Jim Heller ’28

In Dartmouth College’s Blobby (Baker Library lobby), the “Harold Rugg History Room,” exists at the end of the West Hall; this room contains a mini-exhibit about the history of the “liberal arts” and the role these arts have played in Dartmouth’s history. The exhibit explains how the
meaning of the liberal arts has been modernly misinterpreted as “college majors that are not
science, math or business.” It then explains how the liberal arts were originally meant to
be “the kind of studies worthy of a free man.”

Therefore, if the modern meaning of the liberal arts excludes science, math, and business, it can be noticed immediately that STEM majors, within a liberal arts system, are forced to take classes outside their primary interests.

Many students at Dartmouth and others around the world are aspiring or current STEM students. This means that we believe the primary goal of our education is to become well-versed in a specific sector of STEM. We see ourselves becoming the STEM scholars of the future, so we spend our time studying STEM to meet this goal.

Consequently, we dedicate our time to studying STEM to achieve this goal. This brings us to the topic of my current discussion. From myself and my fellow STEM majors at Dartmouth (and across the world), I often hear the question raised: In a world where STEM seems to be becoming the dominant complex field, why should STEM students care about a liberal arts education at all?

To start, we must understand what exactly you are encouraged—or forced—to study if you undergo a liberal arts education. While it is true that the original liberal arts included the famous literary “Trivium” (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the mathematical “Quadrivium” (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music), today, anything non-STEM or business is generally considered part of the liberal arts.

The Dartmouth curriculum requires STEM students to take five non-STEM courses and three courses connected to different world cultures. That is eight whole requirements (at least five courses) that you must take in order to graduate. Why does this roadblock in the way of STEM knowledge exist, and what purpose does it serve to students who just want to study STEM?

The common argument for why STEM students should take non-STEM courses is that it is beneficial for society for our technicians to know what is right and what is wrong. However, I find this argument inconsistent and dull. Instead, it seems fairer to say that the reason you are encouraged to take classes outside of your primary interest comes back to this idea of “the kind of studies worthy of a free [citizen].”

While it could be argued that having STEM students only study STEM would be beneficial to the profit and progress of society, I would say that this hardly fulfills a good “free” life. We must remember that a good life is not just about profit and progress; it is about something much more human and experiential than that. Even if you ask your hardest-working, most “robotic” friends, you will find that they too engage in deeply human practices. The idea of STEM students only taking STEM classes does sound societally efficient, but it also sounds like an educational prison.

I call it this because this theoretical system would convince you to restrict yourself to STEM classes in order to make the most progress in STEM, just as society already tries to convince you to spend your time making the most money. This would cause students to create an educational prison for themselves, where they are trapped inside STEM. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that the liberal arts actually serve as a sanctuary of fostering human experience in a world where human experience is often given little to no value in the name of profit and progress.

The idea that STEM students shouldn’t have to study anything but STEM is instilled by the societal notion that you must restrict yourself to one field of knowledge to make the most profit and progress. If higher education were governed by these values, we would only have STEM students studying STEM, and there might not even be humanities scholars at all (since they contribute no scientific progress). The fact that we still have the liberal arts should not be considered an annoyance, but rather a sign that there are still places in the world that promote rigorous work not directly connected to the goals of capitalism.

Next time you, as a STEM student, find yourself annoyed with a non-STEM class, remind yourself that it is a sign that you are in a sanctuary of human values. The liberal arts are not about forcing STEM students to take useless classes, but instead are about encouraging STEM students to embrace their human selves. I believe that if these students were not encouraged to branch out and discover as much as they are within the liberal arts, they truly would find themselves hopelessly trapped in STEM.

In fact, this desire for non-profitable humanity is noticeable not just in higher education. It can be seen everywhere that society is not actually as focused on profit and progress as you are led to think. As an example, even though AI is now becoming better and better at being “perfect” at human tasks such as painting, music-making, and arguably even thinking, people everywhere are upset with how good at these things it is. If we were truly a society driven by profit and progress, we would see no issue with AI.

However, this is clearly not the case. We are upset that AI is allowing less opportunity for humans to express themselves and even achieve things at their slow human rate, which is far removed from the mission of profit and progress. It seems like we do not actually care as much about performing important tasks as we do about letting humans go about their normal lives. This shows that life should not be only about efficiency and productivity, but rather about the activities and tasks we commit ourselves to through our materialistically unexplainable human characteristics.

Another example is the common fear of machines taking over human jobs. We see that everywhere in the world, machines are replacing humans in important jobs because they are cheap, efficient, and available. If we truly only cared about profit, then there would be no societal pushback to these cost-efficient flawless workers. Despite these machines being materialistically better by every metric, most of us can still agree that having machines do everything would not be good. If we let machines do everything, since they can do everything better than us, then what is left for us to do and live by?

The revelation that having machines do everything leads to futures incompatible with true human values can be seen in many forms of media as well. This idea emerges in anything from classic cinema to modern animated films, from the eerie dystopian futures of The Matrix and Terminator to the oversaturated and comedically purposeless one of WALL-E.

The desire to be perfect by any means necessary seems to directly oppose what it is to be human. Being human is about more than living a life of material success, knowledge, and perfection. It is instead about experiencing and exploring what it is to be human, such as through the liberal arts or through anything you do which does not seem to be in the name of direct material mission like profit or progress.

This does not mean that the pursuit of material success, knowledge, and perfection has no place in human lives, but rather that a true human life is incomplete if it only includes these pursuits. There truly are pursuits which seem to be more human than the material ones which society so often encourages you to chase. Perhaps this inner embracing of humanity that the liberal arts promote is unexplainable in full, but I am surely not alone when I say that material perfection and knowledge is not nearly as fulfilling as a truly human experiential life.

The liberal arts may seem annoying at times, but for myself and other STEM students, it is a reminder to stay human in a world where staying human is hardly ever prioritized.

Edited by Alice Wong ’25

Sources:

  1. (Updated 2024). “Why modern Liberal Arts?” Liberal Arts.
  2. Griffin, Larry. (2003). “The Power of Pairing STEM and Liberal Arts.” TeenLife.
  3. (Updated 2024). “What Does Liberal Arts Mean?” Princeton University Undergraduate Admissions Website.
  4. (Updated 2024). “What Is A Liberal Arts Education?” Dartmouth College Undergraduate Admissions Website.
  5. Sipes, Stephanie. (Updated 2024). “Why STEM Students Need Liberal Arts.” Providence, a Classical Christian School, Website.
  6. Hollis, Jennifer. “The Benefits of a Liberal Arts Education.” Coalition for College.
  7. (Ongoing Thread). “Why is liberal arts education bad?” Quora.
  8. (Updated 2024). “Liberal arts degree worth it or useless?” MBA Crystal Ball.
  9. Pontón-Núñez, Antonio. (2024). “Addressing the Risks and Harms of Artificial Intelligence by Leveraging Capital” The Nonprofit Quarterly.
  10. Thomas, Mike. (Updated 2024). “14 Risks and Dangers of Artificial Intelligence (AI).”
  11. Brown, Sara. (2020). “A new study measures the actual impact of robots on jobs. It’s significant.” Sloan School of Management Newspaper, MIT.
  12. (2023). “The Big Question: Will robots take our jobs?” Boston University Website.
    Image References
  13. (Updated 2024). “Liberal arts education.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. This classic drawing portrays Lady Philosophy (knowledge) surrounded by the seven liberal arts, with Plato, Socrates, and some students of the arts pictured as well. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_arts_education