humanities majors

humanities majors

The Value and Impact of Humanities Majors in the Modern World

1. Introduction to Humanities Majors

For most companies, the basic skills that hiring managers look for remain the ability to think creatively, reason critically, and work collaboratively with others—with the ability to write and speak effectively often high on the list. Many of today’s technology firms were founded and are led by people who majored in the humanities as undergraduates. While they gained the technical skills needed to program and innovate in the business world, they also carried the accumulated knowledge of centuries of human history, culture, and experience gleaned from their college studies. As a result, they can see technology’s implications, possibilities, and potential hazards in a broader context.

Those of us who majored in the humanities—often despite the derision of our more practical peers—know the intrinsic value of our education. We spent our college years reading and discussing what are sometimes called the “great books,” aided by the intellectual tools we found in the classics, philosophy, religion, languages, and arts courses that are the hallmark of the humanities departments. Equally valuable, in many cases, were the knowledge and personal contact we received from distinguished faculty with world-class expertise. The humanities are the literal and figurative footnotes to the rest of the curriculum—especially within the university, where they’re often housed in particular colleges. They complement the more obviously vocational and professional disciplines we associate with the colleges of sciences, business, engineering, communication, and education. People with a liberal arts education are more often seen as having varied, rich, and fulfilling lives and can participate productively in different sectors of society and the economy.

2. Historical Significance and Evolution of Humanities Studies

Although the historical development of our right to responsibly exercise freedom of speech is intimately involved with being able to entertain and evaluate judiciously a full range of human experience, the discussion of the value and function of the contemporary study of the humanities in the university is often conducted in disparagement. Today, most often the phrase “useful subjects” (such as the natural and social sciences and engineering) is implicitly set against art and related subjects, with euphemisms for “useless” frequently substituted. These conditions are unnecessary and unkind and actually in excess of historical experience and common sense.

The value and impact of the humanities are fundamentally involved in the history of higher education. Prior to the nineteenth century, humanities, or studies in what was humanistically or liberally cultured, historically occupied virtually the entire curriculum of the university. The encouragement and development of theological and legal studies were also deemed important duties of the medieval university, but the curriculum was dominated by the “word,” with rhetoric being the queen of all the disciplines.

3. Key Skills and Knowledge Gained from Humanities Majors

Humanities students learn about why aspects of the world have value and significant meaning; they strive to know more about these aspects, thereby accumulating specific and mutable information, as well as a flexible participatory expertise. History and philosophy majors engage, as they do, valuably with the material to build and amend the cultural subject’s priorities and data, infecting students with understanding, improvisation, and the wish to contribute to a global dialogue enabling them to play their part in the achievement of a better society. The study of promises and what they resemble gives students an enhanced analytical and a compassionate understanding of their charge as a member of a wider collective. At a time when we celebrate the success of science, it may be frightening to say that central biological development is at a cultural bottleneck, a burden too heavy and too complex for any culture to travel on its own. It is crucial that students in all education fields contribute to a critical analysis of science.

Students of the humanities engage in rational and critical analysis of texts, philosophies, and schools of thought. They articulate insights into history, race, gender, region, religion, morality, and art and seek to represent the world and imagine alternatives. Research students in the humanities learn through their skills in the field, in concentration, in logic, in explanation, and in the construction and comparison of arguments. Research provides strong, organized communication and the synthesizing of findings which will influence your student’s thought, grow your talent, and enable you to participate and make informed decisions in your social and political communities.

4. Career Paths and Opportunities for Humanities Graduates

Humanities graduates receive an incredible array of career opportunities which they can take advantage of in industries such as editing, technical writing, advertising, market research, legal support, career development, and higher education. Moreover, recent studies show that humanities majors rank amongst the top five majors in terms of postgraduate salaries, describing how “according to U.S. Census Bureau data, the median income for full-time humanities majors in 2009 was $50,000… Approximately 68% of humanities majors work full-time while 14% work part-time… Over 35% of humanities majors hold a graduate degree.” The good news is that “the largest minority representation amongst the undergraduate student body at U.S. colleges and universities comes from minority students who major in humanities.” This proves that the humanities have an impact on and are relevant to our society, and that encouraging individuals to study these subjects is both important and necessary.

In the twenty-first century, there is a growing demand for graduates who not only possess specialized knowledge, but who are also able to think critically and communicate effectively. Humanities study can prepare students for today’s demanding job market. As Heather M. O’Leary from Indiana University explains, “the humanities are uniquely positioned to equip students with the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that benefit them in any field they choose to pursue. These include the ability to think critically, communicate effectively, respond to local and global problems with innovation and creativity, and respect human diversity while employing ethical judgement… Employers tell us that they need college graduates who can skillfully integrate both the humanities and other forms of knowledge and traditions into practice, effectively negotiate diverse groups and communities, and analyze and solve complex practical and social problems.” She notes that “individuals who possess such an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to problem solving are highly sought after in virtually all fields,” explaining that employees with humanities-related skills “increase the competitiveness of a firm or industry and positively affect work efficiency, effectiveness, and ultimately the bottom line.”

5. Conclusion: The Ongoing Relevance and Importance of Humanities Majors

Moreover, general skill building continues to be very important. On a broader level, the human condition as expressed in social and institutional arrangements is the concern of every generation, as well as of those who have come before and will come after us. Innovative and successful social order requires understanding, clarity of vision, sensitivity to changing needs, and the ability to translate new knowledge into the structures we inhabit. The traditional disciplines of the humanities are certainly time-honored repositories of valuable information to help achieve these ends. And the process of teaching and learning to engage the significant questions self-consciously brings the skills of critical reading and discernment, written and oral communication, synthesis, analysis, creativity, and dialectic. In an increasingly complex, interconnected, and global world, individuals need the skills of decoding and interpretation that are the fruit of the humanities curriculum.

Are there enough reasons to propose, as we do, that the value of majoring in the humanities is as great now as at any time in our history? We believe there are. On a personal level, majoring in the humanities connects our students with writers, artists, scholars, composers, and thinkers from every walk of life, from every tradition, from every period of our world’s development. The links between holidays, visual images, songs, buildings, written reflections of our varied past, our schools and institutions, our relationships with the natural world, our own dreams and aspirations, and the larger world we share are all illuminated under careful study of the humanities.