The Death of Liberal Arts?

College Majors
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<p>The one that has the most personality. Most entry level jobs simply require a degree, it can be in anything. The Classics major who can make the HR guy laugh will have a much better chance than a dull business major and vice-versa. This is because in most jobs, you pick up the skills on the job. ~ Tony Ballino</p>

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<p>A job interview isn’t a comedy act. Employers want to hire people that can handle the work and do the job well. Humor, while being a nice personal trait isn’t at the top of an employers list.</p>

<p>I must ask, are you just a student and speaking from personal opinion?</p>

<p>Now, having been on hiring panels myself, I can assure you that the #1 triat employers look for in an interview is aptitude, or signs of aptitude. Personally, I never liked when candidates came in and tried making me laugh or cracked jokes. Of course, I want them to be friendly, polite and professional - having a “warm” and invite personality is great, but don’t think it will get you hired.</p>

<p>I always liked when an applicant was capable of showing what I can, “Command Presence.” What that means is that person able to command my attention, do they sound serious and confident - are they sharp. Do they forumlate answers based on cliches or personal experiences. Are they nervous, timid or uncomfortable? Do they adequately describe themselves, not the person they think you want to hire?</p>

<p>Trust me, when a person has left the room after an interview, I’ve never turned to my co-workers or said to myself, “Wow, that guy was funny - I’m going to hire him.” Rather I said, “He came off pretty sharp”, or “He impressed me.”</p>

<p>I always answer this question when hiring a new employee, “Will having this person working here make my life easier?” Personally, I don’t care if the person is as dull as a rock. If I get the feeling they will work independently, proactively and agressively - their chances of getting the job just went up.</p>

<p>On the other hand, I’ve interviewed very like likeable people who did have immense personality and sense of humor. But I didn’t hire them, they simply didnt impress me with their acumen.</p>

<p>Also, you should look into how HR departments select potential interviewees for positions. When the job listing says, BA in Business, Accounting, Marketing, Advertising, MIS or closely related field. You better have one of those degrees if you don’t have alot of experience. They basically filter out the resumes using keywords via search engines - humanities are never used, not for business careers. So you just handed yourself strike 1, which is a big strick considering it’s the first strage of the process.</p>

<p>Business majors get a background (while general), in accounting, econ, finance, computers, strategy. Which can all be directly applied to the business world, unlike humanities which have zero application.</p>

<p>I agree Business may be generalized, but it’s a much better alternative than humanities major if a person wants to work in the private sector.</p>

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<p>Also, don’t make the mistake of thinking how critical internships are. Most students will have an internship or other working experience, and usually they aren’t given any real responsibility.</p>

<p>For entry-level positions I always looked to hire young people who had a skill that was in need. For example MIS or IT, accounting.</p>

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No, I was trying to say that they are harder than a general business degree from non-top school. </p>

<p>I didn’t mention anything in that post about humanities being easier than sciences. Fort he most part, they aren’t. The one exception to this, I would argue, are majors in foreign and classical languages. It takes just as much work to read Homer and Virgil in the original as it does to master Calculus. The same is true for modern languages in which one is not a native speaker.</p>

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<p>Of course it isn’t, but again, you miss the forest for the trees. A prospective employee has to be competent, but a humanities major is just as likely to be competent as the business major who went to university because thats what his friends were doing, and chose the easiest possible major on campus. And when dull-business guy and personable humanities guy apply for the position, they both have a degree from the same state university, and they are both equally as competent for the job, the one with the personality will get the job 9/10.</p>

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<p>I’m not sure if you are saying I am overvaluing them, or that they cannot be overvalued. Anyone can get an internship or work related experience. Most universities have career centres to help with this.</p>

<p>Just to be clear, I’m not arguing that finance, econ, and accounting are over generalized. My issue is with the business major as it stands now at most universities.</p>

<p>Also, you completely ignored my point about humanities majors being equally qualified for an MBA, at which point there undergrad degree won’t matter a bit. Humanities degrees for the most part are a gateway to graduate study, but to say that you can’t do anything with them on their own is misleading. Will it be tougher? Yes, but it is possible to make something with a humanities degree. </p>

<p>They are not worthless as you would have us believe.</p>

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<p>Also on post 243 I accidentally copied myself. I meant to quote your saying that I was arguing that they are equally has hard to the sciences.</p>

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<p>I can’t understand how you think Business is the “easier major on campus”, Business is more rigorous than CJ, Sociology, Education and lots of humanities.</p>

<p>Lots of Business programs require higher level mathematics too, which scares alot of people str8 back to the humanities.</p>

<p>I won’t argue that translating Homer or Virgil in it’s original language is easy, I know it’s not. I’m just saying it’s pretty useless. I mean, what employer needs stuff like that?</p>

<p>Unless you just want to master a language, which is very practical and useful. But reading books (that most people have been exposed to) from hundreds of years ago isn’t really a useful skill. Not compared to a Business major who can do marketing and other business related functions.</p>

<p>Also, You don’t need an MBA to do well in business. It all depends on what field you go into and what company you work for. Most of the successful people I know don’t have MBA’s. It really depends on the position you want, and the companies culture you currently work for. Also, the MBA curriculum is being severly questioned right now, so the prestige is wearing off greatly.</p>

<p>I’m getting mine now. My humanities degree did a very poor job and preparing me, in fact - I had to take extra courses to meet the prereq’s.</p>

<p>A business major does a much better job at MBA prep, as will any business related major.</p>

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<p>So, you’re saying that being a business major prepares you for becoming a Master of Business Administration than being a humanities major?</p>

<p>Are you implying that studying a field prepares you more for working in that field than studying an unrelated subject in a different field?</p>

<p>That’s so crazy that it must be true.</p>

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<p>I think the point being made is that if one can, one might as well major in something which can provide a direct career boost. I personally don’t go that far - I don’t think one should major in business instead of the humanities. However, majoring in something like engineering and taking some humanities courses trains you quantitatively, trains you in tough problem solving, and keeps your communication skills good enough for the working environment.</p>

<p>Quantitative skills simply let you get started in more places, and more people are afraid of them.</p>

<p>All this said, someone who majors in philosophy but works hard to develop the portfolio for a good job probably is fine - part of this may be taking some courses in other departments.</p>

<p>I think what Bigeast criticizes must be the humanities majors who just major in the humanities, without knowing what they’re going to do, and assume silly things like that people will value them because they can read and write - in fact, other majors may train one to read and write in more of the sense that the working world wants, i.e. doing the humanities major in ignorance, which I think is quite prevalent but not 100% the rule, can really hurt.</p>

<p>I really think another point is that doing a major for 4 years without injecting practicality into one’s studies really makes it harder to inject it later, when it becomes necessary.</p>

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<p>^^^ Sounds crazy, but yep…</p>

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<p>I agree with this completely. My main point has been that humanities serve for the most part, as a gateway to graduate studies in one field or another, but that it is not impossible to be successful with a simple BA if the individual works hard.</p>

<p>I fully appreciate the difficulty of maths and sciences, and would never suggest that they are useless. The same goes for most business related field i.e. finance, accounting, and econ. The whole idea of a classical education is to be exposed to all the different fields of study, and math and science are a part of this.</p>

<p>The one major that I do have a problem with is the business major as it stands now in many universities. While at top schools there isn’t a problem, at many less competitive universities it has become the major of choice for students who simply want to be in college, and don’t know what they want to do.</p>

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<p>Going to graduate school in humanities is just prolonging the inevitable.</p>

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<p>^^^ I guess we’ve just had different experiences.</p>

<p>Personally, I always felt like the “gimme” major was Communications. Followed by Sports Management.</p>

<p>Then you have PE majors - man, aint that something? I had a roommate who was a PE major, he literally had classes like Volleyball and Soccer.</p>

<p>My last year I had some open credit and just wanted to take a “gimme” class to help my GPA. I took Athletic Coaching Methods and it was easier than it sounded. I played football, ALOT of guys on my team were Communications, Sports Management or my personal favorite, “Multidisciplinary Studies.”</p>

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The value of non-top MBAs is debatable, and top MBAs tend to require impressive work experience.</p>

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<p>Yeah, I don’t see the point of many business undergraduate degrees either - I guess a top notch one like our Haas might give a career boost, but I don’t exactly tell people they should go into Haas either.</p>

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<p>I heard that David Letterman funded a scholarship at some university for a high school graduate with a 2.0 GPA, and its motto is “The World Needs its PE teachers.” Not sure if its a true story, but I laughed.</p>

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<p>Also, you completely ignored my point about humanities majors being equally qualified for an MBA, at which point there undergrad degree won’t matter a bit ~ TonyBallioni</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t consider them equally (humanities) in MBA prep. As a MBA student, my humanity degree did squat to prepare me for the program. In fact, I was only accepted on a conditional basis because I didn’t meet many of the prereq’s. So I had to take extra courses just to be fully accepted into the program.</p>

<p>I haven’t seen ANY benefit from a Poli Sci degree (or any other humanity major) while going for my MBA. The subject’s aren’t related at all, and I’m at a pretty noticeable disadvantage because I don’t have an educational background in Accounting, Marketing, Finance, and Business - which is the MBA curriculum.</p>

<p>Obviously, a humanity major can get a MBA, I’m living proof - but to say they do an equal job in preparing you is very misleading.</p>

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<p>If you mean going for a PhD in a humanities field at a non-top programme without funding, then yes, you are going to have a hard time finding a professorship.</p>

<p>I included law and med school in “graduate”, because I was to lazy to type professional. Once you have a JD or MD, your chances are as good as any other lawyer or doctor, though competition for law jobs has gotten more fierce in recent years.</p>

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<p>Maybe not the best wording on my part. I was pointing out that for any graduate/professional programme, the main requirement is a degree. As I mentioned earlier, humanities majors should have a plan, and should research what the pre-reqs are if they want to go beyond undergrad. I have a friend who is doing an English major with a focus in linguistics at UNC-Charlotte, because he loves it, but is doing a bio minor to fulfill the pre-med requirements.</p>

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<h2>The value of non-top MBAs is debatable, and top MBAs tend to require impressive work experience. ~ Noimagination</h2>

<p>My MBA is from a non-top, but it really doesn’t matter in my personal situation.</p>

<p>If you already work for an organization that you want to stick with, a MBA opens up promotional opportunities within the company. In my case, I’m making a closely connected job from public to private - and an MBA is just icing on the cake when it comes to selection time.</p>

<p>It all depends on what you want to do.</p>

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<p>^ I agree with that, but you already had the job and used the MBA to move up. That is not the same as using an MBA to get one’s first job.</p>

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<p>^^^^ Usually MBA student’s have a good job. Not to many go right from Undergrad, because they have nothing to apply it too.</p>

<p>Most have at least 3 years of solid working experience.</p>