s/o STEM discussion: the so-called "ease" of the Humanities

Perhaps the argument against the humanities has less to do with ease and more to do with grade inflation.

 

In certain disciplines, like most STEM and even music performance majors, there is a canon of very objective things which you must get right. A class in differential equations must cover the 20 odd methods for solving them. Students must demonstrate at the end of the class that they can use the methods correctly. Classical physics has a pretty well understood set of things which all students must know and be able to manipulate by the end of the class. For some reason, this canon requires a goodly amount of work, and I believe this work has stayed relatively constant over the years, perhaps decreasing as we switched from slide rules to calculators.

 

For say, English and Philosophy, there is also a canon of works that must be read. But, the assessment is totally subjective and much more subject to grade inflation than the more objective disciplines. I was just reading about the author Michael Crichton, who was an English major at Harvard in 1969, and felt that his papers were unfairly graded. He submitted an essay by George Orwell, and the professor, not knowing the provenance, gave it a 'B-'.

 

Now, I don't know what's going on with foreign languages. Obviously, the best way to learn is start when you are really young, and have an immersion experience. But, even if you start a modern language in high school, if you take four years, you ought to be able to converse fluidly (not fluently, but fluidly) with a native speaker, and read literature in that language by the end of high school. For some reason, this seems very rare today, though I'm not sure what the standard of American education was, 20, 30, 50 or 100 years ago in this area.

[asta]

Originally Posted by asta

Everyone works hard. Everyone has worked horrid hours (whether one thinks the other person does or not: face it - no one has babysat someone else's entire career).

 

In principle I agree with the rest of your post, but this is only partially true, in my opinion.

 

Things are NOT always equal, but the inequality is more across the places than across the disciplines themselves, if that makes sense. There have always been diploma mills without as high academic standards or a need to really push yourself to excel, especially in the day and age where the corporate logic has taken over the university - and a single university can have a "diploma mill"ish program in one field and a very difficult program to another field, just like everything in between. Some differences are objectively comparable via syllabi and bibliography lists / requirements, as well as subjectively comparable via mobility experiences, having taught in several places and knowing others who did, etc. There are some very real differences one can observe this way.

 

And sometimes, having worked hard is just not worth it as you are still not good and were not given professional breadth. This is what gets me the most. Many kids get cheated in the process, do put in a lot of effort, but walk out of it without tangible, concrete results in terms of skills and scholarship.

 

Ester --

 

I was actually referring to the portion of the discussion regarding working X numbers per week once one was out of school. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.

 

 

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