Mention of all levels of sales positions, including low-level ones, is relevant because that’s where many people with humanities degrees end up. Or they take jobs as Starbuck’s baristas or cashiers in a bookstore. So yes, many people with humanities degrees end up getting jobs that don’t require degrees at all, which goes to show the value of a humanities degree to many employers. Students know that, which is why the number of humanities students is dropping at alarming rates. To suggest that a humanities degree will prepare one for a high-level, high-paying sales career is misleading. It would be like saying, “Getting a biology degree with prepare you to become a doctor” or “Getting a business degree will prepare you to be a CEO.”
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I’ll say it again: it’s interesting when the only framework through which people can understand or talk about value in a college degree is money and maximum earning potential. Maybe it’s me, but although I find having a job with decent pay clearly important, I always want a job I care about and that is meaningful to me (not just a job I feel compelled to pursue because it has maximum earning potential), and I want to be a certain kind of person, to see life in a certain way, to have particular experiences, open my mind, have my presuppositions challenged, etc. To reduce the entire point of college to “how much money are you going to make” seems colossally short sighted to me. I just can’t imagine being such a person.
But, if we’re going to insist that money is all that matters, this WSJ study is fun:
https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degrees_that_Pay_you_Back-sort.html
Note that the philosophy major has a starting salary probably somewhere in the middle of the pack, above a number of science and math majors, and that the philosophy major’s mid-career salary was quite high, compared to the others. Likely in the top third or quarter (biggest jump from starting to mid-career). Philosophy majors must pick the right barista gigs for the long haul!
But again: if life is just about money, and thinking rationally about how to approach college (or frankly one’s life) is just about “making sure I maximize every last penny of earning potential” then life is sad and probably terribly appealing. Life is much more, and so too is college.
YMMV, obviously.
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Well… I have known quite a few philosophy and linguistics majors who became software engineers. It’s possible this may be affecting the WSJ study numbers. Typically these were people who were more into formal logic as undergraduates (philosophy has a lot of overlap with math in this area). In my generation, though, computer science wasn’t as popular as an undergraduate major, and people went into software jobs from a wide range of majors. For the current generation, I do not know if philosophy majors are going to have the same job prospects in this particular area going forward.
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So at the risk of exposing what some might call a mindset that indicates way too much privilege, I’ll also say that (for those who can afford it), college is more than the means to an end, and the characteristics of future employment (earning potential, desire to “do good”, interest in the field) can, for some, simply be secondary to “what do I want to study while I’m here?” For me, the answer to that question was in the humanities. I was lucky to be able to double major, and that meant I didn’t have to sacrifice anything re: my career trajectory. But when I think “I really loved college” it’s the humanities major classes that play a bigger role in the memories.
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For me, there were a number of classes that I picked because I heard from other students that the professor was really amazing, and these did indeed turn out to be highlights of my college experience. Most of these classes were outside of my area of specialization, but the professors were so great that they made me love their subjects. Some of these classes were in humanities and some in science or engineering departments.
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I was also a humanities major and loved my time in college. I initially planned to go to law school, and then decided that would not work with my husband’s intended career and the big family we hoped to have. I went on to get a graduate degree, also in the humanities, to pursue teaching. Have I maximized my earning potential? Well, no. But I concur that life is not all about how much money you can make. Having a vocation that is rewarding, worthwhile, and fits with one’s life goals also matters. I would also argue that there is an intrinsic value is having an educated and well read mother, even if I had not ever earned a single dime from my college education.
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Who knows. Maybe some go into computer engineering. Maybe on the whole they have an impressive transferrable skill set. But note how we’ve gone from “you’re screwed with a philosophy degree” to explaining away the data that suggests it isn’t quite the truth people think it is. Besides, if you look at the study, other humanities majors do just fine, particularly in comparison with science majors considered by most to be “obvious ROI” candidates. Sometimes they do better than them. Sometimes worse. But if life is not about income maximization at every turn, who cares?
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I don’t think anyone is screwed with a degree in humanities, nor do I think income is everything. Part of the point of my reply, though, was that philosophy (specifically) isn’t necessarily quite as much of a “humanities major” as it might seem to people outside of philosophy. You might study something like moral philosophy and be more of a stereotypical humanities major, or you might be more of a logic person and have a lot more similarity in your thinking to a math major.
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The starting salary for philosophy was listed as $40k, which was lower than all STEM majors in the table except biology($39k). Biology is associated with lower earnings, with only a bachelor’s, like most humanities fields. The median mid-career salary is listed as $81k, which is more towards the middle of the range – not as high as tech, math, physics, … but notably higher than life sciences.
Most other humanities majors do not show the same degree of mid career jump as philosophy. For example, English was $38k at early career and $65k at mid career. Both values are on the lower side.
A salary survey like this is only as good as its source. This survey uses Payscale. Payscale reports the following most common job titles among philosophy majors who post their salary on Payscale. It’s not surprising to me that these job fields are not associated with lower than average mid career earnings. I am more surprised by how many philosophy majors on Payscale seem to be doing CS work. Perhaps a good portion were double majors.
- Associate Attorney
- Software Engineer
- Attorney
- Paralegal
- Project Manager
- Software Developer
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I get your point, I was highlighting something about the thread in general (and others like it) - it usually begins, and then descends, into “the humanities is a waste of time” comments to (when data shows otherwise) “well, there are other explanations for that data”. There is a general strong resistance to the humanities that seems, to me, to almost descend into ideology.
That said, again - the other data on other humanities majors stands. Unless a person has decided that income maximization is the be all end all, one you select out engineering there just isn’t that much difference between most humanities and non-humanities majors.
But, once again - who cares? College is about more than maximizing income.
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And again - nowhere near what people swear it is. Philosophy (for example) is 40k (at the time), not much under many STEM and above biology. So, for someone who says: “I don’t really care about maximizing income at every step” it’s not really going to be damning to say 'hey, this STEM major makes 10% more than you at starting salary". So what? If you see your job as meaningful, and you got other things out of your degree that dispose you successfully towards other things in life, why would that matter? Why is that a “bad decision” in college? And, as I’ve noted before - that’s under the assumption that one has to “pick” one major over another. Get two. Major in a standard job oriented field and then pile up humanities courses without a major. Why not? The only reason I hear is: “because you could maximize your income MORE if you didn’t”.
Again (again) - these nit picks are meaningful only if it IS the case that income maximization is all that matters. If it isn’t, then who cares?
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It is the all or nothing arguments that one hears from the people who like the humanities that get some push back. Many people already study the humanities, but perhaps not as a major. And some people are offended by this.
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Most people I see who defend the humanities say: (1) if you do HUM only, you can find a job, and will do just fine (data support this), (2) why not major in both STEM and HUM fields?, (3) get your STEM degree, and take HUM credits, (4) studying HUM is about more than money, life isn’t just income ROI. Pretty open-minded, in my view. Lots of options on the table.
Those who oppose (1) - (4) offer a slew of “income maximization at all costs” arguments, and seem to suggest that studying the humanities is a complete waste of time (lots of reasons are given here). Options limited - find a high income field and double/triple down on it. Any other choice is irrational. Not very open-minded, in my view.
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This. I was a humanities major as were most of my friends (SLAC grad). I studied what interested me and had a rich college experience - I want the same for my children. Most of us who defend the humanities bristle at the idea that a humanities degree is useless or that humanities grads are doomed to be perpetually under employed. That hasn’t been my experience nor that of my friends (a bunch of English majors). Some of the careers they’ve enjoyed: recruiter, market researcher, marketing manager, product manager, doctor, lawyer. So much of career success relies on personal attributes that go beyond what degree you obtain - that is especially true once you get past your first couple of jobs. If someone loves, and is good at, STEM - awesome - but, not everyone has the aptitude or interest in STEM fields.
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I think stem careers are more comfortable. There is a higher floor. Careers with humanities need too much selling – law for instance. You need to hustle for business on a daily basis. Within that framework, I was happy for the kids to study whatever they wanted during the degree. My older one has 40% CS (much of it TCS which is another word for not useful math) on the transcript and 20% pure math, and 40% all kinds of other stuff – philosophy, politics, history, music etc. I consider about 15% of that transcript vocational. The rest 85% is for pure enjoyment. He is mostly not going to code in his job. I am thrilled with that mix. I don’t know which bucket that falls into :-).
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I guess it’s a good thing that many folks tolerate a degree of discomfort for themselves and even for their kids. Because if everyone chose a stem career there would be no government, no art, no music, no journalism…no society. So there is that.
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We do not seem to have any dearth of artists, musicians, journalists or politicians, regardless of major.
And conversely I’ll say it’s the all or nothing arguments from STEM/pre-professional proponents that get the push-back from humanities fans.
Virtually every thread that starts out discussing humanities/liberal arts in general devolves into a discussion of the benefits of STEM and/or quantitative fields, usually in terms of their better job prospects and earning power. There often seems to be an assumption that certain degrees will leave you un- or under-employed for life. I’m not accusing you of this, but others on these forums have made explicit statements like “only the wealthy have the luxury of studying humanities”, the implication being they’ll need to rely on their parents for support, or “why study history when I can learn it from reading a book?”.
Furthermore, at some point in these threads the topic turns to “yeah, but to get a job in IB/consulting/FAANG you’re better off with a degree in XYZ”. I won’t accuse you of starting those topics, but I will accuse you of participating 
. Are there really huge hordes of kids aiming for those careers? I honestly don’t know a single IB/consulting kid, and very few FAANG.
I realize I’m an anomaly on CC, for many reasons. But in the context of this discussion, I’m one of the minority with a degree in a STEM field who regrets their major. (If I had it to do over again knowing what I know now, I would probably major in history.) I will point out that the data provided in one or the other of these recent threads on who regretted their major showed the lowest regret by…I can’t quite remember, but I think it was science or engineering majors, and yet it was still 38%, over a third. Of course, that data doesn’t tell us if the regret is “I majored in chemistry and wish I had majored in chemical engineering”, or “I majored in chemistry and wish I had majored in Russian literature”.
I also feel like an anomaly around here because sometimes I think I must know the only kids in the country with liberal arts degrees (yes, including a very few in the sciences), even those with much-maligned “studies” majors, who are adequately employed. Of the two dozen kids I can think of who’ve graduated in the last 5-10 years with these degrees, all but one are gainfully employed and happily building careers. (The one exception has much more to do with the kid than the major.) And these are not superstar kids who went to elite schools or got their first job from their parents. They’re average bright students who went to decent state schools and built their resumes with typical college student jobs and activities.
As others point out, there’s usually nothing stopping students from studying a wide variety of subjects, which I agree is ideal. And it is also true that even kids who easily have the aptitude for STEM don’t necessarily enjoy it. I know very smart kids who’d rather have hot needles inserted under their fingernails than major in math or engineering. Of course, the opposite is also true.
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Nobody is saying that. The point is that people who go for humanities degrees need to have a clear understanding of what their job prospects are going to be like when they graduate. Yes, biology graduates aren’t in great demand, and many humanities graduates do well, but in general, there is a much greater demand for STEM graduates in the labor market than humanities graduates. Again, most students and their parents understand that, which is why this thread exists in the first place. A humanities degree won’t prevent someone from a comfortable and fulfilling career, but to look through rosy-colored glasses and exaggerate the chances that someone with a humanities degree is on that kind of career path does a disservice to students, because it’s not true.
BTW, in my 30+ year career in tech, I’ve only recall working with one history major and a couple of economics majors who were software developers. Everyone else had some kind of STEM degree, or no degree at all. In fact, I’ve known many more software developers with no degrees than humanities degrees. I’m sure some people know of a friend’s son with a music degree who does software development, but they’re going to be the rare exception.
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The thing I find funny is that people believe that you whole life is defined a subset (<50%) of classwork that you do between the ages of 18 and 22. I don’t know the last time I used something that I directly learned in a major related class in a work environment. Of the group of 7 that lived together sophomore year, the least technically inclined person is now the Chairman of the Board of a tech company. People continue to learn and change throughout their lives.
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