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Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

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Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#21

Post by woodruffw »

yedava wrote: post #15

In countries like India you would be laughed at if you aren't rich and take an arts degree. It is because in a country with limited earning opportunities, it doesn't make any sense to invest in a degree that has virtually non-existent employment opportunities. Seems like the majority of US population has now become poor enough that taking getting a humanities degree is risky.

The cause is probably the other way around: college has become a necessary (but not always sufficient) ticket to the middle class, and so (by this calculation) is no longer valuable for its own sake.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#22

Post by foota »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #18
seibelj wrote: post #8

I was a double major in CS and Latin, and once I asked my Latin advisor about grad school for Latin. I didn’t intend on going, I was just curious about what she would say as a tenured Latin professor at a good university. The look on her face when I asked was complete shock and she went on a rant about how it was the dumbest idea ever. She told me how she was going on sabbatical to write a book that only 30 people wo…

Which is a shame, because I would happily teach Latin for a guaranteed $18,000 a year. Latin is an amazing language that has a lot of tangential applications. At the very least, Latin shouldn't go extinct.

Part of me thinks it might be difficult for a well documented language to go extinct today.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#23

Post by ams6110 »

pkaye wrote: post #17
neom wrote: post #5

I'm 32, my parents studies humanities and strongly discouraged me "because in the future there are no well-paid jobs in the humanities". I presume I'm not alone?

Lets just say humanities is not the easy path to a well paid job. Certainly there are people who have been successful like Steve Jobs but I feel it was his individual qualities that made the difference.

Steve Jobs dropped out of school.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#24

Post by jessaustin »

Maybe this is more an indictment of universities than of the humanities? Is it possible that university study in general is on borrowed time, and the future is simply here earlier for the humanities? It's not as though the Classics will be forgotten, nor will writers, artists, connoisseurs, or critics disappear. Professors haven't ever been [EDIT:] a vital part of this.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#25

Post by woodruffw »

neom wrote: post #5

I'm 32, my parents studies humanities and strongly discouraged me "because in the future there are no well-paid jobs in the humanities". I presume I'm not alone?

I had a slightly different experience: my parents both majored (and onwards) in liberal arts, and expressed (mild) skepticism when I initially majored in Computer Science.

Anecdotally, though, all of my university friends had the same experience as you.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#26

Post by andromeduck »

arthurjj wrote: post #16
mxwsn wrote: post #9

I was curious what sort of relationship there might be between recent trends in international students (who I expected would more frequently major in STEM than humanities than the typical American population) and the article's noted decrease in humanities majors. In [0], the share of college students that is international rose from ~3% in 2010 to ~5.5% in 2017. And from the table in [1], in 2017, about 2% of internat…

I think the Harvard trend is probably too little to late on their part. Having worked on both coasts in a variety of companies I didn't even know Harvard had an engineering dept.

Same here but it looks like they're partnering with MIT.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#27

Post by ams6110 »

woodruffw wrote: post #21
yedava wrote: post #15

In countries like India you would be laughed at if you aren't rich and take an arts degree. It is because in a country with limited earning opportunities, it doesn't make any sense to invest in a degree that has virtually non-existent employment opportunities. Seems like the majority of US population has now become poor enough that taking getting a humanities degree is risky.

The cause is probably the other way around: college has become a necessary (but not always sufficient) ticket to the middle class, and so (by this calculation) is no longer valuable for its own sake.

I agree. In the past, there were fewer people with university degrees so they were worth more. Humanities degrees were seen as a indicator of intelligence and accomplishment. Now they are seen as an indicator of someone who went to university but had no real idea of what he wanted to major in.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#28

Post by nugget »

jessaustin wrote: post #24

Maybe this is more an indictment of universities than of the humanities? Is it possible that university study in general is on borrowed time, and the future is simply here earlier for the humanities? It's not as though the Classics will be forgotten, nor will writers, artists, connoisseurs, or critics disappear. Professors haven't ever been [EDIT:] a vital part of this.

As we transition from a pedigree-based to a skills-based economy, it would make sense that the humanities would be an earlier casualty than many other fields.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#29

Post by base698 »

ams6110 wrote: post #23
pkaye wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets just say humanities is not the easy path to a well paid job. Certainly there are people who have been successful like Steve Jobs but I feel it was his individual qualities that made the difference.

Steve Jobs dropped out of school.

People win the lottery.

Re: Mea culpa: there is a crisis in the humanities

#30

Post by matthewmacleod »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #12
eanzenberg wrote: post #4

That is ...good. We should be funneling more women and minorities into lucrative majors like CS and engineering.

Problem with that is women and minorities are all individual people who make their own decisions about what they want to do in life. What does a funnel look like? Forced degrees? Forced employment?

Probably just a less obviously-hostile environment would be a good start.
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