From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Subject: Re: Any Humanities Grads out there?
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 92 03:20:47 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park
Originator: clin@coke.eng.umd.edu


   Let me go out on a limb and say that I tend to believe that engineering
courses or those courses of a technical matter tend to be easier than
liberal arts courses.  Why do I think that?  Try attending a senior
level course in an engineering course and a liberal arts course.
Chances are (unless you select some philosophy course) you'll be able
to understand about halh of what's going on in a liberal arts course
and none of what's going on in an engineering course.

    The reason behind this is that a lot of engineering builds up
on previous knowledge.  In addition, we are reasoning about equations
and math which is something most people don't do too much of in a day
to day level.  In addition, there's a lot of terminology being thrown 
around which also impedes understanding.  On the other hand, liberal
arts courses tend to talk about subjects which people do have a
better understanding of in a day to day situation.  For example, one
might be able to understand the motivations of some historical figure 
because one can relate to this person's actions.  

    For example. I took some class where we were discussing communism
and socialism.  I was a bit surprised at the simplistic kinds of 
arguments being used to support or attack it, but this was besides
the point.  The point was that people *already* had some opinions on
the matter.  Very few people I know have any kinds of opinions on
the Fourier Transform, even after they take the course.

    Now there are reasons why engineers and the like find it hard to
take humanities courses.  One of the main reasons is a lack of
strong skills in writing.  The other is a lack of ability to organize.
Finally, there could simply be a lack of interest, which I find
too bad.   A lot of what the humanities teaches you, from a practical
point of view, is the abiity to organize your arguments effectively.
There are other benefits from the knowledge alone, but this
ability is also quite useful to engineers who sometimes can figure
out problems (engineering ones) but not explain how they figured it
out or why they have a good solution.

    Now, I admit that some liberal arts courses can be difficult and
this will typically occur if they decide to throw around a lot of
terminology, too.  This occurs in philosophy and psychology, etc.
Without the terminology, things would probably be a little better.
Without the terminology in engineering, you'd still have the math,
and some people have a hard time dealing with math and its effective
use.  The other difficult aspect in liberal arts is that there
is often a lot of background knowledge needed (like in history)
that just requires a lot of time to be able to master.

--
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  / ____ \  |  |  |__| |   \ |  |    Charles Lin
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 | |        |  |  |  | |  |\    |   
 | |     _  |  |  |__| |__| \___|    University of Maryland
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