Engineering vs. liberal arts

I recently read my friend, Megan's, blog post about creative business and economic thinking and got to wondering about what direction the world is going in terms of how people need to think in order to be successful.

Needless to say, we are still stuck in the transition from industrial age to information age because of one clear culprit: higher education. Students everywhere are victims of the industrial-age way of learning in universities that were revamped long ago to fit the changing era. Now that times are changing once again, isn't it time for universities and the job world to change how they teach and select us for the work force, respectively?

Let's be real. If you're an engineering major, your chances of getting a job after college are astronomically higher than if you have a Ph.D. in English. Even if you went to a prestigious school. The demand for engineering students to enter the work force is substantial. But why? Take a closer look at the commonplace internal structure of an education in engineering.

I am studying engineering in college, and it's a rigorous, structured program that I've subjected myself to at least four years of. My life for the next few years has essentially been planned out for me. I know what classes I need to take and when the best time to take them are because there are so many required courses that there's no better way to go about fitting them into the years I can afford. It's a schedule so rigid that it will take tons of meticulous planning just to add a minor, even begin to consider studying abroad, or even fulfill social and art course requirements.


The road to a degree in engineering is no joke. Generally, universities know exactly what they want out of their engineering students and what they want you to take in order to graduate. There's little wiggle room amidst the countless calculus and physics and comp sci courses you must have to get out of there with a degree. Which is why it's crazy to me when I hear about my friend's college experience so far.

Megan of Megan Dare

I have spoken to Megan on a number of occasions about her life as an Ivy League liberal arts student, and it never ceases to amaze and frighten me. Not only are she and her fellow classmates encouraged to take few and wildly-varied classes in their freshman year in order to get their footing and become well-rounded, but they also aren't even supposed to officially declare a major until after their first year. As an engineering student, that, simply put, blows my mind! I've locked myself into the world of engineering and thrown away the key while Megan has had the opportunity to explore her interests and discover her passions. That alone makes the differences between engineering and the liberal arts huge.

And even in my non-Ivy League school, the liberal arts students are constantly reinventing themselves, sometimes drastically. I know people who seem to switch majors every month when their current area of study no longer appeals to them. There's no way I would dream of switching now. Can't switch to another field of engineering because I would likely have to pay for another year of school in order to make up the required freshman classes I missed. No way I'm possibly going to switch to the college of arts and sciences after all the work I've put into my first year of engineering school.

And that brings me back to the whole idea of the changing world. Sure, employers are still on the prowl for students like me who have been subjected to the rigorous, rigidly-structured curriculum of an engineering college. But is that going to last? Are these students going to obsolete in the future?

On the other hand, it seems that these Ivy League liberal arts schools are churning out a generation of new thinkers, students who are encouraged to use their creativity in new and radical ways. Because nowadays, if a computer can do something, you can bet that a computer is doing it in lieu of human workers. And yet, these new age thinkers aren't getting employed. Is the world not ready to be run by these prototype students?

We're living in an era of massive change, and it's not going to happen overnight. The old and the new are still existent and it's hard to decide what will or won't succeed out there. Do we need the structured thinkers or the radical ones? As a result, both struggle. I can't guarantee I won't be eaten alive by my engineering curriculum. Megan can't be guaranteed that employers will jump at her fresh outlooks. Maybe someday, the world will be ready for thinkers like her and engineers like me will have to move over. Just look at the poster boys for the engineering vs. liberal arts argument: Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Or maybe, in the future, we will all have to learn a little about everything instead of being focus-driven on one subject. Who knows what the future holds!

Are we living in an engineering-driven or liberal arts-driven world? Will the future demand more well-rounded, less one-focus workers?

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