This tired liberal arts approach of mandatory enlightenment is exactly why we have students graduating with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt with no marketable skills. Students can become a well-rounded person on their own time, through the many life experiences they can afford when they are not paying off debt. I am so happy to see the world of academia get disrupted, and I cannot wait for the coming revolution where liberal arts education is reserved to those people with a true desire to pursue it.
No it's really not. We have students in debt because they MAJOR in areas where they end up with no marketable skills.
Taking a history class, a philosophy class, and a sociology class along with some economics and science helps you solve problems with people as well as the world around you.
When I was in my 20s and taking those classes I found it a waste of time. Now that I'm older I'm thankful for them.
Can you get well-rounded on your own? Depends. If you only read what people in your bubble tell you to, maybe not so much. Having someone else curate things for you to read, reflect on, discuss, and do has great value in my opinion.
> We have students in debt because they MAJOR in areas where they end up with no marketable skills.
I disagree. I've never hired someone based on their undergraduate major; I rarely know what they are. The skills imparted by an undergraduate educational institution are very valuable, but not directly applicable to professional work, and that even applies to graduate schools such as law, for example -- no law firm cares what classes you took or believes those skills qualify you to do that kind of work; they care you learned to write, think, and work like an attorney well enough to apprentice you to a real one. Professional learning, in every field I can think of, starts with your first job as an apprentice. Most fields consider a graduate degree to be the minimum serious credential.
And after a few years in the professional world, nobody even considers your undergraduate major. Name your co-workers' or any tech leaders'. Does anyone mention it in their HN profile? Could you imagine being asked about it in an interview?
> Can you get well-rounded on your own? Depends. If you only read what people in your bubble tell you to, maybe not so much. Having someone else curate things for you to read, reflect on, discuss, and do has great value in my opinion.
I'd take it much further. I think people underestimate the value of a college environment. You get a cirriculum designed by an expert in the field, and then their personal tutoring. You are surrounded by resources unmatched elsewhere, from research libraries, to a room full of peers, to labs (if applicable), to a department full of experts available to talk to you. Want to learn about a subject? Try going to the office hours of a professor who spent their life studying it, and see if they have time for you. How do you even know which books to read? Which are respected in their field? What are their strengths and weaknesses and who will contextualize them for you?
As someone who's much better off as a person having a B.A. in Computer Science in five years than their intended B.S./B.F.A. in four, I think the both components are vital.
The undergraduate major I ended up with has definitely opened some doors; if I had finished the other half of my degree I wouldn't need to spend nearly as much time proving my literacy in other languages on the job. Most of my clients do business in English, so it's not a major disadvantage, but for someone who wasn't lucky enough to pick up a midwestern American accent at home, both the liberal arts side and the major can be vital for proving that you can do what you need to while you're not a "senior" or "highly experienced" candidate.
Personally, its not just liberal arts courses that add to a value education, but other technical courses as well. Just because i want to be a developer doesn't mean I don't want to study Calculus or linear algebra or differential equations or Accounting principles in college. (these were all courses in my CS degree). Even if we stick to CS, I don't think one can truly cover everything in 2 years. I haven't checked the curriculum of this program yet, but I'd like CS colleges to delve into subjects like data structures, automata, compiler construction, OS, Database internals (not just queries), Concurrent programming, etc. Yes, I may not need all of this to write a Web app, but these are things that I believe make a more well-rounded developer
