> We are often told of engineering or STEM students exploring the humanities to their heart's content, but I feel that we rarely hear of students in the humanities being encouraged to take scientific or quantitative classes.
Hey, that's me! I graduated with a minor in English, major in Computing.
My two cents: I attended those courses because the discussions were fun, the topics were thought-provoking, and I wanted something of an academic vacation. The experience was altogether _social_; there was less an atmosphere of education and more an atmosphere of dialog. I didn't have to try in any of the humanities courses; not English, not philosophy, not Women's Studies, not a one. I didn't even bother to read the books on the syllabus for several of the courses, and I still managed honors-level grades because the necessary information flowed freely through discussion.
Whereas Computing, Math and Physics courses were less about experiencing the thoughts of others, if at all, and more about building a mental tool set to solve hard problems. I like to think that the practicing, the quizzing, was akin to having a budding musician play an instrumental piece in repetition: struggling through and repeatedly applying the tools of mathematics was a purposeful attempt to guide students toward mastery. As with instruments, many students found the practice to be miserable and found their way on to other things.
> I didn't even bother to read the books on the syllabus
You do realize by implication that you have not engaged at all with the non-trivial part of doing scholarly-level work in the "softer" disciplines, right? Any course can come with relatively "low" standards of assessment.
> Any course can come with relatively "low" standards of assessment.
Absolutely not.
There's no way I could have used the same practice-free methods employed in excelling in humanities classes to similarly excel in the sciences. In the hard sciences, it was imperative that I develop the skills to apply the fundamental knowledge tools to solve the problems posed. I couldn't bullshit my way through with wisps of knowledge gathered from fellow students.
These were the equivalents of 101-level classes, and passing a science 101 class, or even a bunch of them, is hardly equivalent to "excelling in the sciences". Doing actual scholarship, perhaps in understudied corners of the discipline where even basic reviews and surveys of existing work are hard to come by, is something entirely different.
... I was 1 course away from qualifying for an English Major. I didn't bother, because it's not what I'm passionate in. I assure you that I easily sailed through plenty of upper-division undergraduate courses. Likewise, I worked my way through a fair number of upper-division math and science classes; my specialization was in Theoretical Computing.
I did some "actual scholarship" for a few of the upper-division English courses; pouring through musty old volumes that were last reviewed by human hand a half century or more prior. The gotcha with this? So long as I cited appropriately, and aligned myself with the cultural and political viewpoints of the overseeing professor, I was easily assured an excellent grade. It was enough that it appeared that I did the work and parroted the correct thoughts.
Hey, that's me! I graduated with a minor in English, major in Computing.
My two cents: I attended those courses because the discussions were fun, the topics were thought-provoking, and I wanted something of an academic vacation. The experience was altogether _social_; there was less an atmosphere of education and more an atmosphere of dialog. I didn't have to try in any of the humanities courses; not English, not philosophy, not Women's Studies, not a one. I didn't even bother to read the books on the syllabus for several of the courses, and I still managed honors-level grades because the necessary information flowed freely through discussion.
Whereas Computing, Math and Physics courses were less about experiencing the thoughts of others, if at all, and more about building a mental tool set to solve hard problems. I like to think that the practicing, the quizzing, was akin to having a budding musician play an instrumental piece in repetition: struggling through and repeatedly applying the tools of mathematics was a purposeful attempt to guide students toward mastery. As with instruments, many students found the practice to be miserable and found their way on to other things.