My son thought the guy made sense.
I thought he was full of s**t.
I heard similar arguments before--from a guy I knew in college. "I could get A's in all the classes you take," he used to sneer. "But you wouldn't last five minutes in my classes."
He might have been right. He studied actuarial science. You know, the facinating course of study that prepares people to set insurance rates. All that complicated math--I would be lost in five minutes. And bored, too.
My undergraduate classes were far from boring. I took Shakespeare. I read Hume and Mill. I even studied Jazz music. My liberal arts studies included heavy doses of literature, philosphy, and speech classes. The closest I got to math was Statistics and Economics. No, not prepared for a job in the insurance industry.
Students who abandon math and science cut themselves off from lucrative potential careers. And, many commentators worry that our nation is losing ground to the rest of the world as interest in advanced Calculus continues to fade. At the same time, even "easier" courses of study in the arts and humanities require effort. Being able to do something doesn't mean you're good at it. There's a song, "If you can walk, you can dance." However, just because you can dance doesn't make you a dancer.
In the same way, just because you can write, doesn't make you a writer.
My son was speaking to a college recruiter encouraging bright high schoolers to pursue coursework in engineering. He told the teens not to waste their time taking writing courses, because, "All engineers can write. But not many writers can be engineers." Just love that logic, don't you.
Don't get me wrong, I urged my oldest daughter to study engineering--I thought she could write her own career ticket. She took political science instead. And the second daughter? No math there, either. And the youngest boy? The one who really is good at math and science? He'd rather study journalism right now.
Chips off the old block these children of mine. And, despite my pleadings to keep their options open--I can't be very persuasive when I followed a different path myself.
If I spent more time thinking about it, I could come up with a quippy comeback for the stuck up Math guy, but for now, I'll leave him and his socially inept friends to go figure out my insurance rates, while I go write a memo for my client. Or maybe download that new Stanley Jordan track.
I thought he was full of s**t.
I heard similar arguments before--from a guy I knew in college. "I could get A's in all the classes you take," he used to sneer. "But you wouldn't last five minutes in my classes."
He might have been right. He studied actuarial science. You know, the facinating course of study that prepares people to set insurance rates. All that complicated math--I would be lost in five minutes. And bored, too.
My undergraduate classes were far from boring. I took Shakespeare. I read Hume and Mill. I even studied Jazz music. My liberal arts studies included heavy doses of literature, philosphy, and speech classes. The closest I got to math was Statistics and Economics. No, not prepared for a job in the insurance industry.
Students who abandon math and science cut themselves off from lucrative potential careers. And, many commentators worry that our nation is losing ground to the rest of the world as interest in advanced Calculus continues to fade. At the same time, even "easier" courses of study in the arts and humanities require effort. Being able to do something doesn't mean you're good at it. There's a song, "If you can walk, you can dance." However, just because you can dance doesn't make you a dancer.
In the same way, just because you can write, doesn't make you a writer.
My son was speaking to a college recruiter encouraging bright high schoolers to pursue coursework in engineering. He told the teens not to waste their time taking writing courses, because, "All engineers can write. But not many writers can be engineers." Just love that logic, don't you.
Don't get me wrong, I urged my oldest daughter to study engineering--I thought she could write her own career ticket. She took political science instead. And the second daughter? No math there, either. And the youngest boy? The one who really is good at math and science? He'd rather study journalism right now.
Chips off the old block these children of mine. And, despite my pleadings to keep their options open--I can't be very persuasive when I followed a different path myself.
If I spent more time thinking about it, I could come up with a quippy comeback for the stuck up Math guy, but for now, I'll leave him and his socially inept friends to go figure out my insurance rates, while I go write a memo for my client. Or maybe download that new Stanley Jordan track.
