Re: Engineering / Arts

Larry Bullis (kingfisher@halcyon.com)
Sat, 08 Nov 1997 09:31:20 -0800

>Very interestingly, while U of M is a large school with lots of different
>libraries for different schools, they recently (about 2 years ago) built a
>large (and beautiful) library called the media union library. It is basically
>the merging of the libraries from the school of engineering, school of arts,
>and school of architecture. A coincidence? It is so convinient for me now to
>look for books in all related areas (which are traditionally considered not
>so related).

The Cooper Union in NYC is a quite famous school which is composed of
three and only three colleges: Art, Architecture, and Engineering. I
have always considered this to be quite interesting and appropriate.
Some of my most respected acquaintances and friends went to school there
in art and architecture.

My daughter also recently graduated there, and told me that there was not
a lot of mixing between students from the various disciplines. She also
felt that her humanities program in high school was stronger than
Cooper's. Having myself come from a very strong humanities background,
this was disappointing but I have to take into account that student
opinions tend to be somewhat skewed. Since the school is free of
tuition, it is such a good deal that the students feel they can't leave,
and often are quite critical, if not somewhat resentful of the place.
Besides, her program in high school was exceptional, so I guess she got
the whole thing.

I suppose that you pays your money and takes your chances, and for what
she paid, she got a really fine professional education.

Larry Bullis
Skagit Valley College