Is there too much focus on STEM? (Liberal Arts strikes back)

[Michael Corsetto]

Ed has definitely hit the nail on the head.

As a Mechanical Engineering major at UC Davis, I have 184 required units to graduate. This includes 6 General Education classes, 1 Communication class, 2 Writing classes, and the rest are set Mechanical Engineering classes.

Now, take English for example. There are 60 required units for an english major. UC Davis requires 180 to graduate, but that means 120 units can be whatever you want! There are General Ed requirements as well, but those are the same categorical 6 classes engineering students have to take. English and other similar majors take far more filler and PE classes than any engineer could. I've never taken a 1/2 unit PE class in my 4 years at UC Davis.

There is a reason Engineers have the most valuable degree. We're trained specifically for the jobs we're hired for! We aren't well rounded in philosophy and history and english and whatever because it takes 4 years just to teach the advanced concepts that we need to know to be reasonably effective engineers.

Businesses are efficient when they hire people from various disciplines to work together. Robotics teams work best when they have a programming group, a mechanical group, a marketing group, that can work together.

Not everyone needs to know everything.

Let's keep making Liberal Arts majors nervous about STEM education

-Mike