GEME 521: ENGINEERING, BUSINESS AND SOCIETY

ASSIGNMENT 1

NAMES: RAGGAR PAGGAR CAMM

ID: 13001070
COURSE: BEng TELECOMMUNICATIONS ENGINEERING

1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................. 3
SUMMARY ........................................................................................................................................... 3
REVIEW ................................................................................................................................................ 3
CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................................................... 5
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................................................................. 5

2
INTRODUCTION
In his work titled “Why tech needs the humanities”, Eric Berridge tackles the new age debate of
Humanities versus STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics).. His main argument
is diversity of background and skills, and that sciences should not be valued more than the humanities.
The purpose of the critique is to objectively review his talk and highlight its strength, limitations and
applicability to practice. The structure of the critique consists of a summary, a review that evaluates the
arguments and discusses the contributions and limitations of the talk. Lastly a conclusion based on the
main critique points followed by the bibliography.

SUMMARY
According to the speaker, since 2009, STEM majors in the United States have increased by forty three
percent while humanities stayed flat. He went on to explain that over 200 million dollars of Department
of Education funding has been redirected into computer science. This further illustrates the amount of
support the country gives STEM compared to other disciplines, an action which he terms as a colossal
mistake. In his defence he argues that today’s workforce requires a far less rigorous and formalised
education than it did in the past. He continues on to state that skills that are imperative in a world with
intuitive technology are skills that help us to work together as humans. His argument was based on a
past experience in which his software consultancy firm failed at proper communication with the end
user and was inevitably saved by a bartender who had the necessary people skills because of his
background in philosophy.
He illustrates that their company is successful through proper correlation of STEM and humanities
which he deemed a contradiction to the ongoing push for STEM based education with less regard to
other disciplines. He however acknowledged the fact that CEOs are complaining about engineering
starved workforce and cited that there was a lot of success in the technology economy. The speaker
believes this creates the wrong assumption that the future workforce will be dominated by STEM which
he regards as overblown and overvalued.
The speaker gives two main reasons as to why the sciences should not be valued more than the
humanities. The first one he posits is that current technologies are intuitive and making them easy to
put together, learn and programme. Hence it is easy to recruit from all disciplines. The second reason
he gives is that intuitive technology requires real world experience and judgement with historical
content where envisioning the end product is a priority. This he perceives as a gap for the humanities
which he claims gives us context of the world and teach critical thinking.
The speaker refutes the idea that STEM is the only discipline that will dominate the work force, an
assumption he terms as paranoia. He supports his rebuttal by citing that even technical companies such
as google have more than sixty five percent non-technical job opportunities. Furthermore, he goes on
to say that the future work force needs diversity. He explains that diversity should not end with gender
or race but should include diversity of backgrounds and skills hence why humanities should not the
backseat to STEM.

REVIEW
The talk gave a view on the humanities vs STEM debate, rather than taking a stance on the debate the
speaker offers a somewhat unorthodox approach of unification, showing that not only are both
disciplines important in their own right but technological advancement needs the humanities. His main
argument is rooted on the past experience he narrated. The story was a well-structured evidence for his
argument. However he went on to include statistics for money spent in stem compared to other
disciplines and failed to show evidence from the industry that such an action has had negative
consequences. In the same breath the speaker acknowledges the complaints about an engineering
starved workforce which goes to show why it is important to economy to be spending more on the field.

3
He has failed to mention if ever there was any shortage of professionals from humanities and hence his
stance on the spending going to STEM is seemingly unfounded.
According to the Humanities Indicator Index, from 2009 to 2014 there was a decline of nineteen percent
in the number of humanities graduates with stable jobs while the STEM fields showed an increase in
their job placements and earn higher [1]. This is attributed to the fact that STEM education produces
innovation and new products hence moving countries forward economically. The demand for STEM
jobs continues to surpass its supply [2] which gives a reasonable ground for more money being
channelled into the industry.
The speaker gave two main reason why sciences should not be valued more humanities. One of them
being because current technology requires less formalised education than it did in the past. He however
offered no data to back up the argument. While the statement may be true for other fileds such as
programming it should be noted that engineering requires precision as it is concerned with the design,
building, use of engines, machines and structure [3] and hence the speaker is mistaken in thinking that
it requires less formalised education.
The second reason the speaker gave are that the imperative skills needed with intuitive technology are
skills that help us work together as humans while this is a valid point, it should be noted that the speaker
gave an opinion and failed to support it with concrete evidence apart from his past experience. In this
context a new a forum looked at the employment, skills and workforce strategy for the future. It got
information from leading global employers and concluded that the most imperative skills in the future
included complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity while people management and
emotional intelligence were ranked lower [4].
The speaker argued that humanities teach people how to think critically and failed to acknowledge the
role the sciences play in critical thinking. He further on went to claim that future jobs will not rely on
STEM which is a direct contradiction to numerous researches done by world economic forum,
McKinsey Global Institute and New York University’s Stern School of Business among others.
He further made remarks on how every company has job opportunities for non-technical employees but
has neglected to mention that in the last decade the number of technical employees has rapidly increased
compared to job opportunities for non-technical employees [4]. The speaker went on to urge the
audience to aspire for diversity in the workplace which he views as when gender, race, background and
skills are diversified. The point the speaker makes is valid and supports his stance that indeed
technology needs humanities.
The talk gives the audience a glimpse of the interaction between STEM and humanities. It gives the
impression that both disciplines are vital and should be treated equally. The speaker gives instances of
where he deems it unfair to give preference to sciences and initiates a train of thoughts in the audience
to evaluate such views. It is important to note however that it does not in any way offer a way forward
for countries or industries in order to strike a balance between sciences and humanities. Furthermore it
also offers no new solutions to the increase in demand for engineering workforce that do not include
channelling more money in the industry. Overall the speakers past experience has shown him the need
for diversity but it is clear he has no concrete plan on how to fully rectify the situation he called a
colossal mistake.

4
CONCLUSION
In conclusion the talk proved to be lacking depth in terms of coming up with a solution for the situation
that speaker has identified. The information was biased towards the humanities. Further on, even with
the current trends of technology the speaker was adamant that STEM will not dominate future jobs and
gave an impression that humanities would despites researches to the contrary. He was not effective in
giving a convincing argument for why more funds should not be proportioned to sciences. His tone
gave an assumption that humanities is neglected and did not focus on the job market and that it is over
saturated.

Bibliography

[1] C. Wanna, "yaledailynews," 02 March 2018. [Online]. Available: www.yaledailynews.com.

[Accessed 27 June 2018].

[2] V. Strauss, "washinton post," 18 October 2017. [Online]. Available: www.washintonpost.com.

[Accessed 25 June 2018].

[3] R. West, What is engineering, The society, 2004.

[4] Robert D Childs, Gerry Ginrich, "The Future Workforce," IEEE Engineering Management Review,
vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 3-5, 2011.

5
6