Home schooling

[Odin]

Originally posted by Wycoff


I very much agree with you here, Agathon. Liberal Arts courses today are very watered down, mostly because of the push to get every high school student into college. It's a function of no longer having plenty of available, well paying industrial jobs. While I don't think that a more rigorous Liberal Arts program would make the hard sciences look "pathetically easy," I do think that it would make Liberal Arts students more respectable. It would also remove 60-70% of current Liberal Arts students from college... not necessarily a bad thing, as I think that there are too many worthless colleges producing worthless degrees.

I think the problem is that the public school system hasn't adapted to the post-industrial economy. My take is that if a BA degree has become what the high school diploma was 50 years ago, there is something wrong with the public shool system.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse
being very smart does not mean you will be good at science. I have met a large number of people who are very intelligent when it comes to most things, but who don't even have the foggiest idea when it comes to thinking about physical or mathematical problems.

I agree with this 100%. These people are the good Liberal Arts students. I'd like to count myself amongst this group.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by mactbone
Not only that but there's a lot more crossover. I'm friends with enough engineers that I know that the work they did was hard. It was also specialized. To me, they seemed to be the ones learning how to crunch numbers and regurgitate answers. Whereas I was taught how to look critically at literature and look into the author's true meaning

I agree with you that the better Liberal Arts students are good critical thinkers. What I object to is the knee-jerk defensive reaction that most of us with B.A.s have when confronted with B.S. students, the "we can think critically and you can't" phenomenon. In my experience, the average B.S. student is at least as adept at critical thinking as the average B.A. student, usually more so.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Wycoff
In my experience, getting a hard science degree takes more talent than getting a liberal arts degree.

It's a different kind of talent, I guess.

Originally posted by Wycoff
I think the whole "yeah, but the science guys can't communicate" line is bogus. From what I've seen, the majority of the hard science people could be very successful in a liberal arts class. I know this because I had hard science friends who took upper level history / poly sci classes as electives and did very well.

I had a minor in philosophy with my major in Comp. Sci. So yeah, I did some upper level philosophy classes wth some small success.

Originally posted by Wycoff
The pay issue is also skewed.

Some engineers and scientists eventually become managers. Many won't, because they in fact love the stuff they do and will not go into management.