Your experiences with liberal studies vs engineering are interesting. I had the opposite experience. The engineering profs would give examples from their experiences and we really got to know them well. The libs people seemed boring and uneducated.
Hmmm, that's a really good point, and it might be correct. But here's some anecdotal evidence to the contrary: Tthe school I went to is better known for engineering, since it's right down the street from Wright Patt Air Force Base, which has a lot of the Air Force Research Labs. I did find that most of my computer teachers were way more personable than the rest of the STEM profs. I thought it was perhaps because they generally weren't "just" professors, but were Base contractors who either taught on the side or post-retirement. They were generally both brilliant, and very personable lecturers.
I wonder if this has more to do with perspective?
Theory 1- Professors are more personable in upper-level classes, than lower-level classes. I went from upper-level history to lower level engineering, and thought that the engineering profs were less personable. You went from upper-level engineering/sci/math to lower-level liberal arts (say if senior year you took a filler intro to philosophy class or something), so you thought liberal arts profs were less personable. Both of these could be explained by the difference in level, rather than the difference in field.
Theory 2- Professors are more personable to students that show promise in their particular field. Liberal arts professors don't bother being overly friendly with STEM students who are just taking their class as a filler, and engineering profs don't bother being friendly with lower skill students.
Anecdotal evidence for both of these that when I switched to Human Factors Engineering I thought the teachers were (generally) better. I thought it was because it was a more Psychology-based field, but perhaps it was because I was finally in higher level classes, and/or that I was much better at it than I was at mech.
Theory 3- It completely varies from school to school. Possibly determined by the specialty of the university, or perhaps determined by the head of the dept., who hires profs that fit their personal preferences.
Theory 4- One discipline actually does have more personable professors than the other discipline, for any number of reasons. (Education and Social Work profs are among the MOST personable that I've had. That intuitively makes sense to me.)
Can anyone find any evidence for these?
Theory 1 sounds like the atmosphere at my high school. Some of my teachers there went from boring and dismissive to interesting and friendly once you'd made the conscious choice to be in their class.
At university I found the same thing you did - in the Linguistics department the lecturers were uniformly friendly and happy to bring up tidbits about their lives, while in computer science the level of engagement was... uneven, to say the least.
One of the things I loved about studying liberal arts is that you actually got to know your professors. They would discuss their personal experiences in a topic ("Here's what I did during the feminist movement.."), you might get slide shows from their vacation in the country of study, or even invited to their house for a group dinner.
Going into engineering was rather jarring for me in that regard. The vast majority of professors would come to class, lecture on the topic, and that would be it. They might share what their specific field of study was, but they rarely shared any personal details. It actually made it harder for me to learn, because it was like "Who is this person who is talking to me?"
(I think a large part of this for me personally was because I am motivated by a desire to please, and so if I liked my professors, then I wouldn't want to inconvenience them by handing things in late, or bore them by giving them another sub-par paper to read. But that's another discussion...)
I've noticed that Less Wrong is similar in some ways. We may know about each other's views on particular topics, and general fields of study, but we know very little about each other as people, unless a personal topic happens to be related to a particular rationalist study. Even the intro thread set up here focuses mainly on non-personal information.
For example, a Generic Intro post right now would be something like: "I'm X years old. From place Y. The fields I study/want to study are Z. Here's what college/HS was/is like for me. I have akrasia." Pretty boring, right? INSTEAD, the things I would be interested in knowing about my fellow LWers include: "On my time off I enjoy underwater basketweaving and climbing Mt Kilamanjaro. I have 6 young daughters and a dog named Grrr. I love pesto. etc"
From a rational perspective, an argument could be made that it's easier to have constructive arguments that remain civil when you humanize the people you are speaking with.
I was wondering how other LWers feel on the subject. Do you like that our discussions are un-hampered by personal data? Do you like the idea of providing personal intros? Do you not want to provide personalish information for safety reasons, or because you don't think it's anyone business?
If you think you might need help writing a personal intro, I wrote [a general guide](http://lesswrong.com/lw/8nq/more_personal_introductions/5d4e) on the topic in the comments below.
Note: I predict there will be two types of response to this post. People discussing how they feel about this (Meta-Comments), and people giving personal introductions (Intros). To make navigating the responses easier, I am trying an experiment where I set up a meta-comment thread and a personal introduction thread.
PLEASE PLACE COMMENTS ABOUT THIS IDEA IN META-COMMENT THREAD, AND COMMENTS INTRODUCING YOURSELF IN INTRO THREAD.
Edited to make it more clear to focus on personality, hobbies, likes/dislikes, and NOT on what you study, or school.
ETA- Added link to "How to Write Personal Intro" comment