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Comment by aub3bhat | Hacker News Reader

I guess what NYTimes articles praising liberal arts education miss out on is following:

No one is denying importance of learning history, literature, etc. What people have begun doubting is if its really worth to spend 200k$ & four years majoring in liberal arts alone, vs. Majoring in Computer Science while taking courses in / reading literature.

This article is equivalent to telling a competitive swimmer, to study calculus since Navier-Stokes equations governing fluid dynamics (and thus water) require understanding of calculus to be solved.

The question worth answering is why quality liberal arts education still has such a high price tag? Especially when the monetary returns are so poor?

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It's something of a Veblen good for the wealthy[1]. They can say to their friends that little Johnny is studying 19th century basket-weaving at Harvard. Little Johnny can then go on to get a PhD and advise his parents and their friends on the most culturally significant baskets to purchase to properly signal that they have the requisite taste to accompany their money.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

It seems to me then that college, and liberal arts in particular, were meant to be pursued by the wealthy upper class, who wouldn't mind dropping that kind of money on a degree whose (monetary) ROI is so bad.

It actually makes sense when you think of who the first college students were: its only very recently that we've embraced the idea of college education for everyone.

A very high fraction of the economy is arts and media-based; in some locales (such as L.A.) it may well be over 50%.

You are not going to get good architects, designers, story-tellers, graphic artists, lawyers, and even politicians, if no one is willing to obtain the appropriate education. And this is only for the "practical" careers; society also needs its academics and historians.

branding. you can get a liberal arts education for a fraction of the cost by traveling the world for the same amount of time. but that's unfortunately not apparently worth much to anyone. but the liberal arts education brand and rhetoric are as strong as ever.

my take, most people are machines in terms of work. their employers could care less who they are as people as long as they do the work, take orders, and don't create unnecessary shit. maybe just maybe you might be able to wiggle your way into management if you have a liberal arts education, but then you need to spend just as much time getting good at writing code, and doing it constantly 9-5.

better a computer science degree and an mba if that's what your goal is... and spend two years before that backpacking to round yourself out.

you can get a liberal arts education for a fraction of the cost by traveling the world for the same amount of time.

A lousy liberal arts education, maybe. By traveling, you see a lot of different viewpoints of average people around the world. But by reading, you get to see into the minds of the greatest people who ever lived.

Both of those things are good, but there is a difference.

>>By traveling, you see a lot of different viewpoints of average people around the world. But by reading, you get to see into the minds of the greatest people who ever lived.

Agreed and today we can read the great works almost freely thanks to projects like Gutenberg [1] and Internet Archive [2]. So, essentially you don't need to spend $200k for this type of knowledge. I have educated myself thanks to the books on these sites. Of course, I didn't get access to the network of people that a Harvard graduate might seem to have. So, you have to figure out if it is worth to spend $200k or whatever to have access to that network.

[1] http://www.gutenberg.org/ [2] https://archive.org/

It's not just reading though. Most of the value in a good liberal arts education comes from discussion with peers, and professors guiding the reading in a way that helps to avoid confusion and misunderstanding. Many 'great thinkers' cannot just be picked up off the shelf.

And indeed, in being forced to read things you'd rather not read.

Yes the discussions and debates do help. But this can also be had today with high quality forums (e.g. HN forum, google groups etc).

>>Many 'great thinkers' cannot just be picked up off the shelf.

That's where a little bit of internet literacy (mainly the google-fu skills) helps a lot. It's not that difficult to acquire it either. If you acquire these skills (e.g. in your high school) then finding great thinkers is not so much of a problem. In fact, I did it exactly in such a manner: I am from a third world Asian country, where such great professors are mostly non-existent or if they do exist they are almost always inaccessible to poor people like me. So, what did I do? I struggled with Google for some time, and with the help of some sites I acquired the immensely important google-fu skills. Then I landed on the Wikipedia knowledge-galaxy. From there the access to 'great thinkers' was just a click away. As far as discussions and debates are concerned, then I read books presenting opposing views on important issues like religion, economics and politics. e.g. In case of religion the theists' point of views, Bible, Quran etc on one hand and Plato's dialogues, Darwin's theory, Voltaire, Khalil Jibran, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris on the other hand; Marx's Das Capital and communist manifesto on one hand and criticism of Marx and Atlas Shrugged on the other.

I engage in online debates on forums like this.

Thanks to today's internet and the sites like the ones I mentioned in the earlier comment on this thread, a person who has far less money than $200K (hardly $2500 per year) can actually acquire so much knowledge.

It's not bragging though, as the same knowledge has made me more humbled too.

That's a good insight. I endorse your reading strategy, if only more people used it!

I think our society is still struggling to deal with the fact that the information distribution just suddenly stopped being a concern.

You just spent 150 grand on an education you could have gotten for $1.50 in late fees at the public library. - Will, Good Will Hunting

It is much easier to grasp the network of knowledge that exists when you have Wikipedia and forums like HN. Having context is important because it helps direct you. Being part of the tribe is immensely important if you're to be motivated over decades.

The main problems now are motivation and focus. I am confident these are solvable problems but there's a lot of people out there who haven't even heard of Wikipedia. They're not ready for it yet.

I am much less worried about the Net than what the Television did to us. The Net is intrinsically deeper than the Television.

There is a sports commentator called Joe Rogan who expresses this well. He often exclaims how much of a knucklehead (his own words) he was before the Internet. It opened up a new vista to him. Not everybody will be as immediately perceptive as Rogan but I see even people who limited technology skills gradually enhancing their comprehension on a range of issues. It won't lead to utopia but it will definitely make the future more interesting, and ultimately that's all I ask of any technology.

> Many 'great thinkers' cannot just be picked up off the shelf

If they are that great yes, they can. Great thinkers should put into words stuff that it's believed to be general truths, no matter how you phrase them. You don't need a Harvard education to "get" Rousseau nor Hobbes.

And on top that we have guys like Epicurus, who ~2,300 years ago was saying that his education had been bollocks and that he hadn't learned anything from his professors, but who nevertheless managed to have quite an influence on Western philosophy and thought.

if the great humanities works are so easily "confused and misunderstood" maybe they weren't that great to begin with? Isn't clarity the first priority if you write anything, much less a novel ?

Some things are written to be clear only within the proper context and with the reader's ability to see into them. I remember being blown away at learning the political context of the early modern English literature cannon in college by a really talented and dedicated professor. It was clear from that experience how much otherwise illegal/treasonous critique authors could get away with publishing just by being sufficiently obscure.

On the other hand, I also think there are simply things that aren't well conveyed without relying on advanced techniques, whether the field in question is food, sport, art, etc. There is some value to esoteric works. Naturally, not as many people will appreciate them. This is potentially reflected in the original article: sure, such non-obvious skill-sets can be applied to great effect by certain individuals, but what causes that "creative" application? It's certainly not answered in the original piece, among other dangling questions not really addressed at all.

Peer discussions in liberal arts classes aren't of great quality at most universities. Although I certainly would agree that thoughtful conversations in the humanities are good things, they are rare to find in a typical university where liberal arts is pushed on students because "they can't handle STEM".

Even if the conversations WERE of good educational quality, are they truly worth the extra time to graduation that they entail? Remember, the $100K pricetag on four years at a state flagship is borne mostly by middle-class kids trying to improve their chances at good careers. Bureaucrats forcing them to take unnecessary liberal arts classes are important players in today's storied student loan crisis.

"Have you read the Iliad? If not, you are not a man; you are a boy."

>>"Have you read the Iliad? If not, you are not a man; you are a boy."

I have read Homer's works along with some other Greek classics.

I did the things you recommend (CS, MBA, 2y traveling) but learned much more running a startup. You really just need experience with autonomy and exposure to smart people.

I'm a developer with an English degree from a liberal arts college and I do agree with the article on this point. When you're trying to dive into difficult literature –and learn how to analyze it in the first place– it's really, really helpful to have a professor leading you through it, and a room full of smart people discussing it. You can't just go fuck off to Bali with Ulysses and get anywhere near the same experience.

Coding is different. The only way to learn how to program is to program. Yeah mentors help a ton and speed things up but I think it's a lot more solitary of a journey.

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