Yes.
I believe most humanities students should learn how to code, especially if they are attending a liberal arts institution. Many liberal arts colleges pride themselves on giving their students a well rounded education that will prepare students to be lifelong learners. Not only is it practical to learn how to code (which I believe it definitely is), but it can help shape how we understand and reflect on our world. According to English professor Matthew Kirschenbaum, coding provides a new type of scaffolding to learn about the world around us.
why [programming] was, in fact, a kind of world-making, requiring one to specify the behaviors of an object or a system from the ground up; why and how such an activity was connected to the long traditions of humanistic thought I encountered in the classes devoted to my major
Kirschenbaum, Matthew. “Hello Worlds (Why Humanities Students Should Learn to Program).” Matthew G. Kirschenbaum, 26 May 2010.
In the field of humanities, programming and computer science are not as far off as we might think them to be. Perhaps instead of thinking of programming as how to communicate with a computer, we should think of it more as a tool to develop and reveal what we learn in traditional humanities classes.
<p>
Through code, students can learn how to: </p>
<ol>
<li> break down a complex problem</li>
<li> collaborate and share ideas with others</li>
<li> experience a new way to look at the world</li>
</ol>
<p> Any good humanities student would want to acquire these skills, and if they are already at a liberal arts institution, learning to code should be encouraged. </p>I take this position as someone who really does not know how to code much, and I wish I did. I have taken Foundation of Computer Science, which focused on helping us get comfortable with Python. Beyond that I really do not know much else. From this brief introduction, I learned problem solving skills and strategies to help break a problem or task down in to more manageable steps. This is something that I have been able to bring to my other humanities classes as well.
