Well, if people stop reading, it will be trivial to understand the impact of literature on society. I am all for literature, art, music, and so on. But that is not what “the humanities” is in a academia.
I also think that the “studies” disciplines produce more creative work by tackling those areas that were ignored in the past. A generic English or History degree, I’m not so sure about. Those “core” disciplines seem to be the ones that have a harder time deciding exactly what they’re about or what skills they impart. They do not train for leadership. Despite their claims, other academic disciplines are equally effective in imparting critical thinking skills and communication skills. In fact, their self-immolation by insider jargon and theory is one of the things most bemoaned by their own disciplinary members.
In practice, I think those disciplines are inhabited by a lot of math-avoidant folks. Where I sit, it is very common to hear humanities people say in a work context, when presented with a spreadsheet, something like “I’m not a numbers person” and throw up their hands. Whereas you’d don’t hear STEM people, or anyone really, expressing bafflement and frustration when presented with a 20-page written report. “I’m not a math person” is the equivalent of a STEM person saying “I can’t read”, and yet it is acceptable to say it for humanities people. It is also far more socially acceptable to admit complete ignorance of basic science. Other than the famous anti-semite Henry Ford, I can’t think of too many who run around proclaiming their ignorance of history. I think that “the humanities” has a long way to go towards convincing people of its general usefulness in the typical employment context. For the most problematic disciplines, I think they need to redefine what they’re about in a way that resonates with the outside world and potential future majors.
It’s also clear to me that most aren’t. Or their self-proclaimed critical thinking skills are too rudimentary to give them an advantage. They will likely be more exposed when ChatGPT and similar technologies take hold. There’re, of course, some great thinkers who study humanities and social sciences, but they’re probably the ones who would have done well regardless what they major in in college.
I work with teenagers everyday who can barley write a cohesive paragraph. They can’t build any kind of persuasive argument in their assignments. These are not just “mathy” students, btw.
Humanities isn’t just reading. It’s writing too, and understanding the intersection of many different disciplines and the connections between those disciplines. It’s about context. Not just reading.
I’m asking how can the humanities evolve. This isn’t a post for bashing STEM or saying no one in STEM knows how to read or write cohesively.
I think you just answered your own question. Focus on teaching core writing skills throughout the college career. Offer data-driven journalism and other courses across disciplines which integrate large quantities of data which can be analyzed and broken down into comprehensible reports. Art courses incorporating STEM are popular now.
Most colleges have writing courses. That’s a different topic. The inability of many young people to write even remotely persuasively needs to be addressed long before college. The question is in relation to the article I linked.
Yes, it should be but many public schools do not have the time or resources to teach writing, which is labor intensive, and instead rely upon multiple choice tests. That is hard to fix in college, and those students are unlikely to sign up for courses requiring 20 page papers typical in the humanities. With hs students doing much less literature reading than in the past, it is not surprising they do not sign up for English courses in college. Most probably would not have in hs if it had been optional.
This was exactly my point, this is a k-12 issue, not a college issue. College is really late to try to teach students to think critically and write effectively.
Like lindagaf, many of my students can’t write worth a darn, including some pretty high academic kids from good HSs. ChatGPT produces college essays, let’s say first draft essays, that are better than many of the first drafts I receive from my students.
I didn’t know this, and will take you at your word. Just wanted to say it’s one of my favorite CC sentences I’ve read in a long time!
Plenty of (often unsavory) politicians and such (including Henry Ford, but also less well known influencers*) implicitly proclaim their (sometimes willful) ignorance of history when speaking or writing about what they consider history. Unfortunately, there are too many people who are ignorant of history that they believe and follow them.
*Examples include those who promote the “lost cause of the Confederacy” version of US civil war history.
I think there’s a long tail in both. There are plenty of people who can “learn the technical skills” just like there are plenty of people who can write a passably convincing paper (and perhaps the latter is more likely to be replaced by ChatGPT). But the equivalent to “future leaders” in humanities is the 10x or 100x coder/quant. Both are extremely rare and will always be highly sought after, as will people with a combination of both skill sets.
This is a weird discussion for me to follow because Humanities and STEM educations go hand in hand from my point of view. I have raised 2 kids who have received or will receive degrees in Chemistry and CS. The Humanities have been a large part of their upbringing (my oldest writes fiction, poetry, and music, while working hard to be multilingual for fun and my younger child writes music, draws, and also is minoring in Japanese). History has been another important topic in my household because those who forget their history are bound to repeat the mistakes of their forefathers.
My oldest has always gravitated towards Chemistry, but she would not have a chance to be a great scientist without her greatest gift (her creativity). I have talked about that creativity in the CS classes that she took (she amazed her hs teacher and her college CS professor with her unique way of writing computer code) and I believe her uniqueness cultivated in humanities subjects has helped her in STEM classes. Her ability to simplify while creatively explaining some of the topics she is now studying in Graduate school is a direct result of her love of the written and spoken word. My son as a CS major did not really have to take many humanities (maybe 4 total classes) but he chose to minor in Japanese which did not make his advisor happy. But studying foreign languages has always been a part of his life. Playing, reading and writing music has always made him happy as it was the 1st “math” that he was ever exposed too. I definitely don’t believe in its “either Humanities or its STEM” because I believe that both are important. Humanities are already relevant, but I do believe that the vast imbalances in k-12 educations across America are causing inequities among the “haves” and the “have nots”.
No, it’s not humanities or STEM. It’s both. The question is how can humanities evolve to stay relevant in higher Ed, as reflected in the linked article.
Lots of people have brought up Chatgpt already.
I’m no expert, but I can tell you unequivocally that it’s incredibly easy to spot and doesn’t have any depth. This morning alone, I’ve found two spam posts created by chat gpt, one of which was right on this thread.
Perhaps a new humanities literature course could be Comparative Lit: Legit College Confidential posts vs ChatGPT garbage.
I also found the path of the thread curious. In my mind, this thread wasn’t a competition between STEM or Humanities. Satisfying careers and lives can be built upon a college degree in either. The topic to me was not a competition, but more a focus on Humanities and their place in college and career planning.
The big difference between a degree in Engineering or CS and a degree in the Humanities is there is often a more defined roadmap for kicking off a career in Engineering and CS. College->Internship->Interviews->1stJobInFieldWithDecentSalary and you’re off and sailing. This works for 4.0 graduates and 2.9 graduates in STEM. Even if the graduate “stumbles” in their career, they earn a decent salary as a debugger or lower level engineering grunt.
There is often not always a clear path in Humanities. Yes for some jobs (leading to teaching for instance) but many graduates exit college without a “good” first job in the field. The >3.5gpa graduates might have an easier time after graduation because they are self starters and might have pursued better in-college preparation (research projects, internships, etc) which help define the path. But <3.0gpa graduates who are not self starters can often stumble out of the gates after graduation.
I guess I go with the line of thought that there are no sure things in life. A college degree is a good starting point, but it is not the final goal.
I think it’s great that many students/families seek the safe floor of a STEM degree. But I think others miss the mark when they decry the Humanities as a poor choice. There’s room for both, and it shouldn’t be a competition.
This isn’t an either/or. It would be great if there was more comment about the positives of a Humanities. I guess I’m just more of a sunshiny optimist (like you and @Lindagaf ) than some others.
The 2.9 GPA student is likely to have a harder time getting interviews, since many employers use a 3.0 cutoff as part of the criteria for giving interviews.
Also, not all “STEM” easily follows this path – it is mostly CS and engineering, when they are not in industry or economic downturns.
One of the differences between STEM and the humanities is that the disciplines in STEM are more used to disruptive changes. Obsolescence of knowledge in STEM is a constant risk.
The humanities, on the other hand, are much less used to abrupt changes, and as a result, are much slower to adapt to changes. Unfortunately this time around, the humanities face greater risks than other disciplines. ChatGPT, and others on the horizon, aren’t some toys created by a bunch of nerdy programmers. It takes a great deal of in-depth knowledge in many disciplines including linguistics to just get to this starting point. And there is a long road ahead.
Relatively few students study the humanities at the university level in Europe. But the general population there surely equals or exceeds our domestic population in appreciation of literature, music, art, philosophy. I am not sure there is a strong correlation between US humanities majors and humanistic behavior. Many of those over age 60 or so on the US studied the humanities. Are they notably more erudite than those younger?
Folks, respectfully, if someone would like to start a post comparing chatgpt with real writing, that would be a great topic for another thread.
ChatGPT is not the same as humanities. It’s an artificial writing system.
This thread is about how can the humanities majors evolve in today’s world to stay relevant. Typically this loosely defines humanities: English, history, religious studies, art history, philosophy, area/ethnic studies, ancient and modern languages, literature, philosophy, and visual and performing arts such as music and theatre.
Teach a real Humanities course in HS. I had an English teacher (we thought she was ancient) in HS whose class pretty much incorporated it all. It was a hard class actually but really stuck with me. She incorporated it all. Standard vocabulary tests. How to write persuasive essay, how to debate, compare and contrast papers. But not any compare and contrast–it would be literary selections from different religions that had stories of “the great flood”.
Or it might be assigned to write a letter to an editor defending or promoting something you cared about. You decide. And yes, every mistake you made was circled and counted off.
We had movies on Friday focusing on great art and artists. She gave lectures on different furniture styles and what the fashions were at different times in history. Add in the literature of the times and the art and the etiquette. And architecture styles. What did other people do in other countries?
She covered a LOT. Never anything in depth–too much to cover. So it was a synopsis of history, art and literature but at LEAST you have at least once heard the name of all these famous people and why they were deemed important to their times. And you read at least sections of great books (if not the whole book)–studied various writing styles of authors and learned how to write.
The idea of reading sections of books was invaluable. We covered novels, essays, plays. You can get through a ton of information which is more valuable than in depth reading of one book. It was most valuable in that it opened up many new areas of interest for me versus one concentration on a subject or novel I might have found boring.
I’d say her class was an introduction in “learning how to learn”.
Is there any empirical evidence for this proposition? Europeans have more leisure time than Americans because they work fewer hours. But are they more likely to spend it in literary pursuits or going down the pub and watching soccer?
I think Americans look at the societal status given to say French intellectuals and believe everyone is like that. So it was ironic to see that the Academie Francaise can’t find enough French intellectuals and has now had to elect someone who has never written in French (and isn’t even European):
I doubt it. BUT it is very evident as a new American visitor to Europe that you have entered a culture that is hundreds of years older than your own country. The buildings. The centuries old art. The width of streets. The castles. The homes. It’s not a surprise that Americans would need to study it and Europeans who grew up in that environment would not. It is not part of our daily lives.
It’s the same actually in our country–I don’t need to study certain environments–it might be mountains, beach, the local park because I’m familiar with it from childhood. I don’t need that local travel guide to an area with which I’m already familiar.
In that same vein however many of our ancestors came from those foreign countries and brought customs, art, fashion with them. And America is different–many cultures have arrived here. I think it’s worth knowing how we got here and why.
I guess I’m just more of a sunshiny optimist (like you and