Stanley Fish contends that while the production of humanistic texts may have some relevance to the world at large, the academic study of those texts has nothing useful to offer aside from personal enjoyment. And it seems he may have a point. In the 21st Century where technology is king, do you really want to be stuck in an ivory tower for the rest of your life reading King Lear for half the salary of your former roommate who became a successful computer programmer and drives a Porsche?
Unfortunately, if you plan to head out into the rumored post-collegiate "real world" armed with nothing but a humanities degree and a healthy dose of naiveté, your job opportunities will be severely limited. Many humanities majors either have to find a job outside of their field of study or else head to graduate school, which means incurring even more costs (and debt!) for a smaller salary when you finally obtain your dream job as a criminally underpaid associate-assistant professor of socio-literary interdisciplinary history at State U. Congrats on the dream job! But wow--it sure took a lot of money to get there. According to CNNMoney.com, the average tuition at a four-year private institution is $23,712 in 2007-2008. And even public schools aren't that cheap--$6,185 on average, and that's just for the in-staters!
I think I'm starting to see Stanley Fish's point. With costs like these, it's not a question of how the university can justify the costs, but how can we, the humanities students? According to Stan Katz in the blog Brainstorm, "Salaries in the social sciences are on average 7.5 percent higher than in history." Ouch. And don't forget that history professors' salaries are still higher than the other humanities'! Things are looking grim for us humanities majors. First we have to incur all this debt, and then we're paid too poorly to get out of it? Even if we decide to jump ship and abandon this sinking humanities boat, our other options are pretty slim as well. The blog Study Hacks presents the findings of a study done by CollegeGrad.com (complete with this nifty pie chart to put things into terrifying perspective) that has some (not so) shocking results: When hiring college grads, 42% of potential employers say that the grad's major is the most important criteria. And I'll hazard a guess that a resume with just about any humanities major plastered on it isn't quite dressed to impress. Not only is our boat sinking, but we don't even have a life raft. Yikes!
So what is there to do? The already tough job market keeps getting tougher, and we humanities majors have the worst of it. Sure, we may have skills in writing and critical thinking, but can we program computers or manage a business? How can we use our precious humanities skills to our advantage? In her comment to the first blog post, Lauren provides a perfect example of how to make the most out of a humanities degree. Even though it is a humanity, a degree in dance can be parlayed into a viable career in dance therapy, which not only pays the bills but also helps others. So it seems that humanities do have uses, after all! Especially when combined with another discipline, the things that we learn during our course of studies in the humanities department aren't as useless in the "real world" as Dr. Fish suggests.
But then again ... aren't universities supposed to be places of learning and education? Why then are we so concerned with what our degrees can do for us? Is learning for learning's sake no longer enough? College has become almost a requirement in this modern age. As recently as a hundred years ago universities were still bastions of the elite, yet nowadays just about anyone can go to college--and most of us have to in order to remain competitive in the workplace. And that's what it all boils down to: The workplace. The issue at the heart of this debate isn't the humanities themselves; the issue is that college is now merely a stepping-stone to a high-paying career. In terms of high-paying career potential, the humanities are at the bottom of the university food chain.
What do you think? Can a humanities degree land you a good job--or is that even the point? Is it worth the ever-increasing cost--both to the students and to the universities--to keep supporting the humanities departments? Are we students of the humanities solely for the sake of our futures, or for some other reason? Can the humanities really save us? If they can't ... then who (or what) can save the humanities?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
First of all, I'm shocked. I'm struck by the lines: The issue at the heart of this debate isn't the humanities themselves; the issue is that college is now merely a stepping-stone to a high-paying career. In terms of high-paying career potential, the humanities are at the bottom of the university food chain. WOW! What on god's (forgive the lack of capitalization) green earth is the matter with us? Not us as in U.S. us, nor us as Capitalist, rather us as in the globally evolved community that constitutes 'mankind'. Education is a privilege, not a right. It may now be a more democratized privilege yet a privilege nonetheless. Whew! Where did we go wrong?! In high school, my track coach used to tell us that if we were running a mile long race, don't think about the mile or even the lap. Jones told us treat each 100 meters like a race of its own. Keep the goal in sight, literally and metaphorically. Why can't college be purely about education? Why is it bad to study history and practice medicine? I'm in school to learn. In order to learn, I have to be interested. History interests me. This will help me get good grades. Good grades will open doors to employment, good grad schools, etc. Grades will show effort and capacity. I want to be a lawyer, history will help me get there. Historical method will give me numerous paradigms with which I can process and present the law. I want to be rich and all that. The legal professions can help me get there. But that's not the race I'm running right now. The race I'm running right now is to graduate with a degree and level of knowledge that I am personally satisfied with and that let's me rest easy knowing I spent $30K to receive an education. So what if Stanley Fish is right? Give it to him. Give him an award. Then remove all humanities programs and see what happens. Not long term. See what happens overnight. See who stands up and speaks out. Then, in the long run, watch the fiscal impact creep up the academic chain as fewer people enroll in higher education, and watch the fiscal impact spread. I find Fish's argument irrelevant. Ask Ian McEwan if he could've been inspired without ever studying any of the humanities. Or ask General George Patton (humor me) if he would have been as effective a leader if he hadn't studied the humanities. It just doesn't make sense. Possibly to be continued...
While I agree with Julian about college being purely about education, unfortunately good grades will not always get you employment. In fact as long as you pass the class (which a passing grade is what a 73 or 74) then that means you are one step closer to graduating, which means you are one step closer to getting a job. I don't think employers really care so much about the grades you got so much as you passed them so that you could graduate so that you can just slap that university's name on your resume; to have that university's name on your resume looks good to them and their company. I really think what it all boils down to is our society's infatuation with instant gratification, the need for a definite answer, something concrete. I'm starting to think that is why the humanities are starting to become lower on the totem pole, because they don't always give us the concrete answers that the sciences do. Maybe if we accepted the fact that not all things have definite answers, and the answer to one question may be another question, the humanities and sciences won't drift apart so much.
Perhaps the problem with our society is our inability to stay focused. The argument concerns the utility of the humanities. I'm not saying in a vacuum, but I am saying we shouldn't digress. Instant gratification? There's no stopping that. It's our biology. Not to be crude but men masturbate. Sex is finite. Women attempt to give birth in the shortest amount of time possible. No, the shortfall of the argument is the argument. Stanley Fish should be asking, "Why did I write this? What positive effect can this have?" Stanley Fish lacks 'the next step'. I'm so annoyed he would throw his opinion out without any explicit consideration or debate concerning the long term, future impact of degrading or ignoring the humanities. Granted it would be as valuable as the rest of his argument but at least it would show some foresight. The beauty of hindsight is that it is 20/20. If you put on the right glasses. Fish manipulates the past so well surely he can show us the future without the humanities, right? If the humanities have had no definite impact, then he can plot out life without them twenty years from now...yeah? And let's not even think of him pulling a Harry Turtledove on us. I guess I fail to appreciate the argument, if it exists. I believe in the progression of things by unconscious influence (at least in this case). If the collective American psyche sings "Swing low sweet chariot, claim the Humanities." Then so be it, enjoy the ride. It'll be crazy. If the collective soul cries, "Porkchop sandwiches! Save the Humanities!" Well, that'll make as much sense as anything else. I simply find it annoying when someone stands up and says, "Burn the books!" (Fish) and some else cries, "What about the children?" (insert name here (I can only think of that woman in the Simpsons)). Maybe I'm rambling. But really, what has Fish proposed? He wrote a lot about how things are. Well, news flash Mr. Fish: We're fighting an unending war, kids are starving in Africa, Syphilis is rampant in China and India, and the dollar is almost irretrievably in the crapper. So go write an essay restating everything I just said in greater detail, throw in your own valuable opinion, then wrap it up with a non-sequitur comment like, "And while I love Indians, Chinese, Africans, Money, and War, I don't think society should have to foot the bill for my pleasures."
The study and importance of humanities is a tough topic to approach, especially when I'm a social science major. I am on the 'other side', the side that seems to be taking over the world. Yes, my career opportunities may seem endless, but I in no way see humanities as less important than anything else. I wish I had the gift of writing beautifully and picking apart a poem to mean something. Instead, I just read the words and that's that, it doesn't mean much to me. A social science degree may be more clear cut in this world and point you in a more specific direction, but I believe any study can be applied to the world just as much as the other. There's a place for everything, its just finding it that may need a bit of work. Even if its not ideally what you wanted to do, how many people actually do what they love to do or work in areas of their major? I don't know of many. Society is constantly changing and one day social science and technology may in fact reach their peak, we don't know. As we've seen, all studies are beginning to be approached by an interdisciplinary focus. Well-roundedness is the key to life in my perspective. I would rather know a little about everything then a lot about something. This of course does not apply to medicine and other specified areas, however the humanities for example does allow you to incorporate many different aspects. On the topic of education, it does not matter what you major in anymore, it is all about that diploma and the fact that you recieved a substantial amount of education. So in the end, whether you are a social science major or humanities major, you are bound to get a decent job as long as you have that degree.
The humanities isn't the only subject facing rejection from the job market. I know so many people who have graduated with science degrees and they had a difficult time finding a job. I'm a biology major and I'm pre-med so everyone thinks that the minute I step out of medical school I'll be showered with money, but that's not how it goes. It will take years before I can pay off my debts and be actually making enough money. I think what it all comes down to is not what degree you have but what university you attended. Education used to be a privilege but now it's contaminated with politics. If an employer has to choose between a degree from George Mason or Georgetown. Who do you think will get the job? You should pursue what you want not what the job market requires. People can find happiness even if they're not making the big bucks. The world needs the humanities because it reminds us what it means to be human. A humanities degree may not make you a millionaire but it's definitely not useless.
Post a Comment