Definition 8.15: The pi-shaped person

The section on the “pi-shaped person”, as well as the conversation surrounding this idea in lecture, reminded me of discussions that appeared in my undergraduate college when I attended. The mission statement of my college is “Harvey Mudd College seeks to educate engineers, scientists and mathematicians well versed in all of these areas and in the humanities, social sciences and the arts so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society”. Upon entering, the school really stresses the commitment to their mission statement. It is a STEM school, with only STEM majors, but while all students must complete a common set of fundamental coursework, they also have breadth and depth requirements to take a series of “HSA” (humanities, social sciences, and the arts) courses. All STEM classes also had to have some portion of them dedicated to a discussion of the “impact of their work on society”. This could take many forms, but what I most recall is that classes would often have a class, or short segments throughout, dissecting figures in history in their specific field, and the positive and negative impacts their work resulted in for students to discuss and come to their own conclusions about.

At the time, my friends and I would often discuss the failings of this system, the way it didn’t always live up to its lofty ideals. Many individuals would only take the “easiest” HSA courses to fulfill their credit, or would focus on economics courses because they seemed the most “valuable” for their careers. Discussions about the “impact on society” within classes often felt short and lacking in depth. The school was committed to gender and racial diversity when it came to the admissions process, but often lacked the resources to help students from diverse backgrounds thrive in the rigorous academic environment.

But I am very glad that the institution was one that attempted to broaden the idea of what was important in a “STEM student”. That more is important in an education than merely learning math and science and that it is imperative to work with an eye on how your work might impact the world. I was told that one of the driving forces of this mission for the school was due to the wake of the atom bomb, and how it made scientists realize how critical it was to anticipate where your work might lead the world.

Though the frame of this education system is different from that of the “pi-shaped person” (eg. lacking the domain expertise perspective) I think it shows another lens through which to conceptualize how to try and develop well-rounded students and citizens, which, even though flawed in execution in many ways, may be a step towards a more humanist perspective.