I’m a software developer with a bunch of industry experience. I’m also a comp sci professor, and whenever a CS alum working in industry comes to talk to the students, I always like to ask, “What do you wish you’d taken more of in college?”

Paul Cantrell

Almost without exception, they answer, “Writing.”

One of them said, “I do more writing at Google now than I did when I was in college.”

I am therefore begging, begging you to listen to @stephstephking: https://mstdn.social/@stephstephking/113336270193370876

Paul Cantrell

I suppose a link to my big old manifesto on liberal arts education is obligatory here: https://innig.net/teaching/liberal-arts-manifesto

Shriram Krishnamurthi

@inthehands @stephstephking I completely agree re. writing, but there are ways to teach writing without an English department. The average CS major may learn more from the "writing across the curriculum" model than from the Brönte's.

(Skin in the game: When it was smaller, I had my programming languages course designated a writing course, and a personally read and gave feedback on everything written. And boy did they need a lot.)

Paul Cantrell

@shriramk @stephstephking I mean…yes, sure. (Mac also has a pretty good “writing across the curriculum” approach, with institutional support; much of my own most impactful writing training came from classes across the curriculum.)

That all seems to me a bit beside the point: the “Englishs major are useless!” crowd is making an argument about what forms of learning are useful, not which departments house them.

chris martens

@shriramk @stephstephking @inthehands I don’t know that that’s true. these conversations are really about money, right? admin can still be convinced to dissolve a department (and corresponding degree programs) if they believe its main purpose is to serve other units

Matthias Wiesmann

@inthehands @stephstephking one misunderstanding I see is that in large coloration, you write a lot, but in corporate globish, not English. I’m not sure if English department are ready to teach that…

Josh :everything_bagel:

@inthehands @stephstephking @skinnylatte as a CS major and software developer, I *always* advise people to put at least some of their time into the humanities. You don’t need a bachelor’s degree to learn to program, but a strong liberal arts foundation will benefit you across all aspects of your career.

Edit: and life, which, honestly, is more important. My life is better for having studied things beyond the skills I put on my resume.

Captain Superfluous

@inthehands

Maybe it's just me but I now think this sort of advice generally only applies to people who are nearing the end of high school or who have graduated HS, immediately attended college, and, are now working on their undergraduate degree.

It applies to people who are on "The Standard Path."

Though, I will say, being able to think critically about what you read and write is an invaluable skill regardless of profession or age.

@stephstephking

Paul Cantrell

@chrisamaphone @shriramk @stephstephking
You do have a point there: viewing English as •primarily• a service dept for majors in other depts both threatens its funding and shortchanges the things the field does beyond teaching writing. (There’s a parallel pressure about whether math is mostly for the other sciences, or worthwhile because mathematics itself is worthwhile.)

Paul Cantrell

@thias @stephstephking
Counterpoint: corporate globbish exists to obscure the fact that people can’t write or think clearly; clear writing and clear thinking can cut through it like a hot knife through butter. And English depts most certainly •are• ready to teach that!

Not always true, to be sure, but I really have seen this happen in industry: corporate babblers flocking to a well-expressed idea like moths to a light.

Paul Cantrell

@CptSuperlative
I’m not sure I follow. Is there any age or any life path in which honing skills of communication, close reading, and theory of mind is not a worthwhile pursuit?

Jean-Sébastien Guay

@inthehands @stephstephking I am a French-Canadian. English is my second language. It is super depressing to have to correct verb tenses or even spelling in a code review, especially when it's code written by a native English speaker. We wish they would write more documentation, but if they did it would probably be full of mistakes too. I don't blame them, they didn't have enough reading/writing classes early on. The same is true of French speakers, because of education system and texting...

Captain Superfluous

@inthehands

No, definitely not. That's why ended with my caveat.

But I took your post to be about how students and colleges should value humanities departments because employers are looking for college graduates with the skills they learn in the humanities.

And I expect that's right.

But I don't think employers are looking for second or third career devs who also happen to have experience in the humanities. I'm not sure that employers are at all interested in these non-standard path people. Maybe they were at one time but it doesn't appear to be that way now.

Paul Cantrell

@CptSuperlative
I don’t think tech employers (for many years but especially now) are very interested in new graduates in any major; they all want somebody else to do their training for them, because they don’t know how to do it themselves. (“2-5 years experience”) Once there’s experience, they don’t much care what the major was.

Paul Cantrell

@skylark13 Indeed, it’s often the case that second-language speakers have better command of a language’s formal written grammar than native speakers! It is perhaps easier to stick to those rules when they’re the only ones one knows in a given language.

Even more than grammar, however, what •really• gums up an org is messy thinking: lack of critical examination, not having a point, inability to take multiple perspectives, inability to consider audience in communication….

Jean-Sébastien Guay

@inthehands Sure, that is lacking too. But I hate that even the basics are not valued.

I often hear people say it's not useful to learn to write properly because you never write by hand anymore, and spell checkers are always available. Guess what, spell checkers are not always used, not always correct, autocorrect is often totally wrong, people don't even re-read their message before posting.

I pride myself on writing properly in both languages and it's seen as totally useless to some people.

Paul Cantrell

@skylark13
My only quibble with that is that people often use grammatical pedantry as (1) a heuristic for judging the intelligence of others and/or (2) a smokescreen for their own poor thought processes. It does nobody a favor in either case.

Captain Superfluous

@inthehands

Well, no. Not the major. But the age.

Jean-Sébastien Guay

@inthehands Totally true. I try to be constructive in all cases. Sorry if I came across as pedantic myself.

I only express my frustration in reference to people who genuinely do not see the value in learning.

Alex Ball

@inthehands Technical writer and API guy here, just stopping by to say YUUUUUUUP.