From the Department of Science Doesn't Work That Way, Idiot

[ultranos]

Before that, though, I'm pretty sure someone on SG-1 would have gotten Sam this shirt. Just sayin'.

Now, we interrupt this day for a message from the Department of Science Doesn't Work That Way, Idiot:

NY Times Op-Ed: The End of University As We Know It.

I suspect that some other people will find this equally as mindboggling as I did. Especially the suggestion to abolish departments and create multi-disciplinary groups focused on ill-defined problems under so-broad-they're-useless headings, like "Water" or "Time".

I'm frothing because, hey, Science And Engineering Don't Work That Way, Idiot. (Case in point, my own major, Mechanical Engineering, used to, waaaay Back In The Day, encompass all of engineering. Eventually, people realized This Was Stupid. Now we have Electrical Engineers, and Aerospace Engineers, and Chemical Engineers, etc. This means we can do really cool things because we're specialized and aren't attempting to learn EVERYTHING.) But it's also pretty unfair to the humanities and social science majors, as it's basically saying "your specializations are Worth Nothing".

I may be interpreting that wrong.

But I'll be over here trying not to beat my head into a wall or slip into a homicidal rage.

Comments

[jessiehl.livejournal.com]

While I agree with your general point, in that I don't think universities need to be restructured to put everything under the author's model, I feel the need to point out that some of sci/eng does work that way. Course 9, for example, works that way (and not just at MIT). It's multi-disciplinary (you need bio, chem, physics, math, CS, EE, MechE, psych, linguistics, etc), and focused around one major theme, the brain.

MIT's Minor Program in Energy also works that way. Course 16, in which the principles of other disciplines are focused around designing aircraft and spacecraft, works that way. The different tracks of course 12 kind of work that way, and I would say that course 3 clearly does too.

Now, I'm definitely not advocating that every field should work that way. I'm just pointing out that there is clearly a place for this model (minus the idiotic "only study it for seven years" thing, which is just insane) in sci/eng.

[ultranos-fic.livejournal.com]

Yep, I mean, I am multi-disciplinary. But I'm reading the author's model as substituting breadth for depth, which will lead to problems.

Not only that, but the author's reasoning seems to also disrespect what it actually means to be multi-disciplinary. I'm really having a problem with his "categories" that these programs would be under, which seem so broad that they're useless.

Course 9 draws on multiple disciplines, yes. But there is value to specialization. I mean, I interpret course 9 as "specialization with the brain". Much the same way that 2OE is "specialization in MechE with Ocean Engineering". Just that 9 is it's own major, instead of 2OE which used to be 13 but got eaten.

This might be a very biased view.

[jessiehl.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not convinced that "Brain", "Planets" or "Energy" are less broad than "Water", "Mind", or "Law".

I agree that substituting breadth for depth is no good, but I do somewhat agree with the author that academic balkanization is a bit out of control. However, it doesn't seem to me like the author's model would fix that, just reorganize it. People can just as easily superspecialize, while being ignorant or dismissive of everything even slightly outside their sub-sub-sub-specialty, in a research program about The Body, as in a bio department.