A current debate about higher education seems actually to be an old one: practical science training vs. general education in the liberal arts. The contrast persists in the public mind even though the sciences are part of the liberal arts, and even though the best science education usually includes the arts and humanities. Now two heavyweights, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, are embodying the contrast. The Microsoft founder has called for a targeted investment in the sciences and engineering, while the Apple CEO has talked about the importance of the arts, humanities and design for the success of his company. So what is education, PC or Mac?
These two college dropouts have acquired important influence on education because their companies have shaped everything from the way we write, to how we practice medicine, from how we talk to one another to how we experience music and film. Defying the conventional so creatively and successfully has allowed them to set new conventions for what it means to be creative and successful. Both men went beyond developing specific products to creating new platforms. The Windows operating system infamously made Microsoft a necessary intermediary for all sorts of software and computer products. The iTunes Store model (replicated with the App Store) has made Apple an essential resource to supply content for its iPods, iPhones, and iPads. Platforms generate new products, and new ideas, experiences, and profits.
Bill Gates graduated from being the poster child for ruthless business success to being, together with his wife Melinda, the most important force in global philanthropy. His admirably disciplined approach to investing in solutions to major world problems in health and education has earned him respect and affection from the millions of people his programs have already benefited. From efforts to eradicate polio to initiatives to combat growing inequality in the United Sates, the Gates Foundation has reshaped the landscape of data driven philanthropy. So when Bill Gates calls for targeted investment in science and engineering, people listen.
Steve Jobs, for his part, is the entrepreneur who has figured out the recipe for sustainable innovation. Apple is a company that many have expected to "revert to the mean" of mediocrity, but through savvy risk taking and a devotion to design the organization has continued its amazing track record. Jobs' recent remarks about the humanities and arts being in the DNA of Apple reminded his audience that the company's success is built on a very broad base -- not just on engineering and computer science. His wife, Laurene Powell Jobs, has been an advocate for a well-rounded education for the underserved in Northern California. College Track, an organization that she has spearheaded, has done wonders in preparing at-risk students for successful college careers.
What can we learn from this latest mock debate between our two business-technology giants? Perhaps it's that we should look at education not as a product that you use to increase your income in that all-important first job but as a platform from which you will generate some of the most important features in your life. If you believed that education was a product, then it might make sense to construct it as narrowly instrumental as possible. It might make sense, then, to call for a tapering of the range of skills taught (to STEM fields, for example), to maximize your return on investment. If education is a product you are buying, why pay for things you really won't need?
But if education is a platform, then you should think of it as an intermediary, a capacity builder that leads to many more things than at any one moment you could possibly know would be useful. When you see education as a platform you see it as something that generates further curiosity, new needs, experiences to meet those needs, more curiosity, and so on. Education isn't just an object that you use to get started in a career; education is a catalytic resource that continues to energize and shape your life. Education enhances your ability to develop new skills and capacities for connectivity that allow you to solve problems and seize opportunities. Successful education is a platform of life-long learning is the platform from which new possibilities are created.
Let's not deprive our students of education's full benefits by being too narrowly focused on the production of specific marketable skills. In their business careers, both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs have been so successful because they have developed flexible platforms and not just discrete products. Similarly, education is successful when students acquire a broad base from which they can continually generate new skills and capacities, including the ability to find meaning and pleasure in their work, and in their private and public lives. This is education worthy of our investments, and of our cultivation and care.
Dr. Mariappan Jawaharlal: Why Is STEM Boring?
Cut out a year of the useless COM 101/PSYCH103/PHIL201 and add more major-specific education to the curriculum. And yes, address critical thinking and reasoning--no matter the major--and address quantitative, scientific methods--no matter the major. In other words, a (stereotypic) robotic math major type might learn how to communicate, or an lib arts major might actually learn how to digest and analyze data relevant to their field of study.
With this approach, you're still developing skills in all areas, and getting a diverse education, but you're getting much better focused skills for your money. It's about time the college system gave a little back to us.
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But if we teach them these types of skills they will become independent and self sufficient. How can we grow the size and power of government, how can we get the people to submit themselves to the state, how can we get them to dissolve into the collective....when they are smart and strong and independent? Better that we teach them things like social injustice or various touchy feely stuff....but no math, physics, or science. You'll just create a bunch of free thinking independent Republicans.
What I learned at college in the 70's is that I didn't know very much and how to find answers. Nobody had personal computers and Cobalt programming was being taught and required punch cards. Now, computers allow access to information, the principles of how we create and use it remain the same. PC Mac Lin Unix whatever is Totally IRRELEVANT. The Internet and modern browsers changed everything. With all the information available the question is how do you find it. Metadata search is the answer. The problem is proprietary search methods like Google makes this difficult.
The debate that is RELEVANT is what metadata standard should be universal. Metadata is information attached to files about what the file contains like author, when it was created, topic and much much more. The information is put into metadata fields. How these fields are organized is very important. Some say the Dublin core is the best formatting for fields, all I know is it's a mess that needs a huge cleanup and standardization.
The debate should be how do we all get along? Where's the love? What we have now is a search nightmare taking hours to weed through IRRELEVANT data to find answers to stupid questions like PC or Mac, what's best?
We need more STEM education in order to teach the next generation how to adequately assess these arguments. We *also* need more Liberal Arts education in order to teach the next generation history, etc. so that they'll recognize that many of these arguments are just recurrences of the same manipulation of the public that punctuates human history.
Only a fraction of a percent of our population will ever have a career in climate science. The majority of our population will be asked to make decisions about how our society interacts with the environment. So the question of STEM vs. Lib Arts shouldn't just be focused on careers. It should also be focused on having a populace that votes based on reason, not on bumper stickers.
My time in college inspired me to learn. I was an Electrical Engineering major, of course, not a liberal arts major, so I already chose my side of the debate.
It's not an "either/or" type of situation, and in the fullness of time, I value all of the dreaded "humanities" courses more than many of the courses in my major curriculum.
Based on my observation of some *extremely* narrow-minded Liberal Arts graduates and engineers, and seeing so many open-minded engineering graduates and LIberal Arts grads, I'm led inexorably to my conclusion: The learning is in the student, and college is a way to help people learn to learn if they're of a mind to try.
Do liberal arts grads have any idea about how completely most science/tech/geeks are simply unable to contain their appreciation for the world around them? Admittedly, at a surface level it would appear that we're all about "making things work" and "hard science", and the appearance of "taking on the challenge".
Essentially all the engineers that I know entered the discipline because the world is such a compelling and beautiful place that we have dedicated our entire lives to understanding it and where possible bring out part this amazing world to society.
(based on about 35 years of trying...) It's amazingly difficult to actually make stuff work, so college is only a first step in a lifetime of study. Like much of human endeavor, facing the challenges and exigencies of life takes real strength, confidence and yes, training. In general, college is an important part of that process. I completely disagree with the conclusion that self-education is always better than a college education. I agree with the conclusion that self-teaching is absolutely necessary for success, and completing a college curriculum is no guarantee.
We sciency and techy people are where we are for the same reasons as liberal arts grads: For us, the poetry is *everywhere*, and each of us tries in our own way to express it.
I wonder if it might be seen as the "externalizing" of some of their costs of doing business? after all if people arrive at your doorstep with a highly focused education and do not need any training or investment from you the company at all--more profit for you...think so?
I have to say that one of the most over-hyped degrees is the MBA. Our last President was an MBA Graduate from Harvard and look what he did to us.
Engineering is a practical field that teaches you the skills needed to produce products and invent whole new industries. Contrary to popular belief, these skills can't really be self-taught. It is also difficult. So if you can make it through engineering, in a way, you have proven yourself to be hard working and dedicated. A B.S. in Engineering (from pretty much any school) will get you a decent job with few exceptions. Other fields like Science, Law, some business (accounting, etc) also fall in to this category of producing quantifiable skills that are easily employable.
The problem with Liberal Arts is the huge range of people that go into it. Some are very smart and talented. Many aren't. The smart and talented graduates from the Ivy league will go on to do great things. The others will end up working next to people with no degrees thinking college was a huge waste of time. This is simply because society doesn't have enough capacity to absorb large numbers of liberal arts graduates. There are limited jobs at the top for only the very best journalists, the best political scientists, the best musicians, the best painters, the best actors etc.. The rest are screwed, and end up working unskilled jobs in the service sector.
As if the only jobs were those in front of the camera and there weren't behind the scenes jobs that paid better than many engineering jobs.