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Comment by mapgrep | Hacker News Reader

> it's not all that hard to complete an English degree without learning those things.

How do you know this?

(You know, since we're talking about logical rigor.)

Based on the English (and other humanities) courses I took as an undergrad, in which the key to getting good grades was not rigor but repeating back what I imagined the professor wanted to hear, and based on my friends who were English (and other humanities) majors, who were delightful people but (for the most part) not particularly rigorous thinkers in the sense that Google is trying to hire for.

Did you take any high level literature or english courses? Repeating back what the teacher wants to hear is fairly standard across all disciplines in low level courses.

The people who I know who didn't just complete english degrees, but excelled were all very critical thinkers. The classes required reading, understanding, and then writing critically about what was read. Thinking was highly valued, particularly about nuances of the language and meaning.

Of course people who are not good can slide by and get through school, but that can happen in any field. See CS grads who cannot write FizzBuzz for example.

Not much different than CS classes where you're learning methodology and showing that you can regurgitate it on a test, really.

(I''m not the OP.)

I have a degree in English, and another one in mechanical engineering.

The 9 English classes that I took were uniformly less difficult and less rigorous than the 25 or so engineering classes I took. When I studied English, I already had a reasonably well-developed understanding of logic, but it was not used in my English classes. I would estimate that I could have earned a B average in English with 5-10x less time spent than in engineering. Standardized tests suggest that I have more aptitude for engineering (or at least math), so English should have been harder for me if the curricula were of the same difficulty.

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