>>Yes, I still separate being "trained" and being "educated". My college education enriched my life, not my bank account. The curiosity developed in liberal arts led me to learn about computer languages. The self-teaching skills that came from being a reader who was too ADD to sit in class to learn things made learning computers right up my alley. I can see where a person with little education could be trained to program, but I am not sure they could ever become great developers or software designers. More and more as I get to know the really bright folks in this business I am impressed with how diverse their knowledge and backgrounds are. That is not to say a crack math wonk or engineer wouldn't be considered educated by this standard, just that basic programming skills or even what passes for "computer science" at the undergraduate level doesn't really seem to be a golden ticket.
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>>Frankly if I were looking to put a team together technical training would be way down on the criteria and a CS degree would be interesting but could be more a mark against than a mark for. A good musician or athlete who spoke a couple of languages and did a lot of reading and had a mensa pin would probably make the first cut. Training in a particular technology would be easy.
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>>>That is not to say a crack math wonk or engineer wouldn't be considered educated by this standard,
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>The juxtaposition of math and science on the one hand and "liberal arts" on the other is something modern.
>Jefferson and Franklin were whizzes at just about anything they tried.

I think that is actually a very good point. But our Liberal Arts cirriculum for a BA included both math and science (including 3 lab sciences) Not sure what it is like now. If you were going for a BS (both math and chemistry were very big there) there was a pretty heavy history, philosophy, English and langauge requirement as well.