Thread by @mikamckinnon

Classses I took as a physics undergrad that weren’t math or science but have subsequently been useful to my career:

Science Fiction literature
Practical science fiction (taught)
Russian language (intro)
Geography of surfing
Media theory
Ethics
Drawing & Painting
Figure drawing

Ballroom dance (beginner, intermediate, advanced)
Physics Circus (performance)
Anthropology of ‘Native American Indians’ (somehow even more problematic than it sounds; useful as a cautionary tale)
Logic
Rhetoric
A near-random mix of graded book clubs

Science or math I took as a physics undergrad that weren’t required but have subsequently been useful to my career:

Physics of California
Experimental optics
Coding literacy
Computer Science discussion sections (x4)
Geology seminar
Physical geography
Holography
Physics of War

Classes I took as a geophysics grad that weren’t related to my research but have subsequently been useful to my career:

Planning for Disaster-Resilient Communities
Mining safety
Australian coastal geomorphology
Gold & Gems in Australia
Geology from geophysics

Classes I took as an unclassified non-degree student but have subsequently been useful to my career:

Geography of disasters
Advanced Geographic Information Science
Technical communication
Video Game Writing and Narrative
Writing for Graphic Forms (in progress; already useful)

It’s important for a physicist to know physics & a geophysicist to know rocks.

I’ve taken an enormous number of science & math classes I’ve dived so deeply in to specializing that I’ve developed & written courses taken by thousands of students.

But specializing isn’t enough.

An Extremely Bad Take is going around academic Twitter today about eliminating general education requirements to cut costs.

It’s a terrible idea not even worth engaging in the argument.

Only Americans have staggering student debt. The curriculum isn’t the problem.

For my @UCSB_CCS physics degree, I split my courses roughly 1/3 physics, 1/3 related math & science, 1/3 utterly unrelated.

I took ludicrously full advantage of their structural support to experiment & explore. I’m still grateful.

I couldn’t have guessed what FutureMe needed.

Grad school at @UBCeoas was more focused, except my advisor gave his blessing to do a semester abroad at @unimelb.

I studied massive landslides.
Australia barely even has mountains.

But Victorian Institute of Earth and Planetary Sciences let me pack in field courses.

My career is nonlinear. I couldn’t predict the last 5 years, and I don’t know what the next 5 holds. I don’t know what I’ll wish I already knew.

But I’m absolutely certain that I’ll be putting together all these pieces of skill & knowledge in new & unanticipated ways.

I could argue about the unfairness of forcing teenagers to specialize, about the creative synergy of interdisciplinarity, about how all knowledge is useful somehow.

But curiosity doesn’t need justification.

Framing education as a commodity is inherently flawed.