Engineering vs. Liberal Arts: Who’s Right—Bill or Steve?

http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/21/engineering-vs-liberal-arts-who%e2%80%99s-right%e2%80%94bill-or-steve/

by ggordan • 15 years ago

3 1 15 years ago

geebee• 15 years ago

Nice link, thanks for posting it. I do think the "engineering vs liberal arts" is the wrong way to put it, though. I see great value in the liberal arts, but I think the real error is limiting your study to liberal arts. Because a typical university in the US requires lots of liberal arts study regardless of major, engineering and science students are far less likely to completely neglect he humanities than the other way around.

I agree with Mr. Wadhwa that society needs engineerings working "along side" musicians, artists, and so forth, but even better is engineers who are also musicians, artists, and so forth. That's going to produce the highest level of innovation.

I also think that the stats about the degree backgrounds of high tech CEOs and so forth should have included information about the actual composition of the workforce. He mentions that 37% hold Engineering or CS degrees, and "only 2%" majored in math. Ok, but I've read that fewer than 6% of all degrees awarded are in engineering, and I've got to figure math is a pretty small slice as well.

Engineering vs. Liberal Arts: Who’s Right—Bill or Steve?

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