A lot of them think having a PhD in a STEM field gives them unparalleled insight into history and politics. All mini Sabine Hossenfelders if you really think about it
My roommate in college lost points on a giveaway free points question on a world history exam by answering that Martin Luther (the reformation guy) was an African-American civil rights leader. The class was focused entirely on the Medieval-Early Modern period. I only know about it because he complained to me that it was a trick question.
I like to hope, but then again his major was in electrical engineering and there were just a few bare bones non-STEM GEs required where faculty were basically ordered by the school to hand out As to anyone who didn’t put racial slurs in their final essay, because they didn’t want to inconvenience STEM students by holding them to actual standards in the “soft” fields, not because they were too dumb to learn it but because students thought it was an insult to be required to take any non-STEM class at all (and consequently skipped nearly all lectures and put in near-zero effort).
One of the TAs I had once said that the bar was at being able to write a coherent paragraph.
It’s been an eternity since I was in college though, so maybe it’s different now. But seeing today’s techbros doesn’t give me any confidence that it is.
A lot of them think having a PhD in a STEM field gives them unparalleled insight into history and politics. All mini Sabine Hossenfelders if you really think about it
My roommate in college lost points on a giveaway free points question on a world history exam by answering that Martin Luther (the reformation guy) was an African-American civil rights leader. The class was focused entirely on the Medieval-Early Modern period. I only know about it because he complained to me that it was a trick question.
He’s now a professor.
Did he at least learn something?
I like to hope, but then again his major was in electrical engineering and there were just a few bare bones non-STEM GEs required where faculty were basically ordered by the school to hand out As to anyone who didn’t put racial slurs in their final essay, because they didn’t want to inconvenience STEM students by holding them to actual standards in the “soft” fields, not because they were too dumb to learn it but because students thought it was an insult to be required to take any non-STEM class at all (and consequently skipped nearly all lectures and put in near-zero effort).
One of the TAs I had once said that the bar was at being able to write a coherent paragraph.
It’s been an eternity since I was in college though, so maybe it’s different now. But seeing today’s techbros doesn’t give me any confidence that it is.