‘The Fuzzy and the Techie’

Students are often discouraged from studying liberal-arts disciplines by people who think it will be difficult for them to find jobs in a world dominated by technology.

Scott Hartley, a venture capitalist and former researcher at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, bucks that trend in The Fuzzy and the Techie: Why the Liberal Arts Will Rule the Digital World (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017). His book suggests that the liberal arts are more important than ever. He cites numerous examples of people with liberal-arts backgrounds who are leaders in the technology sector. Liberal-arts backgrounds, Mr. Hartley argues, make people qualified to understand human nature and the communities we form. This understanding is indispensable when employing technology to help solve human problems, as are the intellectual agility, creativity, and curiosity developed by studying the liberal arts.

Three ideas related to the undergraduate experience came to mind when I read Mr. Hartley’s book. First, liberal-arts majors should be encouraged and provided with support to pursue technology positions. Second, colleges should create opportunities for techies (engineering and computer-science majors) and fuzzies (arts, humanities, and social-science majors) to work together. Multidisciplinary collaborations prepare students to work in teams dealing with problems that span multiple disciplines.

Finally, a broad-based liberal education is essential in today’s world as it makes techies a bit fuzzy and fuzzies a bit techie. It helps blur the lines between the two “cultures” and bring context to a world increasingly dominated by code.

U.S. Army Lt. Col. Christopher Mayer is associate dean for strategy, policy, and assessment and an associate professor of philosophy at the U.S. Military Academy.