First, the proposed educational experiences sound like more silly adventures for kids with money (or debt) to burn. You could learn more about life and yourself by working at McDonald's for a year.
Second, it fucking annoys the shit out of me that when articles like this talk about "the liberal arts" they really mean humanities. I have yet to meet someone who espouses the merits of a liberal arts education who realizes that it technically includes math and the natural sciences. How many English majors takes statistics? How many History majors take discrete math or more than the most basic math requirements needed to graduate? Bet it is less than 1%.
I am all for a liberal arts education as long as it has equal helpings of math and the natural sciences along w/ English, philosophy, etc.
Have you really "learned to think" from your humanities education if you have no understanding of calculus, probability, statistics, or physics? If you have never learned how to design and conduct an experiment?
A "good" university education is simple and not sexy. High quality courses taught by passionate teachers. Nothing else. No student unions, no sports teams, no academic or emotional counseling, no beautiful buildings, no study abroad or fucking trips to Alaska. Which basically describes university studies in central Europe and Israel.
Not very sexy so no NYT articles about it.
I actually attended a pricey "liberal arts" college where I majored in computer science. I am currently in the OMSCS program at Georgia Tech and the quality of education I am receiving through it is much better at less than a tenth of the cost. We have better discussions on Slack than I did sitting in seminars w/ a bunch of rich kids 20 years ago. No picturesque campus to stroll through though :)
Your second point seems really overblown. Language evolves, embrace and accept that. People seem to be using the words humanities and liberal arts to mean the same thing these days.
First, the proposed educational experiences sound like more silly adventures for kids with money (or debt) to burn. You could learn more about life and yourself by working at McDonald's for a year.
Second, it fucking annoys the shit out of me that when articles like this talk about "the liberal arts" they really mean humanities. I have yet to meet someone who espouses the merits of a liberal arts education who realizes that it technically includes math and the natural sciences. How many English majors takes statistics? How many History majors take discrete math or more than the most basic math requirements needed to graduate? Bet it is less than 1%.
I am all for a liberal arts education as long as it has equal helpings of math and the natural sciences along w/ English, philosophy, etc.
Have you really "learned to think" from your humanities education if you have no understanding of calculus, probability, statistics, or physics? If you have never learned how to design and conduct an experiment?
A "good" university education is simple and not sexy. High quality courses taught by passionate teachers. Nothing else. No student unions, no sports teams, no academic or emotional counseling, no beautiful buildings, no study abroad or fucking trips to Alaska. Which basically describes university studies in central Europe and Israel.
Not very sexy so no NYT articles about it.
I actually attended a pricey "liberal arts" college where I majored in computer science. I am currently in the OMSCS program at Georgia Tech and the quality of education I am receiving through it is much better at less than a tenth of the cost. We have better discussions on Slack than I did sitting in seminars w/ a bunch of rich kids 20 years ago. No picturesque campus to stroll through though :)