Point taken.
I used to be an engineer. I’m now in an entirely different field involving business, negotiations, and writing.
I often see engineers denigrate liberal arts (as in real classical liberal arts, not leftist brainwashing liberal arts that deserve denigration IMHO). Things like “those fluff subjects have no use in the real world,” etc. The stories of how they blew off their GEC (General Education Requirement) classes and still blew the curve inevitably follow. Of course, many of these engineers couldn’t write about anything but their areas of expertise even if their lives depended on it. Also, even their writing in their areas of expertise often is barely comprehensible. So I do agree with your original point to some extent.
I likewise often see non-engineers denigrate engineers. Things like “all those engineers do is play with their toys and crunch numbers,” etc. Stories about how all engineers are one dimensional nerds inevitably follow. This from people who often cannot do anything beyond basic math or understand basic problem solving. Of course, just about everyting in the modern world wouldn’t exist without the input of engineers, but they don’t realize that. The reality is that without engineers, our nation is done. Over. Kaput. We’ll fall behind in all areas of tech, icluding but not limited to military tech and infrastructure. This is a real problem that we are really facing: Far too few college students have the skills to get through engineering, and even fewer can teach themselves engineering as you apparently have.
We need both types of people, and more people who understand BOTH sides of the equation. Unfortunately, engineering is often more left-brained while liberal arts is often more right-brained. Few people can be both, so getting people to understand the value of both is probably the best we can do for now.
That’s why I reacted the way I did: Took your first comment to be an example of denigrating engineers. Apparently that’s not what you meant, so as I said, point taken.
Beautifully stated, piytar. I just wanted to make sure you knew that I was one of those rarities. I couldn’t have said what you said any better. I don’t denigrate engineers, I am one, but as an English grad student, I hear stories all the time about engineers who only know their work and can’t relate it to any other concepts or subsets of engineering or other business modalities. Education should be far more comprehensive than what is being taught in the ivory towers of the modern leftist university.