That you could write this is amazing to me. This isn’t about who “likes” the humanities. We’re not in 5th grade. You’re confusing “like” with reasonable people trying to bring some balance to a discussion dominated by people who view humanities in college as a one-way ticket to bad employment outcomes. You even liked a post upthread that literally said that very thing. On top of that, we’re now being told by those same people that the humanities don’t even do humanities very well. And you think this is an issue of overzealous advocacy for the humanities? That’s a pretty unbelievable take in my view.
Everything that makes money in a free market requires selling. Around 60% of practicing lawyers practice in small or solo firms, and that’s where most of the hustling happens until their practices are established. Few lawyers in big firms are tasked with “hustling” for clients, and of course in-house and government lawyers don’t do it at all.
So much this. What I do on a day to day basis has so little to do directly with what I studied in either college or graduate school. And I get by and make a living just fine! I most certainly do use the skills I honed in a humanities major during those years, though.
When I am occasionally hiring, I barely glance at the majors on the resumes. I certainly don’t care what courses they took.
One takeaway for me is that the discussions in this thread regarding the career path of humanities majors have nothing to do with humanities jobs. It seems to major in humanities leads to careers in business, going to a professional school in law or medicine, getting an MBA, or even becoming a software developer, etc.
I don’t worry about humanities majors making a living, I worry that they won’t find satisfaction in the jobs they take.
Yes, they are. And in fact, you’re saying that, as are a whole lot of other people. Or are you just skipping through the thread? Go re-read your own posts.
Hmm. Feels more like backtracking to me. At any rate, bringing up strip mall, car lot and kiosk sales people sales in this thread isn’t even good enough to qualify as a red herring. Don’t ask me to take it seriously, because I don’t care.
There is nothing misleading about a college education in any area of study preparing people for corporate sales. It only becomes “high-level”, or anybody, when the person demonstrates they can do it. Frankly, I’m losing confidence by the key stroke in your understanding of what corporate sales involves, and who does it. There are plenty of people with biology and history degrees in corporate sales. In fact, at the risk of offending someone, sales is often the landing place for a great many people coming out of college that don’t have a professional or managerial role lined up. So, your biology/doctor and business/CEO examples break down badly right there and presents us with yet another false equivalence.
A lot of people take a lot of jobs for all kinds of reasons. Our local flagship business school, ranked #19 in US News, sends finance kids to “account executive” (sales), real estate sales (like, actually selling houses) and other jobs that fall short of the prestige line. The barista line is so hackneyed as to be embarrassing.
I’m honestly not sure what you are referring to, even after I scanned through the thread looking for posts which met that description, which is why I asked the question. Could you explain?
The keyword here is “directly”. Only a small fraction of college graduates use what they learned in a major directly. However, many, myself included, have used what they learned indirectly. I was a physics major and physics is about understanding how things work and why they work the way they do. Those “things” don’t have to be some physical objects falling from the sky. The methodologies that I learned to observe, to verify, to infer, to relate, to intuit, to reason, and yes, to prove mathematically if necessary remain highly beneficial in other fields.
One of the things that sets STEM apart is that a student who hasn’t had sufficient background in them is practically precluded from careers that require such background. Because STEM subjects are highly hierarchical, it’s nearly impossible to learn them, especially the highly quantitative ones, later in life. If a student is interested in one of those careers, s/he generally needs to start early.
I’m not sure what a “humanities job” is…but I will say the ~25 kids I know with humanities and a broader variety of liberal arts degrees have jobs in things like publishing, city planning, social services, non-profit organizations, etc. Only one is currently in a graduate program (medical school). A few other recent grads may consider graduate school down the road, but all are currently doing fine with just a bachelor’s degree, and all are self supporting and happy with their jobs/careers to date. They are all in their 20s to early 30s, so of course things can–in fact are almost guaranteed to–change as life progresses. That progression may or may not include graduate school.
Professional schools like MD or JD have little dependence on major. One can pursue an MD or JD with any nearly major. However, one should consider not just what career paths are possible, but which career paths are likely and why students choose those careers. In some cases, students pursue further degrees because they are unsatisfied with job prospects with just their bachelor’s degrees.
For example, I’ll use U Kentucky as an example of more typical, not super selective college. Their post-graduate outcome reports for English majors lists the following stats. Among the minority that were working, the average reported salary was $27k. Job titles included nanny, au pair, director of child care, barista, animal care lead, exercise rider ,and similar. Few job titles appeared to have a clear connection to major.
Yes, 13% pursuing a JD is significant, but the overall picture is not a reigning endorsement of typical great outcomes. In contrast, Yale shows a far smaller portion on English majors pursuing grad/professional degrees, including JD. I suspect this relates to Yale grads being more likely to find employment without further degrees.
My point was history majors seldom become historians. Are they going to be happy when they accept a job in business and history becomes just a hobby?
Reading this thread leaves one with the impression that humanities majors spend four years in college studying something they love only to enter careers in something totally unrelated. I believe part of the appeal of STEM degrees is you can find a job doing what you like and what you studied.
I think this is part of the disconnect, this thinking that the major is supposed to have direct relation to the job. Should students only major in history if they want to become historians? What’s wrong with studying history and then pursuing a career in business? That’s exactly what I would do if I had it to do over again. I’ve never had any desire to be a historian. But I think I would have enjoyed studying history, and would have learned skills (many of which have been discussed in this thread) that would be valuable in any number of business careers. I believe I would have found more satisfaction, and likely success, pursuing that path than I have in my STEM degree that did lead directly to a particular type of job…
By the same token, if one wants a career in business, is a major in business the only, or even the best, option?
Most of the kids I keep referring to do not have jobs directly related to their majors, nor were they specifically seeking them. Yet they enjoyed their studies, learned useful skills inside and outside the classroom, and have found jobs that they like. The youngest ones have many potential career directions ahead; those further along are well on their way.
Some people might want to work in the humanities… but honestly not everyone wants to work in academia (and there is not enough space in academia for everyone anyway). There is nothing wrong with someone ending up as an amateur philosopher or historian. People can be really passionate about their hobbies and get a lot of out of them.
When I was an undergraduate studying philosophy, one of the PhD students in our department was a plumber who was taking a few years off to study philosophy. His plan after getting his degree was to go back to being a full-time plumber. He seemed to be a very happy person.
My husband is a software engineer and has a passion for history. Our house is packed with serious history books and he is constantly reading them. He often threatens to retire and open a bookstore. He is a great conversationalist and a fearsome trivia contestant.
Then why would anyone have an opinion on what others major in? If it makes the student happy and leads to financial independence as an adult, I am happy for anyone to major in anything. Just do not expect me to encourage any major unless there is an obvious nationwide shortage that needs to be addressed ( like nursing) or if those graduating with government loans are unable to service them. Otherwise, you do you.
Well, if no one has an opinion on what others major in, why do these threads on CC even exist?
You’re free to encourage or not any majors or careers you choose. I don’t get the sense that anyone is asking you to do that, but maybe it feels that way to you. There are a number of us who do feel that certain majors are being discouraged, even disparaged, at least in all but certain circumstances, and that is why we post what we do.
Well, the original article was mostly based upon complaints by humanities faculty at Harvard and ASU, which I understand as their livelihood depends upon student enrollment. I get that. But for everyone else-well, people major in what they value, based upon many factors. That is their judgment. You may disagree with their judgment, but that doesn’t mean that it is wrong for them.
The article talks about a lot of things, but I felt that one of its points was that for students today, the undergraduate major is expected to have a more professional focus and prepare you for a job, even at top schools with academically serious students. If students don’t see a direct path to a job, the major seems risky.
I do feel that there has been a shift like this. My recollection may be faulty, but it seems to me that at the time my husband and I were in undergraduate school, the norm for a serious student (at least among people we knew) was to do more of a liberal arts degree in a fundamental subject as an undergraduate. Not necessarily humanities; you might major in a science or social science, but you wanted to study something more fundamental and serious. Then you would specialize when you went to graduate or professional school. In the 1980s, I wouldn’t have dreamed of doing a computer science undergraduate major. I would have thought that a pre-professional major like CS would be limiting for my future; that I would end up in some dead-end, low-level techie job like basic coding or IT. (Nothing wrong with those jobs, but it captures my thought process at the time; I was very ambitious and wanted to change the world and so on )
The quotes you posted were me saying that employers generally don’t value humanities degrees as much as they value STEM degrees, and that we shouldn’t give people false illusion that it’s otherwise. Nothing you posted showed me saying that students should go for the majors that maximize income. From what I’ve seen, none of the regulars on CC, including me, is going to tell a student to do the latter if it leads to a career they don’t like.
Yet again more about jobs. The only metric that seems to matter here. Sigh. Anyway, here’s a 2021 study on unemployment rates:
Philosophy doing quite well, on its own and comparatively. Seems like jobs are not avoiding them at all (I’m sure there is some explanation for why this data is faulty, give it a few replies). If we link this up with the WSJ study that showed philosophy majors as a few thousand under many STEM major starting salaries (some, not all), then together I don’t see the big red flare about philosophy.
And I’m not even saying one should major in it and nothing else. Just have an open mind. Take lots of things. Be open to different ways of knowing. Stop being one-dimensional. My daughter is a science major. My advice: that’s great - don’t over do it, take lots of courses in Hum, SSci, and Art. Learn about life from other points of view - don’t learn to be a gear. My other daughter likes art. My advice: take business and marketing classes alongside art as a major. Get a feel for the practical side too.
Why this has to be a debate is beyond me, to be honest.
Perhaps the fact that philosophy majors practice logical thinking as well as the usual types of humanities thinking makes them more capable and valuable than others.
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