Scott Adams: "Forget art history and calculus. Most students need to learn how to run a business"

[alp227]

Scott Adams, creator of the Dilbert comic strip, contributed this opinion article to The Wall Street Journal: "How to Get a Real Education". (cached archive in case of expiration) Found via Drudge Retort.

I understand why the top students in America study physics, chemistry, calculus and classic literature. The kids in this brainy group are the future professors, scientists, thinkers and engineers who will propel civilization forward. But why do we make B students sit through these same classes? That's like trying to train your cat to do your taxes—a waste of time and money. Wouldn't it make more sense to teach B students something useful, like entrepreneurship?

I speak from experience because I majored in entrepreneurship at Hartwick College in Oneonta, N.Y. Technically, my major was economics. But the unsung advantage of attending a small college is that you can mold your experience any way you want.

There was a small business on our campus called The Coffee House. It served beer and snacks, and featured live entertainment. It was managed by students, and it was a money-losing mess, subsidized by the college. I thought I could make a difference, so I applied for an opening as the so-called Minister of Finance. I landed the job, thanks to my impressive interviewing skills, my can-do attitude and the fact that everyone else in the solar system had more interesting plans.

One of the accompanying cartoons:

And Adams doesn't address how American students will be able to keep up with the Chinese and Indian and European students who are getting ahead of them in scientific/mathematic knowledge that he considers a "waste of time" for students who should be learning business skills. Does he not realize that science is a very employable field? (I'm speaking as a computer engineering student who's also taken several general ed classes including on in theatre appreciation right now.)

[Liberal Veteran]

1. Sounds to me like Adams is advocating schools that churn out "Pointy Haired Bosses"...

...that he made his career making fun of.

[Mojorabbit]

2. You end up with a two tiered population

Not that it isn't that way anyway but a well rounded education is so important IMO. There is more to life than making money.

[Atman]

3. No, Scott, most people need to know art history AND business. And even caluculus.

Although I admit, I'm didn't learn much of calculus. But the notion that a one-dimension education will help you succeed is absurd. What aspect of running a business will help you if you want to SUCCESSFULLY run an artsy coffee house? Just knowing how to run a business won't help you at all if you don't have a rounded education. Otherwise, you might be brilliant at business, but you're running a coffee house displaying velvet Elvis paintings and big-eyed puppies. Now, that could be a great niche market, but if you don't know why it's a great niche market, even a Wharton's degree won't help you. It's depth that matters.

I've never liked Mr. Adams. But he does know business...he's turned a horribly-drawn, one-dimensional comic strip and turned it into...well, big business. Some would call that "selling your soul."

[dkf]

7. Calculus is used in business classes.

[Atman]

53. Great, but it doesn't change anything I wrote.

Even if my post was one of the most typo-laden posts I've ever made.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

84. Well, that damns Adams' stupid idea even more. -nt

[tabatha]

4. Many businesses sell hi-tech products.

And not all people in a business run the business. In fact the majority work under a boss, at technical stuff. So we are to turn out bunches of bosses and no workers?

Sounds to me like this guy has never worked in a business.

[Sabriel]

5. Yes, no need to read and understand literature. A waste of time.

After all, who needs to understand the human condition? Learn about widgets instead! Widgets aren't subject to the human condition.

Focus on maximizing profits, squeezing the most you can out of workers, and finding ways to circumvent EPA guidelines.

Tool.

[Brickbat]

6. Is he actually talking about dividing up students by their grades?

WTF?

[Blue_Tires]

55. i'm pretty sure "B students" are 'business school students'

i of course was a j-school grad...

[rrneck]

8. That's how we got into this mess in the first place. nt

[FormerDittoHead]

9. I'll agree. Schools should teach less "narrowly".

I think one of the biggest failings of our system is that we teach subjects in a vacuum. How do you (properly) learn science without learning history? How do you learn biology without learning chemistry and physics?

In high school and college, we learn things more and more narrowly. The more you proceed, the more narrow your study becomes.

We learn algebra, statistics and calculus in the abstract when there are a TON of real life problems which use it. (it would have made it a lot easier for me who struggled to make these things "relevant")

The solution? I'm on Adams' side, however, not *necessarily* for running businesses.

I think students should be creating videos, websites, robots, live shows, a product/service of some kind, etc. They will be forced to learn all kinds of "horizontal" things in order to do the job. They'll see the decisions that go into actually making these things.

Having made videos, I found it very interesting how the decisions going into producing a video, for example, bear NO RESEMBLANCE to how one ends up critiquing a film. The point is that "knowing" something is different from "doing" something. You can read a shelf of books on catching a ball, but you won't catch one until you practice at it.

[Liberal Veteran]

11. I prefer the "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch,

you must first create the universe." approach to education.

[eShirl]

33. +1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc

[Astraea]

10. I actually agree

There are students who really just want to get a degree and have no interest in these classes that they are require to take. They're taking up spaces that could be used by people who really do want to go into these specific fields. Plus, it's an added financial burden on the students who just want to get a degree in business communications or accounting.

I go to school, and I've been around people like this. Believe me - they're getting nothing out of sociology, literature or the sciences. Wanting people to expand their horizons is great and everything - the truth is, a lot of them could give a shit about any of it. They'd rather save their money. And we're wasting money giving them grants, scholarships, and subsidized loans to take classes they don't want.

[Liberal Veteran]

12. Which gives us people who say, "We shouldn't fund the arts!"

[Iris]

20. then they really don't want to get a degree

The point of getting an education is to be, well, educated. If people don't want a degree and don't want to expand their horizons, they shouldn't go to college.

[northernlights]

40. bullshit

I have a degree in liberal arts. I wasn't required to take any math or science to get it.

I went back for a degree in Medical Lab Technology. First the AS, later the BS. The requirements for "well-rounded" are ridiculous. They were a total waste of my time and money, as they were for *many* of the other students. The oral communications class was the absolute worst. The so-called professor was an incompetent idiot. I say this as somebody switching careers, after 20+ years in marketing communications writing and sometimes delivering, presentations among other things. I could have taught the effing class, but was required to take it. The literature class was another waste of my time and money, re-reading what I studied in high school, for cripes sake.

On the other hand, forcing the non-scientists into the science courses was a waste of *their* time and money. It also wasted a *lot* of my time. The professor didn't want the non-scientists to fail out and lose their degrees, so she piled on massive amounts of homework and other assignments so they could boost their grades when their tests weren't so hot. And delivering a joint presentation with a non-science major who cut and pasted her half the night before and couldn't even pronounce (let alone understand) roughly one word per paragraph was painful for everybody. Lucky for her I was standing right next to her, so was coaching her all the way through. I suspect the only thing she learned was to hate chemistry, if she didn't hate it already coming in.

Well-rounded my ass. It's called boosting revenue. Nothing more; nothing less.

[Liberal Veteran]

42. That's the attitude that makes it easy to convince people that global warming is a hoax.

Or evolution is just some hypothesis.

Or vaccines cause vagina dentata (or whatever).

People become so focused on their vocation they don't even have the basic foundation to even understand how things are interrelated or how science works.

[alp227]

46. because I took advanced placement class in HS I got a little ahead in GE reqs

aka those "well-rounded" type of classes so i got credit for passing the exams in world history, US history, English lit, and US government/politics. Also in both calculus levels.

[themadstork]

51. Sounds like you shouldn't have gotten a liberal arts degree.

Oh no, you had to reread literature?? The torture!

[Iris]

56. No it's not about boosting revenue.

These classes were taught in universities long before corporations quit having training departments and started acting like universities were in existence to train workers. That is NOT the purpose of a university.

And, as I mentioned in another post, if corporations only wanted to hire people with training in business communications and accounting, then they wouldn't require a college degree. They'd hire people out of trade school or Mr. Magoo's Business College on the corner of 5th and Main.


I do, however, believe higher education should be accessible and like the idea of giving credit for experience to students who enroll in college after having been in the workplace for a while. I think this is a fair way to handle situations like yours.

[Javaman]

65. I don't know where you went to school. but my liberal arts degree required

both math and science and I'm very glad for it.

The reason people are required to take these classes, regardless of whether they are interested or not is to expose them to parts of life they wouldn't ordinarily explore on their own.

A real liberal arts degree is that, LIBERAL.

It is to allow the person to explore different options before settling on something they like.

Many people who have never liked a particular subject in high school suddenly found themselves liking that same particular subject in college.

How many people have you heard in your life that first began with one area of study only to change it once they found out about other areas of study in college? Many people.

As my dad, who was a teacher would always say, "one can't get too much education".

[KittyWampus]

73. It's wonderful you did liberal arts. Several friends of mine did while at University. It makes for a

well rounded education. But I'd say that college absolutely isn't for everyone and neither is liberal arts.

As far as your Dad's saying- I'd just add that there are other ways of getting an education than going to college.

[Javaman]

74. While college is not the one all be all, neither is Horatio Alger. nt

[Iris]

80. Of course there are other ways to get an education. I'd say my college eduation was the beginning.

It helped me to learn how to learn and being a lifelong learner is the key to survival.

[Iris]

83. of course, I chose not to take that keyboarding class and look what I got - "education"!

:+

[misanthrope]

32. Because we now view universities as trade schools...

...and believe they should be run solely as businesses and not institutions of higher learning.

[Liberal Veteran]

35. I agree. Unfortunately, many people think the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake...

...is a waste.

I'd rather have our schools churning out well-educated, well-rounded, renaissance people than cookie cutter bean counters without the slightest interest in anything except next quarter's returns.

[HereSince1628]

13. Lout. Big Lout. Whopping Big Lout

The one thing that makes the US _very_ different from other nations is that students are set up to HAVE A CHANCE.

There is no reason why a B average kid cannot become a great engineer, or architect...especially if they've also had art history.

A day has 24 hours, a week seven days, a year just a fraction more than 52 weeks. Only a true LOUT would think that education has only to do with the 8 hours a person labors...with no earthly meaning for the other 16 hours in a person's daily life.

[Javaman]

67. Love that word!

My mom used it all the time and its use here is very appropriate.

Cheers!:)

[girl gone mad]

14. Science is not all that employable.

Many of the people I went to school with looked for jobs in the field, but ended up working in finance or tech, where they aren't using their scientific training at all. Competition for even low paying positions is fierce.

That said, Adams is a moron. B students are just as capable of learning math and science as A students. His analogy is idiotic. I've tutored C, D and F students to success in these fields. One almost dropped out as a college junior because he had gotten bad advice from someone like Adams, but he stayed, graduated and got a good job offer from one of the top labs in the country.

[KittyWampus]

15. There SHOULD be more individual small business owners and inventors. So far DU'ers responding seem

to take entrepreneur as a dirty word. But then a lot of DU'ers can't grasp there's a difference between small local businesses and large multinationals.

Small business owners are collectively the largest employers.

[Iris]

21. But being a small business owner doesn't mean you have to forgo an education.

Being educated HELPS small business owners and investors. I know. I'm married to one.

[KittyWampus]

30. The person isn't advocating forgoing an education. Just eliminating some courses for some people.

[Iris]

34. That's not an education.

Picking and choosing what you want to do is NOT an education.

[Liberal Veteran]

36. Exactly. That is an vocational school, not education.

It is little better and possibly worse than an apprenticeship program or on-the-job training.

[Iris]

37. Why is it so hard for people to see the difference?

And "companies want college degrees" is not the answer. If companies thought good employees were people who had a handful of business communications and accounting classes, then that's who they would hire.

[KittyWampus]

57. And what is wrong with that? Why force people into taking things they may not want or need?

[Javaman]

66. Wow.

read my post #65 for my answer.

[Iris]

79. If they don't want or need it, then why enroll?

Why would you choose to go to a school if you don't like the curriculum?

[Blue Meany]

16. If he means that a lot of us will have to have our own family

businesses or cottage industries to survive because there are no jobs paying a living wage, he may well be right. My own view is that as the economy decentralizes (which will coincide with rising oil prices), there will be an explosion of microbusinesses started to meet the needs of local people, because the cost of shipping things from far away will be too expensive. It may be more like 18th century America, where most people worked for themselves or for a family business.

[Ramulux]

17. This guy is a fucking HUGE Scumbag

Besides being a hardcore misogynist who thinks women are treated too nicely in our society, the dude has no understanding of how a society works and prospers. Because all the major technological advancements in history have been discovered by assholes running a fucking coffee business.

[Javaman]

68. He is...

He's a former economist who now works as a cartoonist.

So by his logic he should have just become a cartoonist.

But he didn't become a cartoonist until he was first an economist.

so therefore all his education was a waste, but here is the paradox, it's his experience in the world of being and economist that supplies his ideas for his cartooning.

Also ironic is that his full time job as an economist allowed him the time to perfect is cartooning.

scott adams is what I like to call a holier than thou halfwit.

[mmonk]

18. Most students will never run a business. They don't have the capital.

May as well teach English literature to a goldfish.

[thelordofhell]

19. Forget business....most students need to learn art history and calculus

The problem with modern business majors is that they have no common morals or critical thinking......y'know, things things you learn in art history and calculus. I'm sick of these business majors who think of people as a piece of equipment and can't look past a spreadsheet.

Some of the best entrepreneurs never majored in business.

[Iris]

22. and many employers complain they can't do anything when they are hired after college

because they have no critical thinking skills and can't think outside the box.

Studies have shown that liberal arts majors tend to be better at critical thinking, analysis, and writing. Go figure.

[KittyWampus]

31. Art History was one of my majors in University. Common morals and critical thinking

had nothing to do with it.

Now, when I took Art CRITICISM... THAT involved critical thinking in very strictly defined terms.

[thelordofhell]

48. Through art history you acquire a knowledge of artwork

And you develop an aesthetic eye towards the world, something a modern business major doesn't have. Calculus helps you develop critical thinking and in-depth problem solving, again something modern business majors don't grasp.

I'll say it again, a lot of successful business owners and operators were not business majors.

[RainDog]

23. scott adams is a misogynist prick

tho he's right that people need to learn how to do useful things - math is useful, however.

[Modern_Matthew]

24. Forget business. Students need to learn how to be decent human beings. nt

[Igel]

25. People aren't listening.

He makes sense.

We keep up with China etc. by making sure that we have a sufficiently large, very well-trained cohort of students on the way to becoming scholars. This isn't the same as making sure that 100% of our students become scholars.

He knows that science is an employable field. He knows that engineering is a good field, too. He also knows that we need people to run small businesses, people to fix toilets and operate backhoes, people to fix cars and to run equipment and be chefs and do the thousands of jobs necessary in a modern economy. Most of those require a fair amount of training. Most of them don't require AP chemistry in high school.

A lot of OECD countries have a multitrack educational system. Their top students who want to go to college are college-track, and that divvies up humanities/social science or science/engineering; students who can't cut the grades and exam or who lack interest are given practical training. This does two things: It allows the college-track courses to be college-track, to be more rigorous; it also means that kids with a high-school degree can find a job without another year or two of training.

The vocational students still get some literature; they still get some math and history. But they get far less of it, and what math they learn is appropriate. Machinists need trig. Barbers don't.

Oh. China's one of the countries that does this. This means two things: (1) We're comparing the kids who look at the quadratic equation and snort, "I don't need this" with the college-track kids. Then we wonder why their best are better than our average. (2) We're making sure that many of the top-notch kids are scattered among classes with those less than top-notch. So not only are we comparing the average of the top 1/3 in China with the average of 100% of our students, but we make sure that we deny the top 10% the opportunity to shine.

[iris27]

26. Why are we still paying attention to this sexist, know-nothing assclown? n/t

[caraher]

27. Adams sounds like Trent Lott

http://www.geoset.fsu.edu/video/lott.mov">Lott characterizes math and science as a waste of time - at least for people like him.

[PufPuf23]

28. From wiki: "He earned an MBA in economics and management from the University of California, Berkeley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Adams

Interesting this was ommitted.

I graduated Haas at Cal in 1987 and knew that the creater of Dilbert as a socially funny upper classmate named "Scott
Adams" and that he authored "Dilbert" from the Hass alumni magazine. Doubt if he would remember me.

Disagree with Mr. Adams about the value of business over science, math, and the arts as there is so much creativity and reality because of the diverse perspectives.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

29. If you want a degree that gives you a broad education for business,

FIRST get a bachelor's degree.
Then go to law school and get a Juris Doctor.

Think of a big sheet of dough called "The Law". Then take a cookie cutter. Each cookie cutter is one course, whether it be Contracts(9 months), Torts(9 months), Property(9 months) and Procedure(5 different courses, each one semester). Those are the foundation. Thirty semester hours of required courses. Then you take sixty hours of electives. You never use up all the cookie dough, but you get most of it.

The logic used in law school is very different from science. There are two possible right answers. The prof is interested in how you got to your decision even if it was not the majority opinion, it was the dissent. This drives techie types crazy on juries.

College was pretty easy for me except for the science courses. Then I went to law school and discovered that it's about three times as hard as college--at least the school I went to was pretty rigorous.

[no_hypocrisy]

38. Why can't the students study both programs?

[Iris]

77. They can.

And perhaps they should.

[walldude]

39. So he majored in entrepreneurship

and became a cartoonist.

Pssst Adams... Art History Classes may have helped you draw better you talentless hack.

[n2doc]

41. Sounds just like Trent Lott

see
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=228&topic_id=77765&mesg_id=77765

Too bad he is such a moron. He is a talented cartoonist, but clearly doesn't understand what an education should be for.

[lumberjack_jeff]

43. He's right.

The US economy of the future is only going to employ so many scientists and engineers.

Just like any other discipline, businesses hire to fill their needs. They don't hire lots of scientists because of a massive supply of them. Like any commodity, businesses will go where the supply is cheap. IE India.

Want to be well rounded and able to repay your college debt? Go to college for business classes and the library for a liberal arts education.

[Liberal Veteran]

44. So, your contention is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is pointless?

If that's the case, why bother with education at all? Apprenticeships, OJT, and vocational schools are all we really need cause it's really just about how many worker bees we produce.

[lumberjack_jeff]

50. Hell no. I love the library. n/t

[KittyWampus]

59. For SOME people, the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is joyous & desirable

For others, it simply isn't necessary or desirable.

[Iris]

81. Then they shouldn't do it. Which means, maybe college isn't for them.

Why? Why would someone enroll in a college if they don't like the curriculum?

[Iris]

45. Go to TRADE school to learn about business. Go to college to get an education.

[Javaman]

71. Exactly right.

It appears as if some people here are willfully advocating the bringing back of Dickensian workhouses and a very defined class system.

This is a Democratic site, right?

[Iris]

78. I thought it was (a Democratic site, that is) but sometimes I wonder. n/t

[hifiguy]

76. Bingo!

I was a poli sci major and unofficial history minor, but I took tons of humanities courses. I was and am hopeless with math save enough to balance a checkbook, not that this was ever an issue in law school. But I made sure I got a real liberal arts education. And even in law school I took classes in legal history and philosophy and other arcane subjects as electives rather than the more prosaic stuff.

[PM Martin]

47. It is valuable to promote entrepreneurship (as small business employ the most people)

At the same time, science and math are of great value to society and the individual. A "B" student in science has the potential to do well in the field. You should not give up on them so easily.

[Marr]

49. As a wise man once said, "you are not your fucking khakis".

Adams has a pretty sad view of life, it seems to me.

I'm an entrepreneur myself, but my college experience was not laser-focused on a vocation. Study literature, art, music, math, science, etc., and you'll have the mental flexibility and problem-solving skills to do anything you want. And even better, you'll have at least a vague idea of who, what, and where you are in the greater scheme of things.

[Iris]

60. well said.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

62. YES!

The head of the Career Center at the last college I taught at said that every year, a dozen or so alumni who had majored in business or accounting came back because they were bored and unfulfilled. They wanted more out of life than a trophy house full of Stuff and a constant emphasis on the bottom line.

I always told my students that they would never again be as free to explore and define themselves and have such a variety of experiences, that they had not yet shut off any choices.

But most of their parents had the attitude, "You'd better major in business or computer science, because I'm not paying tuition for anything that doesn't lead to a job."

[Manifestor_of_Light]

52. People think that "'hard" subjects will get you a job.

I have a BA in Biology. I went to a liberal arts college that did not offer the B.S. My parents insisted I get a "hard" degree so that I would be able to get a job. They would't let me major in a soft science like psych or sociology; those were not to be trusted, because you didn't go to a shrink to discuss your problems. You just sucked it up and suffered. Couldn't major in English. I was good at that too.

That was a cruel joke. I also got a Juris Doctor that did nothing to help me get a job. That took five years, working fulltime at the courthouse, and going to night school. That is pretty tough. Especially since, the year before I started law school some idiot doctor took me OFF of my thyroid medication. By the time I finished law school I had myxedema and could only get out of bed from sheer willpower.

I also got an Associate's degree that was vocational, which did provide me with a career for twenty years. Unfortunately I started working in that field when I was 22 and I was sick of it and burned out before I was forty.

If I had it to do over I would have majored in art and gotten a B.F.A. in painting.

:shrug:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

54. Somehow America became an economic powerhouse during an era when

almost no one majored in business.

My college class of about 400 had FIVE business majors.

It was only in the 1980s when business became the default major.

[Iris]

58. +10000

[Johonny]

64. I like this response

My GF family is making go back to school for her MBA. She already runs a business of 200 people, but they want her to have the title.

I think I'd agree more with Adams had he simply said "today not enough economics and civics is taught in school." But teaching one for the exclusion of another seems silly.

[Skidmore]

61. How about businessmen need to go back to school and leawrn ethics.

[Javaman]

63. Because if you do, you remove the last vestiges of teaching critical thinking. nt

[adigal]

69. How about an Ethics course??

Seems like most businessmen and politicians in America could use that one first.

[chrisa]

70. Known misogynist spouts another know-it-all meme.

Shocking. And what if someone doesn't want to go into business?

[Morning Dew]

72. Having read the article,

I think Adams is more scummy than I did before.

[XemaSab]

75. Says the guy who made his fortune as a cartoonist

:P

[WolverineDG]

82. No, he's saying that not all students need to sit through those classes

Way back in the day, before Reagan came along, there was such a thing in public schools known as the "vocational" track. Kids who found book-learning boring as all get out could instead spend half of their school day learning a trade & the other half in academic classes. Kept the drop-out rates low & graduation levels high, with the added benefit of the kids being able to open up their own shops the day after graduation, or get into the electrical or plumbing fields at the journeyman level.

dg

[quaker bill]

85. I can say this much

There are alot of biologists, botanists, ecologists, limnologists, icthyologists, and ornithologists who are selling shoes and waiting tables for a living. I used to have an entry level natural scientist position on my staff and whenever it was open, I would get literally a hundred applications minimum. Most of these folks would have easily been as well served by a different degree.

We are not going to make good scientists of everyone, and even if we did, the jobs will never exist for them. Maybe not a business degree, but something else might be a better idea.