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Ask Slashdot: Any Place For Liberal Arts Degrees In Tech?

Posted by timothy on from the be-the-legacy-hire dept.

Nerval's Lobster (2598977) writes A new article in Fast Company suggests tech CEOs want employees with liberal arts degrees, because those graduates have critical thinking skills. Meanwhile, a new article on Dice (yes, yes, we know) posits that STEM degrees such as data science, IT admin, and electrical engineering are what science-and-tech companies are going to want for the foreseeable future. What do you think? What place do those with liberal arts degrees have in companies such as, say, Tesla or a biomedical engineering firm?

2 of 392 comments (clear)

  1. Writing by expatriot · · Score: 3, Informative

    There are arts graduates in our technical writing department. It is about the same effort teaching an engineer to write as teaching a writer about engineering. In general SW or high-level HW design have been the best fit and low level integration the hardest.

  2. Its actual academic superiority ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    Yeah, no kidding ... I'm pretty sure you can't get a STEM degree without critical thinking skills.

    However, some of the Poli Sci majors I've met .....

    Oy!

    And reading the other comments here, the perceived superiority of technical people never ceases to amuse me. The dogmatism that I have seen and heard on the job and here on Slashdot makes all of you come across as delusional and self aggrandizing.

    Its not perceived academic superiority, its actual. As a freshmen stem major I took some senior level poly sci and history classes for fun, no prerequisites -- just the consent of the instructor. The classes covered interesting topics. Getting A's and B's in stem classes took actual effort, getting A's and B's in advanced liberal arts classes took staying awake in class and reading the assigned materials -- i.e. minimal effort.

    In other words some of us took stem and liberal arts classes beyond general ed. We know the different demands of both fields quite well. The advantage of liberal arts is that it leaves one with more free time to pursue other interests ... like partying.