Are these majors considered liberal arts?
Math, statistics, physics?
If you major in these are you still considered a liberal arts major, or more of a STEM major?
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S.T.E.M. - Science, Technology, Engineering, Math
This should be pretty clear
I believe you would be a STEM Major but because schools have their own complicated systems for how they organize majors into colleges, you could very well be a statistics, math, or physics major but be in the liberal arts and sciences college. I know that is the case at several schools.
If I get these degrees through the arts school with a BA, I would still be considered a liberal arts major lol? It seems that liberal arts degrees have such a bad rep these days.
Welcome to the failures of the American education system, yes I graduated from the LAS school...
Only among WSO/Preftege whores are LA degrees looked down on. I'm a history major and couldn't be happier after switching from the b-school.
Same, I was a double major in b-school. In order to graduate on time all of my "electives" would have had to be business courses just to meet the requirement of my other business major. I switched to LA and majored in Comm. Best decision ever considering I still got into top consulting firms and final rounds/offers with top IBs for MO jobs.
no.
Math statistics and physics are the definition of Stem field. Many of these degrees ARE in the school of liberal arts and SCIENCES. My school has separate programs in math and statistics but they are still stem degrees. As pointed out above STEM means science, technology, engineering , and mathematics. Any of these degrees will be fairly difficult but will prepare you to be able to think and analyze better than any degrees like history or communications as the above two commentors stated and will be more valuable to a wider range of fields. However, the question should be what do you want to do and or what areas are you interested in because each field of STEM could guide you into vastly different fields.
Also a BA vs BS is minimal. BS are typically slightly more difficult because you are forced to take more science courses as electives as opposed to more history/literature type courses but unless you are sticking to a pure academic career like pure mathematics for grad school and PhD not many people in the business world will weigh that difference to much. Both BA and BS have the same upper level CORE courses which are the important courses to your major.
Can you compare/contrast the analytical skills gained in a STEM degree vs a degree like history for me, please?
In order to do said comparison, you would need analytical skills which I would venture to say I have more of than a significant portion of STEM majors I know.
Sure. I was a LA major who switched into STEM, and the biggest difference I noticed is that analysis in LA majors, like history or government, is more idiosyncratic. I can craft an argument as a gov major supporting my opinion with the writings of Charles Murray, Charles Krauthammer and William F. Buckley to prove my point (or the equivalents from the other side). I'm relying mostly on opinions, though I could occasionally cite a study or two. I can't get away with that in my STEM field -- if I write a paper, I have to use exclusively studies from academic journals or from places like the NIH. I need to be able to do statistical analysis to prove my point in upper-level classes and sift through complex mathematical models. I need a lot of prior knowledge to understand what's going on in a research paper, which I didn't find to be the case in my liberal arts classes.
I see what you're trying to say, but it doesn't really prove that a STEM major gives you better analytical capabilities. I've written plenty of history research papers and all of my sources have always been required to come from academic journals or accredited sources, and I don't know how you would be able to sift through those without prior knowledge as well.
Here is my thing with LA vs STEM. As a STEM major you will study hard to memorize tons of different facts, equations, and rationals that you can use to prove a theory. The thought process is largely A -> B -> C -> and then pulling memorized information to conclude whether D or E is the next logical step in order to find your answer. That is hardly analytic or requiring of any critical thinking capability in my opinion, its just academic connect the dots.
As a liberal arts major, if I'm asked to defend/comment against a thesis I'm free to conduct my own research and draw my own conclusions independent of whatever the common belief is. If I want to present a paper on, say, The Soviet Union's contribution to WW2 being greater than what America/England contributed, I'm free to do that. (And, as documents are still being examined since the disillusion of the Warsaw Pact, theories like my example (which isn't true) are starting to become prevalent in revisionist circles). However, if I were a mathematician and wanted to disprove that 2+2 = 4, I can't do that because it is literally impossible, and I'd be laughed out of my profession for trying to seriously move forward with that idea.
As a case study, look around on WSO and notice the % of people asking what seems like obvious questions, but once they leave the standardized route of Top HS GPA -> Top College GPA -> Top SA -> Top FT -> BS -> Greatness they are almost incapable of independent, critical thought although many of them are within the top 1% of graduates with STEM degrees.
So, in my opinion, a LA degree provides you with better analytic and critical thinking skills because you'll learn how to take a lot of information, understand what it means, and draw your own conclusion from it.
@"Stryfe" I didn't see that I responded to a comment where you were debating Mike-Fritz on the virtues of STEM vs LA; I assumed it was more of a general question. I'm a big proponent of traditional LA majors over "Business" and "IT Management" myself, but STEM isn't as cut-and-dry as you describe. There are plenty ways to be innovative when trying to find an answer to a problem or a proof, and memorization won't take you very far. You need an intuitive understanding of the concepts (which you also need in LA subjects, but pure memorization is not as much of a hinderance, in my experience) to be able to apply them.
Both teach analysis, but different variations of it. The liberal arts teach you, like you said, how to come to conclusions and form an argument using varied sources, though you can largely form the conclusion on your own. A good STEM curriculum teaches you to use the resources you have at your disposal, sometimes in a creative or a not-so-creative way, to get the answer you're supposed to get, and to be able to get new answers to yet unsolved problems once you have a certain level of mastery.
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