From: robertaw@drizzle.com   
      
   In article <10bjuci$ifl2$1@dont-email.me>,   
    Gary McGath  wrote:   
      
   > On 10/1/25 2:58 PM, Scott Dorsey wrote:   
   > > Evelyn C. Leeper  wrote:   
   > >>   
   > >> I am reminded of a friend who was explaining why he didn't know   
   > >> something one would learn in a world history course (maybe about the   
   > >> Protestant Reformation or something), and said it was because he went to   
   > >> a trade school. When asked what school it was, he said, "MIT."   
   > >   
   > > MIT used to do a somewhat abbreviated version of the Great Books program,   
   > > but that kind of ended with WWII, I think.   
   > >   
   > > In four years you can't really teach someone to be a good engineer, you   
   > > can only teach them the things they need to know in order to learn to be   
   > > a good engineer.  There's not much time to teach them the things they need   
   > > to know to be a good person.   
   >   
   > When I went to MIT, there was a humanities requirement, but it was   
   > rather minimal. The freshman year there was something called "Conflict   
   > and Community in America," which consisted of rather unfocused   
   > discussions of recent books. After that I took mostly music courses when   
   > I could. The one-semester course on opera crammed the entire nineteenth   
   > century into the last day.   
      
   The university I attended (c. 1970) had a Basic Education Requirement.   
   As an engineering student, I had the math and sciences covered several   
   fold. As for the hours of humanities and social sciences, I did most of   
   them in the first quarter of my freshman year and the last quarter of my   
   senior year. I remember a classical mythology course, an introduction to   
   logic (which included Boolean Algebra), an introduction to Economics,   
   and an overview of Japanese history (mostly pre-19th century). I managed   
   to get credit for World History without taking the class.   
      
   --   
   "We have advanced to new and surprising levels of bafflement."   
   Imperial Auditor Miles Vorkosigan describes progress in _Komarr_.   
   —-----------------------------------------------------   
   Robert Woodward robertaw@drizzle.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)