Curiosities

Perils of the Humanities Students

By posted at 12:00 pm on November 18, 2012 2

In Florida, legislators are wondering whether or not they should raise tuition costs for students studying the humanities, or really anything other than STEM fields. Likewise, James Dyson (yes, the vacuum guy) bemoans Britain’s abundance of “students choosing to read humanities at university.” As a rejoinder, one New Statesman blogger notes that the study of humanities does not inhibit technological innovation, and that as a bonus, “we gain from having people who reshape our cultural landscape and put things in new contexts.”

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2 Responses to “Perils of the Humanities Students”

  1. Doug Hill
    at 12:21 pm on November 18, 2012

    This is a debate that goes back literally for centuries. I wrote an essay about it, inspired by a speech by Google chairman Eric Schmidt, who echoed the sentiments expressed here by James Dyson, to wit: that we ought not to waste more time and money studying the humanities .The essay was published by O’Reilly Radar and can be found here:

    http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/09/science-art-engineering-humanities.html

  2. Tom Beshear
    at 11:19 am on November 19, 2012

    Dyson should thank his lucky stars for the humanities majors who came up with the brilliant ad campaign that helped make his incredible expensive vacuums (they ARE very good vacuums, mind) a huge success. Without them, he might be an obscure tinkerer.

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