Liberal arts can be useful to engineers

Engineers are like squares. They can't help it; it's just the way they are. But the world is round. So how does a square peg fit into a round hole? You have to make the square well-rounded.

Tech is an Institute known for its engineering and science, and that distinguished reputation has held for well over a hundred years. Therefore, the liberal arts classes such as history, economics, psychology and philosophy tend to get overlooked in the broad plan we know as graduation. While here, we tend to only be concerned with getting our required courses and getting out as fast as possible.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from other students is that each major requires so many electives, which have nothing to do with their respective major.

But it's not all bad that we have to take these non-major classes; it's actually one of the best things the Institute can require us to do while pursuing our degree.

For an engineering student such as myself, it doesn't hurt to take something different from my other four classes. It expands the mind. It breaks the rut. It teaches thinking from a new perspective rather than thinking in terms of formulas.

Besides, if every class I ever took was about engineering, then I think I would have gotten burned out by the end of my second year. Humanities, social science and ethics requirements let the student get the much-needed breather from time to time.

Even though these classes are anything but a cakewalk, it still gives the student a different method of learning. These electives help make a (hopefully) more interesting and multi-faceted graduate.

Every semester, I look forward to my elective class the most, not because I want to switch majors but because there are no equations or repetitive calculations.

That extra class gives my mind a detour, which is good when the possibility of burnout is so prevalent. I get to choose the history class I want or which psychology will interest me the most.

It is one of the very few times I get to choose which class I want rather than having it recommended to me from a flow chart.

Every year Princeton Review says that Tech is one of the worst places for in-class discussions. That may or may not be true; but when the majority of classes are science and math classes, there isn't much room for discussion.

All facts and formulas are established truth. How much discussion can be brought up about possible changes to Newton's Laws? The derivative of "x" with respect to "x" is always one . There's no way around these established principles.

These engineering classes only teach in terms that are black and white. Granted, there may be multiple ways to get the right answer, but there's only one answer.

These electives classes help teach that not all answers are black and white but rather shades of gray. So the problem of that much-needed discussion is addressed in these liberal arts classes. They teach different solutions to the same problem. Subjects with no clear-cut right or wrong answer are addressed constantly. It helps teach the scientist, mathematician or engineer to think outside of their TI-89.

So embrace the fact that a class actually requires reading a book to do your homework instead of staring at a computer screen.

This variety that is forced on us will also help in the future. Your future employer may want you to write a technical report or maybe present the company's grand new idea.

If the only thing you know to do is punch a calculator, then you are up the creek without a paddle-or even a boat. But if you've taken some classes that teach writing and you've done a few discussions in front of the class, then these tasks may not seem so difficult and you may be moving up the promotional ladder quicker than you expect.

The world no longer requires just one-dimensional people. To be successful you need all types of skills. And a majority of these skills are not taught in engineering courses.

All in all, Tech may be one of the best places to receive an overall education, because it stresses credit hours outside of each student's respective major. This in turn gives the Institute more credibility when their engineering students are also well-rounded in the liberal arts.