Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities • Hacker News Board

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#201

Post by gillesjacobs » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 12:48 PM UTC

I studied Spanish and English literature and linguistics undergrad in W.Europe. I made the conscience choice to move into STEM during my postgrads. Now I am pursuing a PhD in natural language processing and machine learning. The tuition fee was about 900USD avg. per year so there was no financial pressure on me to change academic careers: the choice was ideologically driven.

Allow me share you my experience at the humanities faculty:

I had always enjoyed the arts and literature but from year two I noticed ideological and methodologically harmful trends in the humanities: the staunch rejection of empiricism, the politicization of academia and near universal adoption of radical left-wing ideology. Researchers more often see themselves as activists at the cost of scientific methodology. Theories were completely divorced from social or natural reality. Established professors did not know how to do basic statistical tests, and have no problem getting published anyway.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#202

Post by yontherubicon » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 12:54 PM UTC

will4274 wrote: post #149

What if the problem is that the humanities are getting worse? The ancient definition of a liberal arts education was language (typically ancient Greek), mathematics, literature (often poetry), physical sciences, and history. During my time at University, I found that students in STEM were required to take classes in literature, language, and history. At my University, it was 8 of 40 classes - 20% of the work over fou…

In the article, there was a graph that indicated that degrees Interdisciplinary studies were actually increasing.

TBH, I think you've identified the real problem here: Having a degree in the Humanities no longer means a well-rounded educated individual. It simply means a person who can't do math.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#203

Post by gillesjacobs » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 12:56 PM UTC

igravious wrote: post #121

seibelj wrote: post #8

I was a double major in CS and Latin, and once I asked my Latin advisor about grad school for Latin. I didn’t intend on going, I was just curious about what she would say as a tenured Latin professor at a good university. The look on her face when I asked was complete shock and she went on a rant about how it was the dumbest idea ever. She told me how she was going on sabbatical to write a book that only 30 people wo…

You'll notice the tag-line for the blog is “Digital Humanities: Using tools from the 1990s to answer questions from the 1960s about 19th century America.” That's what I've been doing for the last half a decade, Digital Humanities (DH). DH is what you get when you ask yourself, “What happens when you add computational methods to the scholar's toolkit? What kind of questions can you ask? What does it imply for scholars…

I am doing a PhD in natural language processing coming from an undergrad study Literature and Linguistics, and I can relate. I gave up on the humanities very early on because of the blind activism in research and the classroom at the cost of methodology. I moved into NLP and ML research.

One literary history professor put it blatantly and honestly when talking about teaching in the humanities: "Academia for us is a way to instill our ideology in the elite of society." More propaganda than science. I too hope the appreciation of empiricism gets better with the (re-)introduction of data-driven and computational methods.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#204

Post by mlevental » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 1:04 PM UTC

Moodles wrote: post #196

InTheArena wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wise likewise told by my advisor that any sort of post-degree work in History would be futile. My chance of getting hired as "a white male" in a history department was not good, and frankly "there is not a lot of future in history" (which we laughed at).

Let's hold on a sec because the discussion glossed over this. Are we all just accepting that it's normal for it to be harder for you to get a job because of your skin and gender? That's pretty outrageous and sad.

are you serious.... welcome to the world for literally every era other than hopefully 100 years from now for black people and women

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#205

Post by bo1024 » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 1:12 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #78

yedava wrote: post #15

In countries like India you would be laughed at if you aren't rich and take an arts degree. It is because in a country with limited earning opportunities, it doesn't make any sense to invest in a degree that has virtually non-existent employment opportunities. Seems like the majority of US population has now become poor enough that taking getting a humanities degree is risky.

Given that an arts degree in the US easily costs a quarter million (at least at a decent art school) these days, I think "poor" isn't the word I'd use for people who don't take it. Just "not willing to be in debt for the rest of their lives".

You're implying that's universally true, but it's not even close. Even places where tuition is that high (which is not all "decent" places), scholarships and financial aid can completely change the equation.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#206

Post by bo1024 » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 1:16 PM UTC

endisukaj wrote: post #180

randcraw wrote: post #86

A quarter of a million dollars for a degree in spanish; no job prospects; followed by 20+ years of loan repayment... Is there any wonder that such degrees are unpopular? None of the humanities majors improves your employment prospects, while all could be reproduced for free by reading maybe 20 books at your leisure. That makes the humanities more like a form of entertainment than a preparation for life, which is what…

Even a non-humanities major can be reduced to reading 20 (technical) books at your own leisure.

Much, much, much easier said than done.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#207

Post by roganartu » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

sonnyblarney wrote: post #176

Waterluvian wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't bin us all in together. Most of the modern world it's really not that expensive to go get real sick.

It's expensive to get sick everywhere nowadays, it's just that the cost is spread out in most Western countries. Though socialized medicine countries have much less per-capita medical spending, it's still quite a lot. Or rather ... maybe getting sick is not so expensive. But getting sick and old is ...

I see what you're saying, but I think it's safe to say they were suggesting it is expensive to the individual if they get sick, not to their entire society. The two are very different problems.

Yes, the burden of healthcare costs in places with universal healthcare are spread across all taxpayers, but for that you get a society that can be reasonably confident that getting sick won't bankrupt them (especially if your socialised healthcare nation also has good welfare).

It's easy to dismiss as a "won't happen to me" kind of thing, but in reality it can happen to anyone. A couple of years ago my wife was suddenly admitted to hospital for a couple of weeks and then physical therapy for 6+ months and it didn't cost us anything except her lost income. In the US that could've easily run us several hundred thousand dollars with bad or no insurance. There's a reason medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the USA.[0]

[0] https://www.fool.com/retirement/2017/05/01/this-is-the-no-1-...

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#208

Post by ewams » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 1:22 PM UTC

anoncoward111 wrote: post #102

dralley wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take out taxes, transportation, entertainment, medical expenses, etc. Living off of savings for emergencies is inherently not sustainable. Setting aside retirement entirely.

Taxes on $18,000 is $800 in usa. Entertainment we just do for free through torrenting and walking. Medical expenses, well, we live in the Usa. You just find a way to skate by until you don't. Obviously the political solution needs to be "Medicare for all", but I don't have the power to fight the multi billion dollar insurance lobby :) Living off of savings is sustainable if you have $50,000 saved and only $1,000 a ye…

Where do you live to have 25% loss to taxes from the state + City? Your marginal is 25% to fed... Is this those weird PA taxes? 50% is lol material or you are getting scammed by your accountant.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#209

Post by randcraw » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

endisukaj wrote: post #180

randcraw wrote: post #86

A quarter of a million dollars for a degree in spanish; no job prospects; followed by 20+ years of loan repayment... Is there any wonder that such degrees are unpopular? None of the humanities majors improves your employment prospects, while all could be reproduced for free by reading maybe 20 books at your leisure. That makes the humanities more like a form of entertainment than a preparation for life, which is what…

Even a non-humanities major can be reduced to reading 20 (technical) books at your own leisure.

IMHO, implementing the projects required in engineering & CS curricula teaches you much more than writing papers does in a humanities program. Thus reading books autodidactically misses the target less in the humanities than in engineering.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#210

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Jul 28, 2018, 1:33 PM UTC

gowld wrote: post #122

realitygrill wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harvard didn't have an engineering department until a few years ago (might be year 5 or 6 now).

You're off by over 150 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_John_A._Paulson_School... Harvard invented one of the first computers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Mark_I What you might be misremembering is that > In February 2007, the Harvard Corporation and Overseers voted for the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences to change its name to the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS).

[deleted]