I&#x27;d like to clear up at least one place where you and justin_vanw are talking past each other:<p>At many engineering schools, the humanities <i>are</i> a joke.<p>They are often filled with engineering dropouts and students who couldn&#x27;t get accepted into a more prestigious liberal-arts school.<p>Mix in the fact that the engineering schools often have a &quot;wash out&quot; course at the 100 level, while the liberal arts fields tend to not have this, and what you get is STEM students who take a few 100 level humanities classes, see nothing as rigorous as their 100 level engineering classes, and you get this perception.<p>I also can&#x27;t stress enough that the rigor of any department is directly related to the quality of students the department attracts.  No college will allow a department to fail 90% of the students (impacted course tracks notwitstanding) so poor students leads to low standards.<p>I went to Purdue, but have observed similar trends at other large engineering schools.  I minored in philosophy, and anyone who tool philosophy at a liberal-arts school would likely not believe how low the standard for a B in the classes there was.<p>Even comparing stories with Indiana University students, (also a state school, in the same state, but not an engineering school) the classes were a joke.