I’d like to discuss to you today a topic
that I frequently hear in the halls my
university do engineers really need a
liberal arts education often I find
myself involved with many students who
are struggling with certain subjects
philosophy history languages and often
these are students who have strong
passion for science for engineering this
anecdote plays a very strong role in my
life
often in common jargon we are put we put
ourselves in different dichotomies this
is a science person or artistic person
and even within Sciences but we are
either right-brained or left-brained and
often in the conversation what is lost
is how these two work together the right
brain the left brain does not operate in
a vacuum they operate with an exchange
with one another and to help analyze the
question why why do we need to have a
liberal arts education as engineers as
scientists
I’ll tell you my story I was born in the
United States to Syrian students who
came from a very different cultural
background to help explore their own
horizons to experience new things to
learn to hear other stories to share
their own story and this was a tenant of
my life that continued with me spending
half of my childhood there he moved to
Dubai because my parents wanted to offer
me and my older sister a new attentive
experienced new way of learning about
the worlds I learned Arabic by living
here I learned about different cultures
Dubai’s a beautifully diverse city but I
also learned a lot about myself going
through through middle school and high
school I loved what I was studying I
loved all of what I was studying math
and history philosophy and language
science biology chemistry physics and I
decided I needed something else I needed
something new I need something to
challenge me more
and so I decided to apply and I got
accepted to Phillips Academy in Andover
Massachusetts my school the oldest
private school in United States was a
great place for me to row as an
individual for me to experience a truly
liberal arts curriculum I was a kid in
the candy store there were so many
things I wanted to enroll in there were
so many classes I wanted to take but too
little time there were so many clubs I
wanted to join but again I had so many
limitations because of that I was part
of the phylum a themed society the
oldest debate Club in the United States
but I was also a part of the science
club I was active in Model UN and
student government but I was also really
interested in the motor sports club and
this way of thinking this way of how I
interacted with my community and with my
intellectual pursuits continued to the
point where people asked me who are you
who are you this question was was so
important to me that I and over we had a
beautiful excuse me we had a beautiful
dining hall it had four identical halls
but each had a totally different
personality because of those who sat in
each home
we had the lower-left who had all the
creative geeks you had you know the
drama theater and drama theater people
and you had lower-right who had all of
the athletes and jocks and popular
people you had upper-left where the
faculty set and the teachers pets and
the Nerds and you had the upper right
where you had all the lower classmen
honestly I never found myself sitting in
the same dining hall twice in a row I
always changed the the hall I chose to
dine in I always changed the people i
sat with the people who I chose to
associate with to hear their stories and
share my story because learning is not
only in the classroom this sense of
identity this question that was that
came to me Who am I continued through my
college admissions process I didn’t know
if I wanted to go into the sciences
or into the humanities and this is a
question that I decided to go through
for the Humanities I decided to go to at
the American University in Washington DC
I decided to go for diplomacy this is
the beautiful College the School of
International Service it’s fantastic and
I loved being there I studied there for
year-and-a-half we studied history and
philosophy languages so many important
things to know to be able to analyze the
world and understand ourselves more
deeply but funnily enough I found myself
limited I found myself limited within
the humanities which is often cited as
the gray area while science is the black
and the white and the correct and the
incorrect one or zero but I found myself
limited in the humanities I had some
hunger for in craving for science for
physics to understand how things work
not why things work how they work so I
shifted my orientation to studying
engineering and this is where I am today
I have no regrets I absolutely love
studying engineering but I also spend a
lot of my time reading and learning
about how we as a society operate on the
human level and I realized that it
wasn’t always this way education was not
always about this or that it was about
it was about both an end historically to
be considered an educated person a
learned person you have to have a lot of
knowledge about a lot of subjects today
many people have a lot of knowledge
about a very small number of subjects on
the far right um far left for you
we have Leonardo da Vinci he pioneered
so many different subjects including art
and philosophy engineering math he was a
Renaissance man someone who was a
jack-of-all-trades who knew so much
about so many things in life and it was
so curious we have Thomas Jefferson
Enlightenment thinker one of the
America’s statesmen one of the first
presidents of the United States and
that’s often how how what he is
remembered for he was also an architect
a surveyor a lawyer a philosopher
a musician he was the first secretary of
states of the United States of America
and a testament to that was that in his
later years they learned that he was
studying Arabic Arabic in the years 1778
America was the first country to
recognize the United States of America
and he realized it was important to be
able to understand the other tongue to
the other sense of language in order to
be a more human leader and finally we
have John Jacques Rousseau a central
figure in the French Revolution he too
was a composer not just a philosopher so
you get the trend people who were
educated used to be passionate about so
many things and used to to be considered
an intellectual person you had to have a
scope that was wide an eclectic so when
did this occur when did this sense of
pigeonholing an individual to one or the
other
begin well it starts in the Industrial
Revolution of Europe for the sake of
optimization and this vast and rapid
social change is occurring in Europe
socially technologically and nationally
that people decided that they would have
to choose their education for their
career that was it was there was a
commercial value to education as opposed
to having an intellectual and personal
drive to learn to experience this is
when this period the nineteenth century
is when the engineering departments and
faculties around the world started
springing up
you had MIT established in this century
for example but there this sense of
specialization we’ve lost a lot of what
makes us human
[Applause]
and at the individual level you had
people who are striving for nature to go
back to our roots
this is testament to the Romantic period
which is the artistic and literary
period that overlapped with the
Industrial Revolution so a great it’s a
perfect case study of this you know
often often difficult question of are we
machine or man are we supposed to do
things thinking of industrialization
first or are we supposed to think of
what makes us human first New York City
is one of the most dynamic cities on the
planet and they have this beautiful Park
Central Park very famous but to the city
officials who were against using this
prime real estate for a public park that
was a daunting task eventually they
decided that they must use this this
prime real estate space for the good of
the public to make a public park and the
person may chose to do it Fred Law
Olmsted believed that the park must be a
public must be a public good for all
individuals all people who were part of
the city to use and enjoy and while he
was an architect by profession he was a
social activist by passion after they
decided to make the park and after they
you know they grew all the trees and
then they set up the park he spent his
life tirelessly being an advocate to
keep the park public to keep the park
accessible to all so while an architect
he was also a social activist so today
how does this relate to our world today
often in our engineering instruction
you’re we’re taught to consider three
major pillars when trying to attempt to
answer a question to solve a problem to
give an answer the first one is how can
he make the design efficient how could
he make the design efficient
now the second one is how can you make
it affordable how can you make it
economically feasible how can you make
it a cadet economically accessible and
third the most recent addition to this
structure of of problem solving for an
engineering perspective is how can you
make it sustainable how can you make it
sustainable so I want all of us to
participate in the following so I hope
you guys are ready imagine we are tasked
with making a public park in a city we
love for example Dubai Mumbai
Damascus Syria anywhere that comes to
mind anywhere often the engineer will
ask what questions what questions come
to mind does anyone have anything how
big is the park any other questions that
an engineer would quickly ask first or
consider is land readily available how
much that’s a very good point
absolutely often engineers also consider
hmm
how can you make the water system
efficient how can you make the
maintenance affordable and how can we
make the carbon footprints of this
endeavor minimal but there are so many
questions that come to mind that
engineers often overlook or are often
not given the tools to assess who is the
park mentor is it going to be in the
very wealthy part of the town or is it
going to be accessible for the working
class another question that is often
ignored is who is designed with who is
tasked with designing this park is it
going to be the local community is it
going to be a decision made by the
people of that city who will enjoy that
park or is it going to be a top-down
sense of an international firm will be
hired and they’ll design the park and
that’s what you’ll get is it going to be
is it going to be maintained by
mom-and-pops gardening company or is it
going to be run by an international
conglomerate these are just a scenario
scope of how many questions arise with
what seems to be a very wonderful task
everyone loves the park everyone loves
to be able to be part of nature within
the city so alt
my take-home message is this how can we
humanize engineering how can we follow
our obligation and our responsibility as
engineers to be able to assess a very
wide variety of implications that our
decisions have we have a lot a huge
responsibility on our shoulders
decisions we make have far-reaching
consequences and in order to be able to
better understand the community we’re
supposed to serve we have to have a
strong liberal arts education foundation
we must be able to you know take that
French class in high school and even if
we fail it we have to be able to
understand the way the certain language
works we have to understand that to take
a philosophy class has far-reaching
implications to understand the history
of a place that the history of a people
is important to understand how we can
solve problems and how we can solve
problems that make a difference to all
of us so I finally like to leave you on
this image science can help us build a
robot companion and the humanities can
help us understand why that’s not a very
good idea
in other words science helps us
understand how our world works
while humanities empowers us to improve
it and finally thank you thank you all
for taking the time on on a Saturday to
be here to listen to different
perspectives to help be an active
participant in the community and to be
able to take a little bit of what all of
our experiences are and consider it for
when you make your own decisions in
their life be it engineering or
otherwise so thank you
[Applause]
that I frequently hear in the halls my
university do engineers really need a
liberal arts education often I find
myself involved with many students who
are struggling with certain subjects
philosophy history languages and often
these are students who have strong
passion for science for engineering this
anecdote plays a very strong role in my
life
often in common jargon we are put we put
ourselves in different dichotomies this
is a science person or artistic person
and even within Sciences but we are
either right-brained or left-brained and
often in the conversation what is lost
is how these two work together the right
brain the left brain does not operate in
a vacuum they operate with an exchange
with one another and to help analyze the
question why why do we need to have a
liberal arts education as engineers as
scientists
I’ll tell you my story I was born in the
United States to Syrian students who
came from a very different cultural
background to help explore their own
horizons to experience new things to
learn to hear other stories to share
their own story and this was a tenant of
my life that continued with me spending
half of my childhood there he moved to
Dubai because my parents wanted to offer
me and my older sister a new attentive
experienced new way of learning about
the worlds I learned Arabic by living
here I learned about different cultures
Dubai’s a beautifully diverse city but I
also learned a lot about myself going
through through middle school and high
school I loved what I was studying I
loved all of what I was studying math
and history philosophy and language
science biology chemistry physics and I
decided I needed something else I needed
something new I need something to
challenge me more
and so I decided to apply and I got
accepted to Phillips Academy in Andover
Massachusetts my school the oldest
private school in United States was a
great place for me to row as an
individual for me to experience a truly
liberal arts curriculum I was a kid in
the candy store there were so many
things I wanted to enroll in there were
so many classes I wanted to take but too
little time there were so many clubs I
wanted to join but again I had so many
limitations because of that I was part
of the phylum a themed society the
oldest debate Club in the United States
but I was also a part of the science
club I was active in Model UN and
student government but I was also really
interested in the motor sports club and
this way of thinking this way of how I
interacted with my community and with my
intellectual pursuits continued to the
point where people asked me who are you
who are you this question was was so
important to me that I and over we had a
beautiful excuse me we had a beautiful
dining hall it had four identical halls
but each had a totally different
personality because of those who sat in
each home
we had the lower-left who had all the
creative geeks you had you know the
drama theater and drama theater people
and you had lower-right who had all of
the athletes and jocks and popular
people you had upper-left where the
faculty set and the teachers pets and
the Nerds and you had the upper right
where you had all the lower classmen
honestly I never found myself sitting in
the same dining hall twice in a row I
always changed the the hall I chose to
dine in I always changed the people i
sat with the people who I chose to
associate with to hear their stories and
share my story because learning is not
only in the classroom this sense of
identity this question that was that
came to me Who am I continued through my
college admissions process I didn’t know
if I wanted to go into the sciences
or into the humanities and this is a
question that I decided to go through
for the Humanities I decided to go to at
the American University in Washington DC
I decided to go for diplomacy this is
the beautiful College the School of
International Service it’s fantastic and
I loved being there I studied there for
year-and-a-half we studied history and
philosophy languages so many important
things to know to be able to analyze the
world and understand ourselves more
deeply but funnily enough I found myself
limited I found myself limited within
the humanities which is often cited as
the gray area while science is the black
and the white and the correct and the
incorrect one or zero but I found myself
limited in the humanities I had some
hunger for in craving for science for
physics to understand how things work
not why things work how they work so I
shifted my orientation to studying
engineering and this is where I am today
I have no regrets I absolutely love
studying engineering but I also spend a
lot of my time reading and learning
about how we as a society operate on the
human level and I realized that it
wasn’t always this way education was not
always about this or that it was about
it was about both an end historically to
be considered an educated person a
learned person you have to have a lot of
knowledge about a lot of subjects today
many people have a lot of knowledge
about a very small number of subjects on
the far right um far left for you
we have Leonardo da Vinci he pioneered
so many different subjects including art
and philosophy engineering math he was a
Renaissance man someone who was a
jack-of-all-trades who knew so much
about so many things in life and it was
so curious we have Thomas Jefferson
Enlightenment thinker one of the
America’s statesmen one of the first
presidents of the United States and
that’s often how how what he is
remembered for he was also an architect
a surveyor a lawyer a philosopher
a musician he was the first secretary of
states of the United States of America
and a testament to that was that in his
later years they learned that he was
studying Arabic Arabic in the years 1778
America was the first country to
recognize the United States of America
and he realized it was important to be
able to understand the other tongue to
the other sense of language in order to
be a more human leader and finally we
have John Jacques Rousseau a central
figure in the French Revolution he too
was a composer not just a philosopher so
you get the trend people who were
educated used to be passionate about so
many things and used to to be considered
an intellectual person you had to have a
scope that was wide an eclectic so when
did this occur when did this sense of
pigeonholing an individual to one or the
other
begin well it starts in the Industrial
Revolution of Europe for the sake of
optimization and this vast and rapid
social change is occurring in Europe
socially technologically and nationally
that people decided that they would have
to choose their education for their
career that was it was there was a
commercial value to education as opposed
to having an intellectual and personal
drive to learn to experience this is
when this period the nineteenth century
is when the engineering departments and
faculties around the world started
springing up
you had MIT established in this century
for example but there this sense of
specialization we’ve lost a lot of what
makes us human
[Applause]
and at the individual level you had
people who are striving for nature to go
back to our roots
this is testament to the Romantic period
which is the artistic and literary
period that overlapped with the
Industrial Revolution so a great it’s a
perfect case study of this you know
often often difficult question of are we
machine or man are we supposed to do
things thinking of industrialization
first or are we supposed to think of
what makes us human first New York City
is one of the most dynamic cities on the
planet and they have this beautiful Park
Central Park very famous but to the city
officials who were against using this
prime real estate for a public park that
was a daunting task eventually they
decided that they must use this this
prime real estate space for the good of
the public to make a public park and the
person may chose to do it Fred Law
Olmsted believed that the park must be a
public must be a public good for all
individuals all people who were part of
the city to use and enjoy and while he
was an architect by profession he was a
social activist by passion after they
decided to make the park and after they
you know they grew all the trees and
then they set up the park he spent his
life tirelessly being an advocate to
keep the park public to keep the park
accessible to all so while an architect
he was also a social activist so today
how does this relate to our world today
often in our engineering instruction
you’re we’re taught to consider three
major pillars when trying to attempt to
answer a question to solve a problem to
give an answer the first one is how can
he make the design efficient how could
he make the design efficient
now the second one is how can you make
it affordable how can you make it
economically feasible how can you make
it a cadet economically accessible and
third the most recent addition to this
structure of of problem solving for an
engineering perspective is how can you
make it sustainable how can you make it
sustainable so I want all of us to
participate in the following so I hope
you guys are ready imagine we are tasked
with making a public park in a city we
love for example Dubai Mumbai
Damascus Syria anywhere that comes to
mind anywhere often the engineer will
ask what questions what questions come
to mind does anyone have anything how
big is the park any other questions that
an engineer would quickly ask first or
consider is land readily available how
much that’s a very good point
absolutely often engineers also consider
hmm
how can you make the water system
efficient how can you make the
maintenance affordable and how can we
make the carbon footprints of this
endeavor minimal but there are so many
questions that come to mind that
engineers often overlook or are often
not given the tools to assess who is the
park mentor is it going to be in the
very wealthy part of the town or is it
going to be accessible for the working
class another question that is often
ignored is who is designed with who is
tasked with designing this park is it
going to be the local community is it
going to be a decision made by the
people of that city who will enjoy that
park or is it going to be a top-down
sense of an international firm will be
hired and they’ll design the park and
that’s what you’ll get is it going to be
is it going to be maintained by
mom-and-pops gardening company or is it
going to be run by an international
conglomerate these are just a scenario
scope of how many questions arise with
what seems to be a very wonderful task
everyone loves the park everyone loves
to be able to be part of nature within
the city so alt
my take-home message is this how can we
humanize engineering how can we follow
our obligation and our responsibility as
engineers to be able to assess a very
wide variety of implications that our
decisions have we have a lot a huge
responsibility on our shoulders
decisions we make have far-reaching
consequences and in order to be able to
better understand the community we’re
supposed to serve we have to have a
strong liberal arts education foundation
we must be able to you know take that
French class in high school and even if
we fail it we have to be able to
understand the way the certain language
works we have to understand that to take
a philosophy class has far-reaching
implications to understand the history
of a place that the history of a people
is important to understand how we can
solve problems and how we can solve
problems that make a difference to all
of us so I finally like to leave you on
this image science can help us build a
robot companion and the humanities can
help us understand why that’s not a very
good idea
in other words science helps us
understand how our world works
while humanities empowers us to improve
it and finally thank you thank you all
for taking the time on on a Saturday to
be here to listen to different
perspectives to help be an active
participant in the community and to be
able to take a little bit of what all of
our experiences are and consider it for
when you make your own decisions in
their life be it engineering or
otherwise so thank you
[Applause]
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