Businesses would not be terrible if business education is actually tempered with some humanities. In fact, I am strongly of the opinion that every field of study should have some humanities component to them. None of the fields exist in vacuum, we have to have at least, some appreciation of other fields, lest we risk creating silos in the name of organization. And that is precisely happening in this age of hyper-specialization.
100%.
Children are always told that they could become a scientist or engineer one day and that this would be a great thing to achieve. Scientists and engineers are so highly regarded, yet they are often complicit in creating the necessary technology and machinery for most of the worlds worst projects. Climate change, plastic pollution, nuclear weapons, are all created by the worlds smartest and all the while they're being told they're doing a great job and bettering the world.
Ethics needs to be mandatory in all STEM studies. Jesus at least just make them watch Oppenheimer.
Ethics is largely mandatory for engineering majors (source: am finishing my bachelor's in electrical engineering), but the first job or project you take will ask you to throw that out the window. (Source: family members who are also engineers)
There are two areas of safety considered: Operator/client safety, and regulatory compliance. All other safeguards are optional and ignoring them is encouraged.
As a civil engineer with only a tiny bit of experience cos I switched to software. That holds true. Environmental and other ethical concerns are not even an afterthought in vast majority of engineering projects.
As a civil engineer with only a tiny bit of experience cos I switched to software.
Holy shit, I'm not the only one?!
Good point, there was also an ethics module in my engineering studies, but it didn't really encourage you to think about where you're employed, just what to do what you're there. Which is useless
I had very little ethics being taught in my academic career. Most of what i know is high school level philosophy (from a country that still used to care about that stuff but aiming to change it soon). I would have loved more humanity courses. On the other hand, if you had given me the choice between a course in my speciality and a humanity course, I would have chose the specialty one every time
Funny you should say that, because those very humanities aspects of what I studied, Economics, lead STEM students to disparage it as a non-scientific field built of gospel and tenets. As if Humanities diminished the quality of the research and teaching within the Economics field.
So while I agree, and it's good to see you being upvoted, in a different scenario the application of your thoughts about this will lead the person sharing their experience to get massively downvoted in an attempt to shame them for studying a "soft science".
Big gripe of mine is the distinction of "soft" and "hard" science. I'm a linguist and it surprises people that I had to take advanced statistics, set theory, know the basics of acoustics, and have an understanding of calculus. But just because a field requires nuance and observational data doesn't mean it's automatically less rigorous than a field that deals exclusively with numbers. Can't exclusively rely on statistical models to draw conclusions about economic trends or linguistic phenomena because the economy and language don't exist outside of human society
I really do wish humanities were not actually considered as 'lesser' to the sciences. But I have actually found it to be greater of the sciences, simply because of the importance and the difficulty of questions it tackles. I have spent a fairly long time reading on philosophy, history, economics. I am not an expert, in fact, I am really far from it, but I have really come to an understanding the importance of these fields. But that's just me. Most just consider them not important because they don't understand. I just hope that we can rectify with better academic curriculum.
Good, an MBA is just a degree in exploitation. I will fight you over this take like a goddamn racoon over the last piece of food in the dumpster.
People are often young and naive when they choose what to study. There are some decent people and some assholes among business majors, just like with most other groups of people if you look closely.
There are certainly nice and polite people everywhere, but decency is a matter of ethics in this context, I would say. At least that's how I'm reading it.
Like I'm a nice guy, but I'm not going to pretend it's decent of me to replace data workers with software automation, even if it's just the natural outcome of me putting my education into practice.
But what if you're right and I want to join?
Yeah but an MBA is also a post graduate degree. A huge chunk of MBAs have undergrad degrees in something like STEM or humanities.
And with the power of that knowledge they decided to specialize and get a masters of exploitation.
Everyone should have a strong base in STEM and the humanities. It irks me to no end when STEM majors can't write, communicate, or understand a wider historical context just as it irks me when humanities majors claim to not understand basic algebra or scientific concepts. It's fine to have a preference, but an expert engineer should have a passing familiarity with philosophy and ethics, just as a historian should have a passing familiarity with scientific laws and mathematics.
Then there's business majors who have no familiarity with anything at all. If I had my druthers, "business school" wouldn't even be an option at a university.
Not to knock college undergrad core curriculum, but that strong base ought to be acquired before graduating high school.
No can do, gotta teach students how to pass the tests that gives the school federal funding
That’s what I’ve been saying since I was in high school. Going into college, the first year felt like High School 2.0. My English professor outright asked, “Why are you in this class? I have nothing I can teach you.” Funny how we can take a test after admission to show us which subjects we need remedial classes for, but no test for us to opt-out of subjects that we’ve already mastered. Still gotta take our money and waste our time because, you know, “requirements.”
Edit: I’ve heard some people say there are opt-out tests some places, but that clearly isn’t the default. Not at the community college I went to.
MBAs have destroyed the world. We used to have good paying jobs and affordable rent.
I'm sure there's probably a few good MBA's out there, using applied psychology to trick assholes into spending their money on the greater good.
I've never met one but, statistically, you know?
Hi, 'tis me, leftist with a business degree and minor in psychology that works in marketing. 🙃
"You know, spending money on welfare and education is a lot less expensive than prisons and having your stuff stolen."
The world is powered by a collective STEAM engine:
Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics.
Arts is such a fundamental component for communicating advancements and inspiring the creativity that fuels further discoveries.
But, but KPI’s are how we know line go up.
Checkmate, artists!
The artists can assist by drawing a line that goes more up. Problem solved!
The real problem is believing there's an objective difference between art, science, humanities, etc. It's an artificial division under capitalism between what's directly useful for profit, control, etc. and what's not.
Regardless, yeah fuck business school. That's got no value to anybody.
Stem major checking in for an arts/humanities major to hold hands with
As a STEM graduate, I would much rather hold hands with an econ graduate than a business graduate. Economists can do real good for the world, while MBAs seem to be mostly harmful.
Economists can do real good for the world
If you put 10 economists in a room, you’ll get 11 opinions.
I have worked at several startups where I was like employee number ten, and you can always feel the culture shift the moment they start hiring MBAs.
Yea. I can't think of a single MBA I've met that wasn't a piece of shit.
Cause theyre literally given inflated egos about "how great your business acumen is" when really theyre morally bankrupt parasites who finished (compared to real degrees) coloring books.
The ownership class and their mba lackeys have done a real bang up job not only separating the two cultures, but getting them both to think through the mental model of business and profit whenever they're pondering how to practice their profession.
I have a PhD in research psychology, and worked with researchers in a lot of other disciplines. I have been mansplained about topics in my field (including the topic of my dissertation) by more MBAs than any other field. More often than not they are vastly oversimplifying or just getting things completely wrong. Try telling them that though and it's like talking to a wall.
I wonder if their general incompetence at most things makes them desperate to be good at something that actually matters to the point that they feel the need to act smart about shit they don’t really understand. Especially when you think about the nature of their field and how horrible their peers are/also are it really starts to be a bad feedback loop. And then there’s the extra fun part about the kind of people that MBA programs attract in the first place.
It must be awful, them constantly having to justify their existence as parasites. I’d feel bad for them if they didn’t cause huge amounts of damage at all levels while avoiding therapy.
Fucking finally we're talking sense.
As an econ major with a BS, please don't lump me in with the econ majors who went to business school for a MBA. I like cool math, not venture capitalism cancer.
Prove your purity
The only thing funny about the Laffer curve is how little it now matters.
It was used to justify Reagnomics, which then immediately proved we weren't nearly as high on the Laffer curve as we assumed. Because of this, we have concrete evidence that lowering taxes on the rich doesn't increase government revenues.
Yet we're still doing that 50 years later. Despite the only vaguely scientific thing behind it proving it doesn't work decades ago.
Imagine being in a catholic family, reading the Bible, and always walking away thinking that Judas did the right thing (despite everything else the Bible says). That's US economic policy for the last 50 years.
When your econ program is in a business college, they push the MBA hardcore. So glad I never entertained that.
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