From: ac05@sol.acs.unt.edu (Bhattacharya Sumangala)
Subject: Re: Any Humanities Grads out there?
Organization: University of North Texas
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 14:05:48 GMT

clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin) writes:
[much excised]

>    So, they should just do away with grades.

Yup.  At school back home (India), we often did have to write essay answers
for science.  Doing permutation problems (yuck!) meant writing at least a couple
of paragraphs.  No proof (not even the basic GRE type stuff -- unitary method
problems, basic trig, geometry etc.) was complete without "documentation".
And all of this received *marks* i.e. number grades, rather than letter
grades, part of which depended on the documentation.

	There's absolutely no reaon why scientists (& engineers) should not
master the basics of prose-writing (I'm certainly not pointing a finger at
you or anyone in particular), know the major literary works of their culture 
(and the world) etc.  A practical value?  Textbooks which are better written,
manuals written in English, rather than Technocratese, and hey -- personal
enjoyment, too.

	On the other hand, I would argue also, that everyone who goes through
college (Undergrad.) should know the basics of the general science fields.  We
may not know precisely how a telephone works, but have a general idea.  Ditto
television, though we may not know about a solid-state TV, that's no reason
not to have a general idea of the principles behind the operation. Ditto math.
Ditto biology.  I balk at chemistry since I always hated it, but to support my
argument, ditto chemistry too.  Unfortunately, intro classes are often "watered
down" and don't teach enough.  On the other hand, learning all this, plus the
ubject matter in your field is a formidable task.

	So, while there's no way of "diluting" literary texts (unless you
allow the use of the *cliff notes*), scientists are more or less stuck with
reading the originals, while humanities majors can rely on people like Feynman
and Asimov (yes, I'm mentioning them in the same electronic breath) to explain
concepts clearly and in English (rather than Technocratese). 

>    It's interesting to see that some of those responding in favor
>of humanities (and I'm not exactly opposed, just trying to liven
>stuff up on the other side of the debate) are in the sciences
>and engineering.   Personally, I think that while the numbers
>of those in engineering and science who support the ideas of
>liberal arts are small, these numbers are larger than the
>numbers of humanities majors who feel that science and
>engineering are worthwhile to learn (for themselves).

Hoy!  Let's take a vote.  I'm a bona fide English major who finds that
learning math and science stuff can be fun, if frustrating.  I've done a 
B.A. in physics, a year of a somewhat more intense program in the B.Sc. hons.
program at home.  And now that I'm an English major, I try (during summers,
when I'm not reading 1500 page novels) to keep up, in a moderate sort of way.
No, I don't do Fourier analyses in my spare time, or anything of that sort.  I
do play with computers, dabble in programming etc.

Come now, don't you think that a open-minded humanities major can learn your
field, given the basic instruction needed to get started? 

>    I have heard several engineers and related majors interested
>in philosophy, acting, Shakespeare, etc., but the number of
>humanities majors interested in computing or electronics seems
>much smaller.

As I said, let's take a vote...I for one, hate feeling left out of discussions
so, I like to learn enough to at least understand what you're talking about.
One of my Shakespeare professors alluded to the Chaos theories to try to 
explain Shakespeare's own concerns with order and Chaos.  Of course, I do know
a few people who can't operate toasters and are proud of it.
>--

[big, BIG sig.  deleted, but you all know to whose post this is a follou-up]

Sumangala Bhattacharya
ac05@sol.acs.unt.edu
Newsgroups: soc.college.grad