Any college student here?

[CAGED whiteman]

i was wondering if you guys or gals find your professors to be rather liberal? it could just be my major but some of these fuckers are starting to piss me off and i dont want to argue with them since it could have an effect on my grade.

 

[decem]

they're liberal because they're educated you moron..

 

[MrDbol]

I just keep my mouth shut and keep raking in the A's. Once I graduate, its a different story. Then I will make history!

 

[Warik]

they're liberal because they're educated you moron..

If they're so educated, why are they stuck in a go-nowhere job teaching university courses?

Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.

Moron.

-Warik

 

[the People's Champ]

so true. proven fact in the military.

 

[Warik]

umm most professors actually do research and stuff...at least the technical ones, dunno about english professors and shit. all my engineering professors were doing research in cutting edge areas.

Since when do engineering professors and physics professors etc... argue with students? They teach fact - if you don't like it, leave. The only professors who argue with students are English, Philosophy, etc... professors - and on some occassions, computer programming professors who can barely speak English and barely know the material themselves. Those are the ones who suffer from the "Those who can't, teach." philosophy. If they had the skills to do something productive with their lives that would be meaningful to society, they would. Instead, they sit there and act as "filler" material for students' course schedules and bring the universities undeserved income. I have learned so few things in my philosophy and English courses that I'm shocked they actually still teach that crap.

I used to sleep during all my English classes and my professors would never say SHIT because they knew I had no business being in there.

but bear in mind, what u say i totally grant, when it comes to english professors and shit like that.

it is u who are the moron apparently...??

Perhaps you should listen to one of those English professors - you may yet learn a thing about grammar and reading comprehension.

-Warik

 

[decem]

warik.. you are such a little boy.. no really.. you're like my little brother dude. you think you know everything, but in reality you know jack shit.


word.

 

[sigweed]

i go to a fairly prestigious private school, and you'd be surprised just how many of my friends driving benz and beamers have professors for parents, so you can't tell me they don't make any money. Second, some people just really like to teach. I have some incredibly smart teachers at my school, some of the best in the country in fact, who could easily land other jobs which pay way better, but rather choose to stay at my school and educate us. I realize in whatever school you went to, maybe they taught there because that was the only job they could get, but most of the teachers I know are incredibly bright, kind, helpful people I've ever met, who I have huge amounts of respect for.
ex. my calc teacher. He gave up being the principal of the school to just teacher, because he chooses to teach a full schedule (not one break... ever) and never complains because he's doing it for us. This man, I have endless respect for, and besides being brilliant, he's got everything he needs to become a professor or some other MUCH higher paying job, but he stays.
so "those who can, do. those who can't, teach" is the biggest load of bullshit.

 

[Warik]

warik.. you are such a little boy.. no really.. you're like my little brother dude. you think you know everything, but in reality you know jack shit.


word.

Very well. In that case, English and Philosophy professors are supremely intelligent and have a vast knowledge of important information that students will find useful every day in life. Their worth to society is unmeasurable.

Computer programming teachers who regurgitate code from the book, teach absolutely nothing about algorithm development or program design, and regularly extend project due dates in response to excessive student whining are also very meaningful figures in a university.

All because you said so... since, you know, me saying things and justiying them means that I know "jack shit," while you saying things and providing no justification whatsoever means that you are right - all because you're decem.

You are guilty of the same crime of which you accuse me, yet you do a more effective job at making yourself look like an ass.

Congratulations.

-Warik

 

[decem]

you still don't know jack shit. your logic is always flawed. you're a little 19 y/o kid with no life experience who is of average intellect. you think simply because you come on an internet chat board and use proper grammar and punctuation that you argument holds more weight than others, when indeed it does not. your argument regarding college level professors and their aptitude, intellect, and capabilities as well as your statement on their motives to teach instead of work in their field is completely off base. what makes it worse is that you're this little moronic, peon, know-it-all who actually knows jack shit, knows jack shit about the work force and what it entails, knows jack shit about what other duties and activities various college professors are privvy to, and knows jack shit about life and the world in general, and as such, your arguments and points are instantly written off as invalid, and rightly so.




lil bitch.

 

[Jimsbbc]

You guys need to lighten up or get laid or something. Who fucking cares one way or the other. I have both liberal and conservative profs. Everyone is entitled to their view.

 

[decem]

shut your mouth cupcake..


i will NOT have you asserting your views on this board or any other.. 'tis not your right.


now scurry long lil one.

 

[Jimsbbc]

Decem-

I am going to disregard your juvenile comment, because after all you really have no concept of who i am or what I am capable of. What do you wiegh like 200? Keep dreaming little one.

 

[decem]

didn't i just tell you to pipe down tinkerbell?

 

[Blue Sky]

I am slightly surprised that tenured prof's in engineering actually get >$100K... but.. I might be mistaken... There are some who have several patents and consult companies on the side and get paid more, but.. nn... NNN!?! Mystery it is... I don't think it is the norm... Directors of Labs and Institutes at MIT and Cornell (who are tenured prof's) just barely make more than $100K... The norm for tenured prof... seem to be more like 60-70K... I think?

As for the job preference to be a prof... (whether it be a humanities or the sciences) Most choose it due to the leverage they get in what they do. They certainly can get more money working for private companies (even the English profs will probably get more writing a column in a newspaper... maybe?? I don't know). But the beauty in the job lies in the fact that you can do whatever you wish to do... The University does not intervene in your work (once you get tenure you can't get fired) so long as you can get funding from whatever source (NSF, DOE, Military, etc.). You don't have to start or abandon certain projects because of company interests... You get the freedom to indulge in whatever you want...

 

[Blue Sky]

Actually the average salary for professors is... more in the range of 35K-50K I think... the US national average...?? (average for all prof positions... I don't know if the technical areas pay more or not)

 

[Warik]

you still don't know jack shit. your logic is always flawed. you're a little 19 y/o kid with no life experience who is of average intellect. you think simply because you come on an internet chat board and use proper grammar and punctuation that you argument holds more weight than others, when indeed it does not. your argument regarding college level professors and their aptitude, intellect, and capabilities as well as your statement on their motives to teach instead of work in their field is completely off base. what makes it worse is that you're this little moronic, peon, know-it-all who actually knows jack shit, knows jack shit about the work force and what it entails, knows jack shit about what other duties and activities various college professors are privvy to, and knows jack shit about life and the world in general, and as such, your arguments and points are instantly written off as invalid, and rightly so.

lil bitch.

Your childish, insulting retorts bore me a great deal, decem. Even if your unfounded claims of my supposed average intelliect, lack of life experience, and my state of being "moronic" and a peon are true, you make no attempt whatsoever to justify them in a respectable manner. Quite frankly, all you know how to do is insult people - and you don't do so very well either.

You need to begin acting your age (you know, since you are 25 and I am only 20, you must know a hell of a lot more than me and have so much more life experience than I do) and realizing that a lack of this or a lack of that is irrelevant when stating fact. If a 5 year old kid tells you that the probability of the Roulette ball landing on 0 5 times in a row is equal to that of it landing in 5 different specific numbers, do you automatically disregard what he says and insult him just because he's not a statistics professor? Wake up.

Experience? Do you think I speak about English professors and Computer Programming professors after never having been in either class? I've been studying the English language since I was practically out of diapers. I was almost exempt from all college English courses due to my credits from HS.

Computer Programming class experience? I'm a fucking CS major who hasn't even finished his core yet because he's been taking all of the CS classes. I've been taught by almost every teacher there, and I know that half of those teachers don't know their heads from their asses and nitpick about stupid shit. I had one professor who took off 2 points because I didn't comment the return value of a painfully obvious function (it was a boolean function that opened a file... I can't possibly imagine ANYTHING the return value could be other than success or failure). The guy spent weeks teaching us how to change the color of the text/background in Win32 console applications. What the fuck is the point of that? We spent 2 seconds on the basic concepts of OOP and we didn't even get to linked lists or template classes. WASTE OF FUCKING MONEY THAT CLASS WAS! All because of a scrub professor. Then again, I don't know shit and have no experience, right? My opinion is nothing compared to that of a college professor with 30 degrees who believes that going into the intricate details of how SML type inference works is of incalculable importance to the future programming ability of his students. LOL.

Speaking of experience, if you consider a Vegas marriage, of which you post a stupid comment about periodically, to a woman you fear you will only see for 2 seconds of the day due to conflicting schedules and the fact that you are STILL in school at the ripe age of 25 to be the "life experience" of a man of above "average intellect," then God bless my ignorance.

I hate offending people, but if you feel that you can safely reduce my facts, opinions, beliefs, and even personality, to dust based on what you assume about me based on little to no knowledge of my life, while what you have made public of yours is hardly something to envy, makes you seem like a bigger fool than that which you are attempting to make me seem. Besides, being an ass about it hardly encourages people to see your view as valid.

Have a nice evening.

-Warik

 

[musclebrains]

The idea that the teaching of philosophy and literature has no "meaning to society" will come as a great surprise to libertarians who were taught Ayn Rand's books, to the new physicists who read the taoist classics, to the founding fathers who were taught Locke, to Freud who said his work was gleaned from the literary classics, to Patti Smith who was inspired by Rimbaud (but of course the teaching and performing of music are probably as worthless as the teaching and reading of poetry), to every scientist who read the weird dreams of Descartes, to everyone who has been inspired by philosophy and literature to experiment with the structure of his thought and to contemplate more than the immediately present so that new worlds can be made...

 

[Warik]

The idea that the teaching of philosophy and literature has no "meaning to society" will come as a great surprise to libertarians who were taught Ayn Rand's books, to the new physicists who read the taoist classics, to the founding fathers who were taught Locke, to Freud who said his work was gleaned from the literary classics, to Patti Smith who was inspired by Rimbaud (but of course the teaching and performing of music are probably as worthless as the teaching and reading of poetry), to every scientist who read the weird dreams of Descartes, to everyone who has been inspired by philosophy and literature to experiment with the structure of his thought and to contemplate more than the immediately present so that new worlds can be made...

The idea that a great number of people who have led successful lives and made meaningful contributions to society did so without any philosophical or literary background/inspiration will come as an equally great surprise to you.

The idea that many of those libertarians, founding fathers, and scientists extracted something of worth from said literature did so outside the classroom environment (i.e. on their own) will come as an equally great surprise to you.

The idea that there are more professions in the world today that do not require any philosophical or literary background far outnumber those that do will come as an equally great surprise to you.

Shall I reaffirm my claim? Yes I shall: the teaching of literature and philosophy is NOT meaningful to society. Those who can find inspiration in literature or philosophy can do so OUTSIDE of the classroom environment, and if they are interested, WILL. Those who DO NOT, however, have any interest, and will not find any inspiration in, literature or philosophy (i.e. me and 23908932052343232324 others), and do not require any school-based knowledge of literature or philosophy for ANYTHING in their lives are having their time WASTED and their minds POLLUTED by these things being taught in school.

Quite frankly, I have no interest in fiction, and the last thing a computer programmer needs is to know the theme of some historical piece of writing or whether or not it is morally acceptable to use /* */ comments over double-slash comments. English/Philosophy classes in HS and college have been nothing but a) a waste of time and b) a waste of money to me. Period.

-Warik

 

[cure]

Wouldn't a prof that was liberal be upto a good debate? They seem to be more open minded.

To me, debating is the key in getting the teachers attention and if your points are even remotely thought out or researched your teacher will appreciate that. I have 3 degree's in different fields (poli. science(bac, Masters, PHD), sociology and multimedia) and in all my classes, debating was encouraged.

I agree that some teachers go by the "book" but i knew alot of students who had the balls to questions what they were learning even from their texts. Those were the students who ended up having the greatest relationship with the teacher and also the best grades.

All this also depends on the size of the class and whether or not you are disturbing the teacher from advancing in his/her methods of teaching. Everyone is different but i have never seen a student get a low mark or being told to "shut up" for actually speaking their mind.

 

[JohnyJuice]

they're liberal because they're educated you moron..

No, it is because these liberal morons couldnt get a real job after school, so they went into teaching. You are still a fucking goon i see.

 

[cure]

forgot to add that i was offered a teaching position after i received my PHD and could have made $10000 a class per semester. That's $60000 to 80000 a year teaching 9 hours a week.

 

[Blue Sky]

I can't really speak for literature (I never figured out the art of reading between the lines and picking up on the subtle nuances..), but I didn't think the philosophy classes I took (and the one literature class I took...) was a profound waste of time. Reading the works of many of the philosophers makes you see the assumptions they make and the thought process they go through to develop their theory... And... I thought it was admirable for someone to go though a systematic thought process to develop moral theories or political theories... I am sure I would have missed much in the texts if not for the profs pointing out specific passages... It is far from being my primary field of research, but that is exactly why I thought a prof being there to direct you was very useful (um, I don't know about others but my philosophy classes didn't have debates...) It was useful precisely because I lacked the insight many philosophers had....

On the other hand, technical courses... (um, well, math and physics courses for me...) Although they impressed me in many ways, for me the instructors were not always necessary because I had build the intuition necessary for the field (cardinal rule 1: it is absolutely crucial that you know the answer before you start the problem. cardinal rule 2: If you don't know the answer to the problem, then the problem is not posed in the proper fashion). It opens you up to a world that is quite different from scientific thinking and... I think getting an instructor to lead a class you don't know the details about is... nice?

And... It isn't necessary wasting your time or polluting your mind... if anything... you at least gained more knowledge, whatever the form...

 

[Sushi X]

and knowledge is power....

 

[FBI]

i'm a philosophy major! who wants to argue?

 

[Taps]

K, I have to disagree with the whole "those who can't do, teach" philosophy. One of my best friends is a high school teacher. He has 2 degrees, one in Education and another in Mathamatics. He graduated top of his class, and had numerous job offers from private companies. Shit, he had a $70K offer from Microsoft, but turned it down because teaching is something he's always wanted to do. And he's great at it too....the kids really respond to him -- he cares about them and they realize this.

Also, both my parents are Universty profs. They make about 80K/year, which is about half what they could be making in the private sector. Again, they do it because they love teaching.

Another thing to remember is that collage profs don't get payed to teach -- they get payed to do research. Teaching students is just part of thier job, and unfortunetly it often takes a backseat to thier other duties. I've had many profs who had no business being in a class room, and I think that's a bunch of shit. If i'm paying $5000/semester, I want a profs who actually care about what they're doing. Universtiys in general are fucked up tho...the wants of the students really don't matter all that much. Sad but true.

 

[Sushi X]

good points taps. i'd like to add that with that philosophy of those who can't teach, if that's they way our society looks at teachers then it's no wonder our schools are failing. people have to realize teachers are who they are because they want to be there. what if we had no teachers. then where would we be? parent's are'nt going to teach their kids when they need to work and pay bills. also, teachers are not babysitters, not there to parent, but to teach them about the acedemics and teach them to think, reason and express themselves through creativity. poor attitudes towards teachers equals poor results. it's karma.

 

[Warik]

Also keep in mind that there are exceptions to every rule. Not every teacher is a dumb fuck, not every politician is a crooked thief, not every bodybuilder is a big dummy, not every old lady is a bad driver, and not every UPS driver manages to deliver everybody's package precisely 1 second before they stop delivering.

I strongly believe that if you sign up for a 4-year degree program at a college, whether it's an art, computers, law, etc... you will find that professors worthy of the title "TEACHER" or "EDUCATOR" are in the minority.

In HS I took 6 classes a day for 4 years = 24 classes. Some teachers I had multiple times, so I can safely say I must have had about 20 unique teachers. I would consider only 3 of them to be great teachers.

College? lol... I'm sitting here with 94 credits and I've only had about 2-3 professors who teach better than the norm.

I do agree that there are people who teach because they like to teach. Those are the ones who do a good job. Unfortunately, there are a LOT of teachers out there who teach simply because they a) are college professors who are required to teach in order to do their research or b) are stupid fucks who can't get a better job. Those are the ones who waste my time, and who I wish would hurry up and retire. God damn tenure makes them practically invincible.

-Warik

 

[BoneCruncher]

Warik why dont you just shut your babbling little pie-hole for once, reading your posts is so painfull.

All you do is make blanket statements, you think your the king of logic but in reality you seem lacking in any rational thought.

Then you bore everyone to death with your insightfull little commentaries on the state of affairs around the world.

Oh and whats with signing your name at the end of every post, its like the Warik seal of idiocy.

 

[decem]

Your childish, insulting retorts bore me a great deal, decem. Even if your unfounded claims of my supposed average intelliect, lack of life experience, and my state of being "moronic" and a peon are true, you make no attempt whatsoever to justify them in a respectable manner. Quite frankly, all you know how to do is insult people - and you don't do so very well either.

you're right. i don't make any attempt to justify them in a respectable manner, and i do this for a few reasons.

1. you don't deserve respect
2. everyone already knows WHY you're a moron. i just like telling you that you ARE a moron.

You need to begin acting your age (you know, since you are 25 and I am only 20, you must know a hell of a lot more than me and have so much more life experience than I do) and realizing that a lack of this or a lack of that is irrelevant when stating fact.

no sonny bono.

1. you were not stating fact.
2. since you were not stating fact, a lack of this or a lack of that is NOT irrevelant when your background can not assert the validity of your argument.


Experience? Do you think I speak about English professors and Computer Programming professors after never having been in either class? I've been studying the English language since I was practically out of diapers. I was almost exempt from all college English courses due to my credits from HS.

whoooa... step back. i bet you were in HEPP. man, you really are the shit.

and btw.. no shit you've been studying english since you were practically out of diapers, so has practically every child in any school system in america. what a goofball.

btw.. where'd you learn english? you were taught right? by a teacher right?


Computer Programming class experience? I'm a fucking CS major who hasn't even finished his core yet because he's been taking all of the CS classes.

so let me get this straight. you now know the ins and outs of the CS industry and these subjects/topics/etc in the real world because you have taken many CS courses taught by the same numbskulls who supposedly don't know enough about their profession or subject or area of specialty to make it in the real world.

there's seems to be some conflicting statements there, no?


I've been taught by almost every teacher there, and I know that half of those teachers don't know their heads from their asses and nitpick about stupid shit.

again, you know this because you took some CS courses right? ok.

I had one professor who took off 2 points because I didn't comment the return value of a painfully obvious function (it was a boolean function that opened a file... I can't possibly imagine ANYTHING the return value could be other than success or failure). The guy spent weeks teaching us how to change the color of the text/background in Win32 console applications. What the fuck is the point of that? We spent 2 seconds on the basic concepts of OOP and we didn't even get to linked lists or template classes. WASTE OF FUCKING MONEY THAT CLASS WAS! All because of a scrub professor. Then again, I don't know shit and have no experience, right? My opinion is nothing compared to that of a college professor with 30 degrees who believes that going into the intricate details of how SML type inference works is of incalculable importance to the future programming ability of his students. LOL.

i read that. i really did. but all that shows up on the screen is "blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah." maybe something's wrong with my monitor; i don't know.


Speaking of experience, if you consider a Vegas marriage, of which you post a stupid comment about periodically, to a woman you fear you will only see for 2 seconds of the day due to conflicting schedules and the fact that you are STILL in school at the ripe age of 25 to be the "life experience" of a man of above "average intellect," then God bless my ignorance.

hmmm.. perhaps i'm still in school at the "ripe age of 25" because of those experiences. perhaps not. btw.. have you ever been outside of your hometown? i'm guessing no. have you ever not lived with your parents? i'm guessing no. have you ever had sex with a goat? hmm... now THAT is a tough one.

btw.. there is no god silly, but i'll bless you for your ignorance if you wish.


I hate offending people, but if you feel that you can safely reduce my facts, opinions, beliefs, and even personality, to dust based on what you assume about me based on little to no knowledge of my life, while what you have made public of yours is hardly something to envy, makes you seem like a bigger fool than that which you are attempting to make me seem. Besides, being an ass about it hardly encourages people to see your view as valid.

i like offending people. i base nothing on assumptions alone you silly ape. there's quite a bit that can be inferred and deduced from what you write.

btw.. you can never have "facts." damn man, i thought we went through this once.

Have a nice evening.

toodaloo cupcake.

-Warik

-decem

 

[decem]

You are still a fucking goon i see.

you are still a fucking dillhole i see.

 

[WODIN]

This thread is just so full of love, compassion and mutual admiration it makes me want to have a group hug.

 

[decem]

hug my nuts old man.

 

[musclebrains]

The idea that a great number of people who have led successful lives and made meaningful contributions to society did so without any philosophical or literary background/inspiration will come as an equally great surprise to you.

The idea that many of those libertarians, founding fathers, and scientists extracted something of worth from said literature did so outside the classroom environment (i.e. on their own) will come as an equally great surprise to you.

The idea that there are more professions in the world today that do not require any philosophical or literary background far outnumber those that do will come as an equally great surprise to you.

Shall I reaffirm my claim? Yes I shall: the teaching of literature and philosophy is NOT meaningful to society. Those who can find inspiration in literature or philosophy can do so OUTSIDE of the classroom environment, and if they are interested, WILL. Those who DO NOT, however, have any interest, and will not find any inspiration in, literature or philosophy (i.e. me and 23908932052343232324 others), and do not require any school-based knowledge of literature or philosophy for ANYTHING in their lives are having their time WASTED and their minds POLLUTED by these things being taught in school.

Quite frankly, I have no interest in fiction, and the last thing a computer programmer needs is to know the theme of some historical piece of writing or whether or not it is morally acceptable to use /* */ comments over double-slash comments. English/Philosophy classes in HS and college have been nothing but a) a waste of time and b) a waste of money to me. Period.

-Warik

Well, Warik, you construct a powerful argument for trade schools and other forms of career education. The tradition of a liberal arts education is not for everyone, particulary those whose main interest is preparing for a career. Indeed, the majority of Americans still don't pursue higher education at all.

But, as I said, the purpose of the liberal arts is not just to teach the plot summary of Moby Dick or the philosophical foundations of democracy but to learn to experiment with different ways of thinking and perspectives. This has never been "necessary." People who travel broadly usually end up being much more tolerant of different perspectives and the same thing happens when you absorb yourself in the amazing variety of philosophical discourses.

Many people do feel that a foundation in the arts and philosophy is valuable in itself. To them, "culture" is as important as anything else and, indeed, entire revolutions have been grounded in the reformation of culture as well as political and economic structures.

 

[spentagn]

To answer the original question, I go to college. And most of my professors do not seem to be liberal, but I am a business major. A couple of my classes outside the business college did have some more politically correct content, but that's about all.

Those damn journalists are a different story, however.

 

[WODIN]

hug my nuts old man.

Just admit you are gay and go back to being an ass plow in Hawaii. You'll be mutch happier doing that than trying to get hetro middle age men like me to hug your nuts.

 

[musclebrains]

 

[decem]

Just admit you are gay and go back to being an ass plow in Hawaii. You'll be mutch happier doing that than trying to get hetro middle age men like me to hug your nuts.

pipe down yappy.

oh.. and take that fucking samuel l. jackson from pulp fiction out of your damn quote for pete's sake.. it's tired.

oh.. while i'm on your signature.. what's with you and all the jesus and god mumbo jumbo in that damn thing?

just wondering nugro.

 

[Warik]

-decem

Grow up, man.

Hope it didn't take you very long to type that - ignored.

-Warik

 

[WODIN]

I like that line from Pulp Fiction so nyah nyah.

I like these qoutes from the bible too...so nyah nyah..

 

[Warik]

Well, Warik, you construct a powerful argument for trade schools and other forms of career education. The tradition of a liberal arts education is not for everyone, particulary those whose main interest is preparing for a career. Indeed, the majority of Americans still don't pursue higher education at all.

I just feel that the idea of college is not what it should be. One goes through 12 years of "rounding" himself with a variety of maths, sciences, and arts throughout elementary and high school. Should college not be the education AFTER one's education that helps him specialize in a particular profession? College seems to want to make somebody a "jack of all trades," and as it works in most RPGS, a "jack of all trades" is good at everything - but is not as good in ANYTHING as someone who specializes.

Don't you think we'd have better scientists, techs, teachers, etc... if they only focused on what was important to their career? Why are scientists being taught art? Why are techs being taught English? Why are English teachers being taught math?

But, as I said, the purpose of the liberal arts is not just to teach the plot summary of Moby Dick or the philosophical foundations of democracy but to learn to experiment with different ways of thinking and perspectives. This has never been "necessary." People who travel broadly usually end up being much more tolerant of different perspectives and the same thing happens when you absorb yourself in the amazing variety of philosophical discourses.

The funny part about this is that I've found myself becoming more tolerant of different perspectives and people after watching 5 of the 7 seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation than I did in high school English. If you hunt through the deep recesses of EF and look for some old debates between RyanH and myself, you'll find that I was quite the ruthless elitist. College attempts to FORCE change by subjecting people to liberal arts who do not want to be there. Learning CANNOT be forced effectively, and I don't think anyone would argue that.

Many people do feel that a foundation in the arts and philosophy is valuable in itself.

Eek... I had that argument about intrinsic value in philosophy class... one of the other reasons I hated that class.

Teacher: "Knowledge is intrinsically good."

Me: "No it's not. It's only good to people because they can use it to better themselves and reason."

Teacher: "No... even if there weren't people, knowledge will still be good."

Me: "Why?"

Teacher: "Because it's intrinsically good."

Duhrr.

To them, "culture" is as important as anything else and, indeed, entire revolutions have been grounded in the reformation of culture as well as political and economic structures.

And I will not dispute that or belittle it. If "culture" and a profound knowledge of the arts is of great importance to someone, then so be it - but please do not subject me to it. I do not like to read fiction - I like reading non-fiction and watching fiction on TV. I have no respect for abstract art - I like looking at realistic depictions of real things. My school receives a fixed amount of money per semester and I expect to receive instruction that will help me become the best computer programmer I can be - English and philosophy are definitely not subsets of said instruction.

-Warik

 

[musclebrains]

This argument is waged constantly in one form or another at schools everywhere. Another variety is that students should not be forced to write standardized English -- that Ebonics and Spanglish are acceptable -- if they dont' want to. And of course it operates on the other side: Humanities students claim they shouldn't have to take science and math classes. "Why should I, a poet, know anything about the ozone layer or quantum mechanics?"

I don't really think the world will be improved by living in a culture of specialists. The core curriculum is quite basic at most schools and post-graduate education allows people to specialize further, according to ability. You may be unusual. Many undergrads have no idea what they want to major in and part of the core curriculum's intention is to expose them to a variety of subjects. I suspect, though, that more students do have an idea of what they want to do than they did in the dark ages of my own undergrad years, partly because people feel so pressured to be productive.

The pragmatist point of view -- that something lacks value if it isn't quantitatively useful -- isn't provable from my perspective. Einstein, like Descartes and Freud, spoke of the value of the literary imagination. The aesthetic response simply isn't quantifiable in the same empirical terms that technology is, and you would have great difficulty finding anyone who has made a "meaningful" impact on society who doesn't also hold the inspirational quality of the educated imagination in high esteem.

 

[CAGED whiteman]

To answer the original question, I go to college. And most of my professors do not seem to be liberal, but I am a business major. A couple of my classes outside the business college did have some more politically correct content, but that's about all.

Those damn journalists are a different story, however.

i think you are right...my major is criminal justice so you would think that some of my professors would be conservative but most are tree huggers...i am just sick of them trying to justify everyones criminal behavior.

 

[athlete21m]

never really paid that much attention and looked in it to it the way u do . I was a business major as well and got away from those stupid ass philosphy classes although i went through a few. Those profs were always some weird fucks. I just handled myshit and got out with a degree, who gives a shit about the profs and their views.