On 14 Jul 2003 17:31:44 GMT, Alun Palmer wrote:

And learning history in an EE degree somehow helped you to do that???

It taught me to think. It taught me that we live in a culture, not
on a circuit board. It taught me not appear as an ignoramus before
non-technical folk.

At a very intensive (i.e. tough to get into and tough to stay in)
engineering school, not only did we have to take two semesters of
"American and World Civilization" in freshman year, which disguised
a course in Cultural Anthropology which we all hated, and two
semesters of "American and World Literature" in junior year, a
required "Humanities" sequence which we all regarded as a waste of
our valuable nerd time and geek energy (and to add insult to injury
taught by the same professor as the freshman year course), we also
had to take a course in General Economics, which I wished I had paid
more attention to because until this day the subject still remains
mumbo-jumbo to me. At least Atomic Physics (taught by one of the
Manhattan Project physicists) which also seemed like mumbo-jumbo
finally made sense when sometime after I took the course I finally
figured it out with the help of my brother who is also a ham and has
a Masters degree in Physics but hasn't worked in that field for 35
years.

To further broaden my background, while I was in engineering graduate
school at one university, I was attending another university studying
Jewish history, philosophy, liturgy, Hebrew language, and culture,
subjects I had "kissed off" in my younger years. Was I forced to?
Not by the school involved (it wasn't a degree program), but by the
need to be a well-educated person in my community.

I can almost say the same for my law school (doctorate level)
education. Some of the courses seemed like a waste of time....but
in practice I find that the background that I got from the "unnecessary"
specialty courses was really necessary for the proper practice of my
legal specialty.

Substitute "the humanities" for the string of courses I cited above, and
they are still necesary for one to be a well-rounded and well-educated
person. One can't "figure out" humanities - either one learns it or one
doesn't.

--
73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane

From a Clearing in the Silicon Forest
Beaverton (Washington County) Oregon