I’ve answered far too many reporter calls in the last few months in which I’ve been asked about whether this recession will finally put the nail in the coffin of the humanities.  Of course, not one of these questioners seems aware of the most recent data on humanities majors or course-taking that suggest, for instance, that the number and percentages of students majoring in the humanities has actually been rising for the past twenty years.  And several disciplines—including philosophy and religion—have seen increases in the numbers of students taking courses, if not choosing them as majors.  They also seem unaware of the many skills and abilities employers are seeking that humanities majors exemplify.  I suspect that increasing interest in the humanities will continue in our increasingly troubled world—and, unfortunately, so will the questions, including the all-too-common question, what can you do with a humanities major?

I share below the text of a wonderful talk given recently to prospective students at Muhlenberg College on just this question, reprinted here by permission of the speaker, David Rosenwasser, professor of English and codirector of the writing program at the college.

What Can You Do with a Major in the Humanities?

If you major in biology, you can become a biologist.  If you major in accounting, you can become an accountant. So it would seem to follow that if you major in the humanities, you can, after four years of diligent and committed study, become a human. But weren’t you that already?

That lame attempt at a joke is actually pointing in the direction I wish to take in these remarks.  Here are some relatively conventional answers to the question, what can I do with a major in the humanities?

You can use the skills that a liberal arts education offers to get a job, any job.  You can look for jobs that require a person who knows how to read carefully and see not just the obvious answers, but the questions;  a major in the humanities can teach you to see the questions.

You can go on to professional school.  English and philosophy majors score highest on the LSAT if you want to go to law school.  You can go into public education, and Lord knows the schools can use the help.  If you major in foreign language, obviously you can put that skill to work in an increasingly multilingual American society and an increasingly global community.

But let’s face it, if you are driven to find a profession, the most obvious skills you learn in the humanities disciplines will not guarantee employment. It is hard to make it as an actor, director, musician, artist, photojournalist, writer, philosopher, or  . . . professor.

But the skills you acquire along with these skills, are, it seems to me, incredibly valuable in the workplace. That is why many who major in the humanities combine it with another major.

What are these corollary skills?

With a major in the humanities, you can become:

-smarter
-a more disciplined, but also a more supple, thinker
-a more articulate writer
-a more resourceful problem-solver

And a person able to have ideas—what Aristotle referred to as invention—in a range of contexts.

Let me share a bit more about becoming smarter: the humanities will teach you to avoid simplistic thinking, especially of the either-or variety.  This kind of thinking, also known as binary thinking, can lead to acts of cognitive violence. The humanities are interested in the gray areas between the established categories; they have a healthy distrust of either-ors and the bullies who impose them.

One such vicious binary is the divide between creativity and analysis: the humanities will help you to see that the best thinkers are those who understand that being creative and being analytical are not opposed. An education in the humanities will teach you to combine these skills. And that can be your ticket on to whatever train you choose to ride.

If you want to become a more capacious thinker, major in the humanities. And if you want to better understand the kind of thinker you are—in other words, to become metacognitive, or to notice what you notice—major in the humanities. You just may find, as you leave college and move into a career, that you have acquired a more resonant and rewarding understanding of what it means to be human.

To learn more about the importance of liberal education outcomes, click here.

Tags: humanities, liberal education