All of these typically require a graduate degree (depending on the engineer). How is spending time during undergrad studying the humanities an issue, so long as you have the appropriate prereq's for grad school?
> Why are we programmers forced to take courses in English when English majors aren't forced to take introduction to programming?
At my school non-science majors were required to take a science class or two as an elective, just like I was required to take classes in the humanities. You could still choose what to take, but I'm sure that some chose to take Programming 101.
> "All of these typically require a graduate degree"
Only the doctor and the lawyer require graduate degrees. There are millions of engineers, accountants, actuaries, and many more professionals who exist solely with an undergrad degree.
Not everyone is like you.
> "How is spending time during undergrad studying the humanities an issue, so long as you have the appropriate prereq's for grad school?"
The core of this argument is the expense of education. The objection isn't that people are getting liberal arts degrees, it's that they're putting themselves into enormous debt doing so, and coming out without any of the skills that would allow them to pay back said debt.
It isn't helpful that your solution seems to be "get skills to pay back your debt by taking on even more debt for grad school!"
The obvious question at that point is: why not just get said employable skills in undergrad and just skip the six-figure debt load altogether?
Don't get me wrong - I'm a fan of liberal arts education, and I think it's something a lot of engineers could stand to have more of. But the idea that people should be going to into ridiculous, crushing debt to get a purely liberal arts degree, while completely ignoring their employability/financial reality, is hogwash.
True, there are lots of professionals with only an undergrad degree. But how many of them required a specific undergrad degree to do that job? To advance in business anymore, it requires an MBA of some kind. How you get it is flexible (right out of undergrad, part-time while working, etc).
These days, requiring a bachelor's degree is the equivalent to requiring a high school diploma from a few years ago. Unfortunately, that means that if you want a higher level job, having just a bachelors isn't enough anymore.
>But the idea that people should be going to into ridiculous, crushing debt to get a purely liberal arts degree, while completely ignoring their employability/financial reality, is hogwash.
No one is saying that people should go into crushing debt for a liberal arts degree. Perhaps people should go to a different school, or work during school. But to assume that you can only pay off their school debts with an engineering degree is silly.
All of these typically require a graduate degree (depending on the engineer). How is spending time during undergrad studying the humanities an issue, so long as you have the appropriate prereq's for grad school?
> Why are we programmers forced to take courses in English when English majors aren't forced to take introduction to programming?
At my school non-science majors were required to take a science class or two as an elective, just like I was required to take classes in the humanities. You could still choose what to take, but I'm sure that some chose to take Programming 101.