I responded to a question someone raised on LinkedIn and I'm cross-posting it here on my blog. It's a topic I've discussed with bosses, clients, co-workers, and friends through the years. "How are you a computer programmer, when you studied Latin-American Literature in college?!? Did your college education help you at all?!?"
The original question: "Are humanities useful for computing engineers?" [sic]
My response:
I seem to find myself in this discussion quite often as I have a Master's Degree in Latin American Literature, but have been working as a software programmer for over ten years now.
I'll lead with what seems to be the most convincing argument: the brain is like a muscle and needs routine exercise to get stronger, or at least to stay in shape. Just as your muscles in time will adapt to the same daily exercises and receive less and less benefit from that exercise, your brain starts to tune out repetitive thought processes. Giving your brain some different types of problems to think about helps it get stronger. The Humanities can offer very different problems than what your "engineering" brain is used to. Your stronger brain can then help you out more when it comes to figuring out that next algorithm.
Secondly, our work as programmers (and other engineers) requires us to be creative. Nearly every day we are faced with a problem we've never encountered before. From architecting a huge inventory system to fine tuning a long running function, the fun part of our job is making things and watching them work. The problem is… I don't think creativity can be taught...I believe it grows through inspiration, and inspiration comes from experiencing the creativity of other talented people. The Humanities have been pretty good about letting time sort out the great, creative minds of the centuries. The guided study of the Humanities (whether formal or otherwise) allows us to appreciate even more what makes these great minds so great.*
Number three...research and organization. My clients and past employers always seem to get a kick out of the fact that I studied Spanish Lit, and ended up programming computers. My usual response is, "hey, whether it's Spanish or SQL, French or C#, they are all languages, right?". Then I usually tell them that the single most valuable part of my college education was that d#@% Thesis paper I had to write. When you write a Thesis (usually over 100 pages long), you are expected to become the authority on the very narrow subject you carved out for yourself. My Thesis chair pointed me in the right direction with a couple books to read first and then said essentially "you need to become the expert now...figure out how to become an expert..." Well, I found that meant doing a lot of research. In the days before Google, I learned how to follow a trail of one author quoting another, then finding the second author and reading his or her references, and so on. This skill has helped me immensely as I now have the Internet at my finger tips and am constantly looking up how to troubleshoot problem X or how to use the methods of class Y. I've even picked up whole languages (like javascript and python) through internet research. I'm convinced that the Humanities, more than any other discipline, help you learn how to learn.
Oh, I failed to address "organization" in that last paragraph, but that paragraph was getting entirely too long (just like this response as a whole)...ANYWAY!...the Humanities demand that you write, and write a lot. I also usually end up explaining to my amused clients, bosses, and colleagues that the d#$% Thesis also forced me to learn how to organize my thoughts. To take something big and overwhelming and to break it into smaller parts, and then break those smaller parts into even smaller parts, and on down until things are manageable. And that is the same exact process I use when I'm faced with a new project. The client has a rough idea of how they want the system to behave, but no idea of how to get there. That's when I grab a pen and paper and find a quiet area to start thinking the problem through. I'm telling you, the process is nearly identical to writing a big paper, only, to me, the satisfaction of watching your program run is greater than seeing your paper published, which is why I ended up a programmer and not a professor. ;)
OK, one last argument and then I'm going to bed. I've already eluded to it...Communication. Because you write so much in the Humanities, you just naturally become a stronger writer. And judging from so many confusing, rambling, and/or scatterbrained emails I receive, the business and computing worlds both need stronger writers.
Whew!
Oh yeah, then there's also the whole "Humanities brings richness to your life" thing that has been true in my case, but who am I to say that it will for others?
I guess to the engineer who hates the Humanities and stubbornly takes only the required classes, there's not much I can say. If coerced, your benefits are probably minimal.
I hope that helps, Sanjay.
~K
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*Look at me, I didn't even use the worn out and (by now) meaningless business-speak phrase "thinking outside the box". Let's face it, "thinking outside the box" just means "creative".
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