[atiffany]

What if there were humanities bootcamps?

That probably sounds like a joke...but why should a traditional expensive university be the only structured way to get exposure to broader human knowledge?

An intensive bootcamp model doesn’t actually make sense for breadth (they are designed for the opposite)...but if you told me I could be part of a structured organization in my city where I’d be introduced to interesting broad humanities topics through lectures from experts and assignments over several months then I’d be interested.

[meltek]

They exist, just not called bootcamps.

https://www.sjc.edu/academic-programs/graduate/liberal-arts-...

https://grahamschool.uchicago.edu/academic-programs/liberal-...

https://ccae.org/classes/humanities

https://www.92y.org/classes?100_Classes=Literature%20%26%20W...

https://writersworkshop.uiowa.edu/summer-programs

[JamesBarney]

But would you be 5 months off of work and $15,000 interested?

[BoiledCabbage]

If the answer is 'no', we have to ask why people are "4 years off work, 100k+ interested"?

There is a value to history, the arts, humanities. But that value isn't always well captured by our current society.

Optimization systems (like our economy) optimize for what I'd easy to measure, and ignore what's hard. A lot of those fields accrue value to the commons, which is value which is hard to measure, as a result their dollar reward is often lower than the value they produce.

There isn't an easy solution - and often when faced with hard problems the answer taken is fall back to the tools were used to using to measure.

[vkou]

How on Earth does it cost $450,000 to teach humanities to a class of thirty adult students for five months?

[JamesBarney]

I was just taking the costs from most tech boot camps.