Liberal Arts in the Silicon Valley

I grew up in the Silicon Valley, surrounded by a rising group of immigrants with rigorous backgrounds in science and engineering. Their kids—my generation—would, for the most part, follow in their footsteps. Through college, I have followed a very similar path, albeit after much convincing that I was pursuing the sciences because I wanted to and not because of my community’s pervasive societal pressure do so.  On its own, the intense focus on science and engineering has never occurred to me to be a bad thing. After all, every community has its niche industry, and technology is the Silicon Valley’s.

A problem with the Silicon Valley is that it believes that there is a correlation between the capacity for innovation and singular excellence in elementary mathematics and sciences. Compounded with the belief that time is fleeting, the educational system of the Bay Area is pervaded by heroic success stories of young, bullied boys dropping out of school to pursue the Silicon Valley dream of startup companies. What results is a push for young but brilliant students (notoriously all male) to skip grades, to drop out of college, or to develop a disdain for formal education altogether in favor of pursuing their careers at an increasingly early age. While impressive, the result is often harmful for both the cognitively underdeveloped students who have been introduced to a grimy arena of business and technology and for the communities that they serve.

Let’s take the example of the Gurbaksh Chahal, a 32 year-old internet entrepreneur and tycoon whose accomplishments include dropping out of high school at the age of 16, founding and selling two advertising companies for a total of $340 million by the age of 25, and being on battery probation for hitting his girlfriend 117 times. To address the last point, a video of the domestic assault was seized by police from Chahal’s residence, but could not be used against him since it had not been taken under a warrant. Chahal later pleaded guilty, explaining that, “While I had full intentions of getting fully exonerated of these charges, that would require me to go through trial and waste another one year of my life.” He also went on to say, “The $500 fine I agreed to pay, the equivalent of a speeding ticket, is simply what those misdemeanors require, and in no way reflects the toll that this ordeal has exacted on me.”

Perhaps surprisingly, but perhaps not, this immaturity is a pattern that is seen in many young, male entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley whose self-assurance and egos have been kindled to the extent that any inkling of humanity has been long forgotten. This is also partly the reason why the Silicon Valley is reputed to be such an unfriendly environment for young women. Many educators have emphasized that developing a broader scope of learning in the liberal arts rather than highly technical curriculum would be invaluable in solving the disconnect between STEM and the humanities in the Silicon Valley. As a student pursuing the sciences, I have a bias towards my field. I truly believe that with science, engineering, and innovation, we can foster a progressive society. However, I will also be the first to acknowledge that progress is lost if the STEM industry is left in the hands of people like Chahal who never had the educational or emotional background to understand the social reach of their work.

In an educational landscape where the liberal arts seem to fare worse each year, I would argue for the necessity of a liberal arts education in the STEM fields, especially in the Bay Area, which has only one undergraduate liberal arts institution: Mills College. What a technical education has unfortunately neglects is the fact that investment in STEM disciplines alone is not enough to develop the types of skills that are necessary for discovery, creativity, and innovation. If we are unable to see the bigger picture of how what we do impacts the world, even our most valued technical skills are rather obsolete. Technology, after all, changes every day, but the liberal arts remain as a constant reminder of why what we do matters.

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Rebecca Dutta

Blog Director

Scripps College ’15