Why I Was Wrong About Liberal-Arts Majors

[Independent voter]

Start up founder finds liberal arts grads have value, better than CS grads for programming. If I had to do college over again I would go history major, history majors don't have all those afternoon labs, they can hangout or sleep, get drunk or what ever.





http://blogs.wsj.com/experts/2016/06...l-arts-majors/

As the demand for quality computer programmers and engineers increases, conventional wisdom assumes we need more students with computer-science and engineering degrees. Makes sense, right?

I’ve been preaching this exact message for the past 10 years as I’ve fought to recruit the best programmers. Recently, though, I’ve realized that my experience has proved something completely different.

Looking back at the tech teams that I’ve built at my companies, it’s evident that individuals with liberal arts degrees are by far the sharpest, best*-performing software developers and technology leaders. Often these modern techies have degrees in philosophy, history, and music – even political science, which was my degree.

How can this be?

It’s very simple. A well-*rounded liberal arts degree establishes a foundation of critical thinking. Critical thinkers can accomplish anything. Critical thinkers can master French, Ruby on Rails, Python or whatever future language comes their way. A critical thinker is a self*-learning machine that is not constrained by memorizing commands or syntax.

Writing code can be just as stimulating as playing guitar or learning chess. Therefore, like musicians, many of the best programmers are self-*taught. They don’t write their first line of code in a classroom. Instead, they learn Ruby on a laptop while at Starbucks, just for fun. Most liberal arts degrees encourage a well-rounded curriculum that can give students exposure to programming alongside the humanities. Philosophy, literature, art, history and language give students a thorough understanding of how people document the human experience. Technology is a part of our human experience, not a replacement to it.


While we’ve hired many computer-science majors that have been critical team members, It’s noncomputer science degree holders who can see the forest through the trees. For example, our chief operating officer is a brilliant, self-*taught engineer with a degree in philosophy from the University of Chicago. He has risen above the code to lead a team that is competitive globally. His determination and critical-thinking skills empower him to leverage the power of technology without getting bogged down by it. His background gives him the soft skills – the people skills – that make him stand out as someone who understands our customers and knows how to bring the staff along.

My point isn’t that we don’t need qualified, formally trained engineers with university degrees. Rather, I’m suggesting that if more tech hires held a philosophy or English degree with some programming on the side, we might in the end create better leaders in technology and life.

[Deleted]

Nice try Star bucks cashier I will take extra creme though now get back to work.

[NightTrain32]

I will bite. Just for the sake of conversation and fueling what seems like a half way trolly article.

1. I think no matter what the best programmers are probably people that really love programming and are self motivated to learn these languages and find better ways to code the same thing. This however doesn't mean these people are software engineers or programmers by educations because I know plenty of smart kids that go into these fields because of the money not because of the love for the subject.

2. This article talks only about liberal arts majors, what about say a different engineering major that doesn't learn much about programming languages. These people would have all of the critical thinking and problem solving skills that are the biggest thing that comes out of an engineering degree but not have these supposedly horrible ingrained thought processes programmers learn in school. Would this possible not be better?

3. His example of a chief operating officer is not a programming position really its a management position which isn't the same.

Basically I find it hard to believe that liberal arts majors in general are just very good programmers and should be hired because of this. I believe these people that end up being such great programmers and the such could have not gotten a college degree or gotten a degree in programming and been just as good.

Finally it takes all types and the best programmers don't necessarily make the best leaders which seems to be his final take away even though it doesn't mix very well with his initial sentence or whole theme of the article.

[dextersmith]

Where do I even begin with this bs?

[Kuntantee]

His observation and arguments feel crafted for liberal art majors, instead of a naturally occured reality. He emphasizes critical thinking when in fact, it is analytical skills (or thinking) that is a requirement and the driving power behind programmers, not critical thinking. Since, only critical thinking is emphasized (just like all majors in the world) in the structural education of liberal arts, he picked critical thinking as the base of his argument.

Best programmers in the world are not self-taught. In fact, they compose the worst programmer group in the world. Best programmers are those who learn it at an early age, like 11, 13, 15 or so.

[Independent voter]

Well, do you believe programmers are born or made? I believe they are born. Sure you can take someone and educate them to be a programmer, what a hash table is, etc, but they will never love it and they can't wait to get away from it. The only reason they went into programming was for the job security. Meanwhile it doesn't matter what major the guy who loves programming takes, he'll program 8 hours, go home and program 4 more hours. I'm sure we've all seen people in both groups.

[Kellhound]

Liberal Arts majors are usually far from critical thinkers, they are far from thinkers period most of the time (speaking as a guy who majored in Political Science).

[Cosmic Janitor]

What's with all the asterisks strewn into these words ? :P

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I'm also kinda tempted to do a code review with his guys, just for shits and giggles .

Edit: I feel it is also relevant to know where the author of the article works, so for those who haven't bothered to check the source:

David Kalt is the founder of Reverb.com, a marketplace for musical instruments and gear, and the owner of the Chicago Music Exchange, a vintage guitar store in Chicago. He also co-founded and was the former CEO of online broker optionsXpress.

[nanook12]

<---Physics major. I hope it works out. I wonder what people think about my major?

[Cricket22]

To me, what that article described, was basically the difference between a 2 year technical degree, as opposed to a 4 year undergraduate.

In a 2 year technical degree, most, if not all, of your coursework is directly related to the field you are training for.

While a 4 year undergraduate requires a certain number of "core" courses directly related to your degree, an additional number of courses directly related to your major, and for all the rest, anywhere from 15-20 classes, you are required to select 2-4 courses from each of a broad range of different fields; english, literature, math, science, psychology, sociology, philosophy, history, art, etc.

The reason a 4 year undergraduate degree requires coursework in a wide variety of different disciplines, is specifically for the very purpose of providing students with a broad base to draw from, to enable them to develop their critical thinking skills, strengthening their problem solving and leadership abilities.

Critical thinking occurs when you stop thinking in terms of absolutes; black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, and instead acquire the ability to see issues from a variety of different perspectives, analyze and evaluate the merits and downfalls of all different viewpoints and complexities involved, to finally arrive at what you hope, is the best possible solution. If it doesn't work, you try something else, until you either find a solution that does, or make the decision to cut your losses.

To the best of my knowledge, that's what pretty much all 4 year undergraduate degrees are supposed to do. I can't see any reason a liberal arts degree in particular would necessarily provide any particular advantage in accomplishing that goal.

[Oktoberfest]

Man I swear, every time someone uses the term 'Critical Thinking' I want to pop em in the mouth. Its a bullshit term that people toss around to make themselves appear smarter. The irony is the ones who talk about it the most are the ones who are so fucking wedged into narrow minded partisan thinking that they LACK it.

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Liberal Arts majors are usually far from critical thinkers, they are far from thinkers period most of the time (speaking as a guy who majored in Political Science).

Yup. Exactly what this guy said

[Celista]

I don't think you're wrong at all; I learned a lot from my liberal arts courses. I'm sure there are liberal arts courses out there that are complete bs, but I learned a lot in mine.

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Man I swear, every time someone uses the term 'Critical Thinking' I want to pop em in the mouth. Its a bullshit term that people toss around to make themselves appear smarter. The irony is the ones who talk about it the most are the ones who are so fucking wedged into narrow minded partisan thinking that they LACK it.

Shrug. I majored in finance for undergrad and I really do think my gen ed courses taught me a lot. Philosophy was great for critical thinking, especially my logic course.

[Feel The Power]

I’ve been preaching this exact message for the past 10 years as I’ve fought to recruit the best programmers.

Sorry bud, I think you meant to post this in the RP forum, as the "trolling for pointless attention forum" doesn't exist.

[Adamas102]

Surprise, surprise! Motivated people who have the desire to expand their knowledge base and learn things on their own do well in life regardless of what they spent a few years studying in their late teens and early 20's.

[Lothaeryn]

<---Physics major. I hope it works out. I wonder what people think about my major?

We pray that you contribute to science and the betterment of mankind in a productive way.

That said, we're still having problems with those combustible lemon grenades so we may need your help to find out where the physics is failing us.

[Elim Garak]

Degrees don't matter. Self-taught is the key.

[aviger]

See depending on WHERE you went to school he may be right.
When i still lived in Holland I went to a college to study computer science, i was told it was a very hands on programming course.
Turns out it was like 5% programming and 95% managing programmers and such...
So yeah, if i actually stayed there i would be shit at programming.
I learned more in my spare time installing linux systems for a web hosting company than i did there..

[Garnier Fructis]

These are skills you need to really do well in any major.

Same with the self teaching. Nobody gets really good at anything without the ability to teach yourself.

[Allerius]

BS, high school dropouts make the best developers. They are so prodigious they self-teach and realize they are too smart for school so they don't even go. Kind of how like liberal arts majors avoid choosing a degree that gives them employment prospects because they are so awesome they need to handicap to make things fairer for the dumb STEM losers, but on a higher level. I wrote something on the internet, clearly I'm an authority and my specious rhetoric can be trusted without any data.

[Cricket22]

Man I swear, every time someone uses the term 'Critical Thinking' I want to pop em in the mouth. Its a bullshit term that people toss around to make themselves appear smarter. The irony is the ones who talk about it the most are the ones who are so fucking wedged into narrow minded partisan thinking that they LACK it

That's actually a "tell".

When someone makes claims about their critical thinking skills, but clearly demonstrates they are only capable of thinking in terms of absolutes, what it tells you is they probably don't really have an undergraduate degree.