INNOVATION
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VIVEK WADHWA
The liberal arts are now as mighty as engineering
STEM is not the only fruit
Vivek Wadhwa is distinguished fellow at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Engineering and author of Your Happiness Was Hacked
I used to fly the flag. Back in 2004, I was a democratized it into tools that changed the patriotic engineer, bemoaning those who world. When I met recently with Logitech showed a preference for the liberal arts. chief executive – and English literature major I was convinced that developing human – Bracken Darrell, he echoed Jobs’ views. capacity in the STEM subjects – science, He said that it was by focusing on design – technology, engineering and mathematics making his products people-friendly – that – held the key to global competitiveness. I he had turned the company around. Its stock was a fully paid-up subscriber to Bill Gates’ price has increased fourfold in half a decade. view that governments should spend The clue to the power of the humanities their limited public education budgets is in the name. Human. The key to designing upteching our children, as such disciplines great products is to understand how humans commanded greater premiums and act, think and learn. Artists might not volumes in the employment market. naturally gravitate towards software and But that was then, and this is now. By the digital graphical tools. But they can acquire late-2000s, the winds of change were already those skills. It is infinitely more difficult to blowing. When, in 2008, my research teams teach an engineer to be an artist. at Duke and Harvard universities surveyed None of this is to say that the STEM more than 600 American chief executives subjects have lost their value. They remain in the technology sector, they discovered critical in a world where the companies something counterintuitive. Only around a that succeed must be at the vanguard of third of those interviewed technological development. held degrees in engineering Yet where I once vaunted or computer science. For STEM subjects above The older I get, mathematics degrees, the all others, I now take a the more I realize figure was vanishingly low more nuanced view. An the power of words in – just 2%. The remainder – engineering degree is making you think the majority – held degrees valuable. But a psychologist –Bracken Darrell in the social sciences, might have a better idea of humanities and arts. Having what motivates humans to a degree per se was a good use a product. An artist is a predictor of entrepreneurial success, but the powerful asset when 3D printers can realize subject it was in, and university it was from, anything that can be imagined. And English were not significant factors. In fact, there was majors hold the levers to the most powerful some anecdotal evidence that arts subjects tool of all – language. might serve better – YouTube chief executive “The older I get, the more I realize the Susan Wojcicki majored in history; Slack power of words, and the power of words founder Stewart Butterfield read philosophy; in making you think,” Darrell told Business Airbnb pioneer Brian Chesky holds a degree Insider in 2013. “The best CEOs and leaders are in fine art. extremely good writers and have this ability As was often the case, the late, great to articulate what they’re thinking.” Steve Jobs had it right when he touted Darrell added that he actively recruits the importance of the liberal arts while students of the liberal arts, believing them to unveiling the iPad 2. “It’s in Apple’s DNA be an “endangered species” in the technology that technology alone is not enough,” he space. We are all guilty. Ten years ago, said. “It’s technology married with liberal when parents asked me what their children arts, married with the humanities, that should study, I recommended the sciences yields us the result that makes our heart in a heartbeat. I now advocate that children sing – and nowhere is that more true than in should pursue their passions. STEM is not these post-PC devices.” It is science’s fusion the only fruit. In fact, as the tech sector with the humanities and philosophy that humanizes, gifted readers of the arts are ripe dragged computing from a niche pursuit and for the picking. Q4 2018 Dialogue