn't made much progress this last decade.
You need to add more disciplines after a certain point.

------
jfruh
I wonder to what extent studies like this have things backwards to a certain
extent? It's not that an engineering degree is more lucrative than an English
degree, exactly; it's that if you want to be an engineer, you major in
engineering, and then you go into a more lucrative field. Does that make
sense? It's not that the degree that has some major predicative power -- it's
that some fields are more lucrative than others, and people who want to go
into those fields choose particular majors.

I do also think that the survey is flawed in that it doesn't track post-
bachelors degrees. Psychology degree holders came in at the bottom of the
list, but anyone who knows even a little bit about the mental health field
knows that virtually all practioners have masters degrees or PHDs. So, yeah,
if you just get a BA in psychology, you probably aren't making very much, not
least because you probably aren't working in the mental health field as
anything other than an entry level person.

~~~
owenmarshall
>I do also think that the survey is flawed in that it doesn't track post-
bachelors degrees. Psychology degree holders came in at the bottom of the
list, but anyone who knows even a little bit about the mental health field
knows that virtually all practioners have masters degrees or PHDs. So, yeah,
if you just get a BA in psychology, you probably aren't making very much, not
least because you probably aren't working in the mental health field as
anything other than an entry level person.

As a study that compares bachelor degree to bachelor degree, this is still
useful. To wit, I don't know of a school that charges more for a lucrative BS
in CS than a less-useful BS in psychology, nor one that charges less for
degrees that can only be used as stepping stones.

That said, a study that includes post-bachelor degrees in the ranking would be
interesting. What would be especially informative would be a combined ranking
that factors the average cost of education in with the average earnings
increase/decrease. Perhaps a masters in psychology still gets you less than a
BS in mathematics, perhaps not, but it would be neat to see.

~~~
jarek
> To wit, I don't know of a school that charges more for a lucrative BS in CS
> than a less-useful BS in psychology

My alma mater, a public university in Ontario, Canada does this, but it
appears to have more to do with government regulation of certain programs.
Per-term fees differ by faculty, with arts and mathematics (not inluding CS)
being almost the same, CS being much higher, and engineering slightly above
CS.

~~~
owenmarshall
>My alma mater, a public university in Ontario, Canada does this, but it
appears to have more to do with government regulation of certain programs.

Good! This is, IMO, the best approach to degree programs. People could study
what interests them without mountains of debt when leaving school.

>Per-term fees differ by faculty, with arts and mathematics (not inluding CS)
being almost the same, CS being much higher

Interesting. I've always heard that a proper computer science curriculum is
almost indistinguishable from an applied mathematics curriculum, and that it's
in computer engineering/programming/applied computer science/(yadda yadda)
that the real bacon is made.

Of course, I've never taken classes in a true CS curriculum, so I really can't
say.

~~~
jarek
I may be _slightly_ embittered towards my school, but I think the difference
has more to do with what they are allowed to charge than with actual
curriculum differences.

Here are the actual amounts, FWIW:
[http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infofin/students/UG%20Schedule%2...](http://www.adm.uwaterloo.ca/infofin/students/UG%20Schedule%20of%20Fees%20Current.pdf)

------
mentat
"No sign" is classic headline overstatement. I have a bachelor and a masters
in non-CS subjects but have spent most of my time programming or doing
security. When someone needs to talk to the "business" people, that's usually
me and it's because of the skills that I picked up studying other things. I
think I probably make more than I would have if I'd studied CS. Nonetheless,
the plural of anecdote is not data.

------
rquantz
I expect that there are a lot of other factors that would predict future
earnings better than major. Plenty of people get degrees in philosophy or
English with the intention of following it with law school. On the other hand,
plenty of people major in English because they don't know what they want to
do, or because they're actually majoring in football. How many people just
fall into engineering or CS? Probably not as many as fall into anthro.

My guess is, the people who value making a lot of money and who major in
English do just fine for themselves, the people who lack drive and ambition
who major in English work at McDonald's, and the people who major in
humanities because they value things besides money live in an artists' commune
in Brooklyn making art and music and not really caring that they're not making
as much money as you are.

------
jfruh
To put it slightly more succinctly, it's not that some _majors_ are more
lucrative than others; it's that some _industries_ are more lucrative than
others. You should really figure out what kind of work you want to go into,
and part of your calculus for that should be how much money you'll make, if
that's important to you, and then figure out an academic path that prepares
you for that. If you think of college as a black box that spits out a high-
paying job at the end, then you're frankly in trouble.

------
larrykubin
How about Philosophy?

Here is a huge list of notable people who studied philosophy who have done
quite well for themselves.

[http://healthcareethicscanada.blogspot.com/2008/12/philosoph...](http://healthcareethicscanada.blogspot.com/2008/12/philosophy-
degrees-and-famous-people.html)

George Soros, Cartleton S. Fiorina, Ricky Gervais, Ethan Coen, the list goes
on and on.

Also, Peter Thiel, Paul Buchheit, and Paul Graham all studied philosophy if I
recall correctly.

~~~
pjscott
I'm sure you can find a long list of people who've done exceptionally well who
majored in any common subject. This tells us very little about what sort of
money someone majoring in philosophy is _likely_ to make.

~~~
irahul
> I'm sure you can find a long list of people who've done exceptionally well
> who majored in any common subject.

Or people who have't majored at all - Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs
etc. Parent post is making rules out of exceptions.

------
demallien
It is interesting to compare and contrast this article with a recent article
from the NYTimes, talking about the Civil War and education:
[http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/from-the-
pla...](http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/23/from-the-playing-
field-to-the-battlefield/)

Specifically, at the time of the Civil War, students were mostly studying the
classics - even if engineering and other disciplines were available at some
institutions. West Point, for example, was essentially an engineering school
at the outbreak of war. I wonder what value students at the time saw in their
degrees that we don't see now, and I wonder what has happened to change that
perception / reality...

~~~
adestefan
At the time of the Civil War college students were from wealthy families. They
didn't go to college to get a well paying job.

------
pumpmylemma
I'd really like to see a longitudinal study that models something like:

    
    
       log(mean_realized_income) ~ log(mean_expected_future_income)
    

People who go into humanities don't expect to make a million dollars. Research
like this verifies common assumptions, but to me they always have a sunspot
study feel to them.

------
joshklein
Please note that this is an article about average people, making the headline
entirely sensationalistic ("no sign"?). The average engineer has a set of
skills that can easily be plugged directly into a corporate widget machine to
profitable ends, and is paid accordingly. The average "fluffy major" has a set
of skills inapplicable to much of anything. But what happens if you stop
thinking about the average? I don't know the answer to that, but I do know
plenty of fluffy major C-levels and directors.

But I also like JonnieCache's take on it in these comments; fluffy majors know
better than to care about such base needs as material wealth!

~~~
tatsuke95
These were my thoughts exactly. Any intelligent, ambitious individual will
find a way to succeed, regardless of the chosen University major.

But the practical skills taught in BUS, CS, ENG etc are more valuable in a
corporate setting, and hence for the majority of folks who just want to get a
job.

------
angdis
No doubt some parents will use this article as "ammo" when forcing their
college-age kid to major in something "useful" rather than in something the
kid is actually interested in and passionate about.

There may not be enough engineers at the moment and that inflates salaries.
However, the way out of this is not to encourage folks to major in engineering
"for the money." Much better to have a smaller number of engineers who are
intrinsically motivated.

------
hammock
The problem with averages is that they don't tell you the distribution of
salaries. Take a look at the top 1000 earners in the US and tell me what their
degrees are in. Something tells me it's not going to be petroleum engineering.

------
richcollins
Completely unrelated but why in the hell does their article page show my
Facebook friends' status updates

<http://cl.ly/2n0B1S2b080n3V0y3329>

Looks like a "we need more social in our business" decision.

~~~
VMG
the image doesn't render on chrome, you have to download it

~~~
richcollins
used grab on OS X (creates tiff ...)

------
damoncali
Is it really so surprising that people who study how to make things (physical
or otherwise) wind up with more money than those who study something else?

------
isleyaardvark
Isn't there a sort of selection bias? Slackers who go to college will choose
easier majors, and won't even bother with engineering. There's no reason a
smart, hard-working English major can't earn a good salary.

------
logjam
Engineers, scientists, and "business" people need more training in the liberal
arts, not less.

Those 4:00 AM moments are the ones we need more education for....questions of
ethics, of weighing values, of being able to see and reason from multiple
viewpoints, of being able to communicate efficiently, of being able to
_empathize_ accurately.

Don't get me wrong - I also wish all of us were more educated in highly
abstract thought (math). It's just that many of us stop learning and
questioning the day we learn to count. If "value" or "riches" is a number to
us, we need what the humanities reveal more than anyone.

"Riches" is in the eye of the beholder, one supposes. I got a B.S. in
biochemistry before my M.D., have fairly extensive software engineering
experience and training, have a modestly low Erdos number....and yet I tell
you my colleagues and I would be better docs and engineers with a strong
emphasis in our early training on the humanities. In my case, I'd have been
much better off turning my minor in English into a major, learning to draw and
sculpt and create more, writing more, reading more philosophy/ethics/history,
learning more foreign language.

We need more medical students and programmers who major in the humanities.
Medical schools in particular nowadays push hard for people from the
humanities (those students also need to take a relatively few science
requisites) We need people who move between disciplines more easily. We need
fewer specialists. Those 4:00 AM moments...when you lack data, when you lack
algorithms, when you need to understand broad fields, understand and
communicate with people, and make the right _ethical_ decisions require the
liberal arts at least as much as our ability to count.

To paraphrase a dead poet or two, our lives ain't about laying pipe. Go read
and think over poetry and literature and history and the dilemmas a thousand
cultures _already_ worried over - we'll be better engineers or entrepreneurs
or doctors.

