Students of the humanities are cursed to hear, upon meeting a new person at any point in their collegiate career some variation of the question, “So what do you plan to do with your degree?”
It is a source of minor frustration for many students whose plans for the future may not line up with the traditional view of success. Throughout my childhood, teachers stressed the importance of STEM fields in our new economy. Technology was taking over, I was told, and it was time to adapt to our brave new world.
As a culture, we have come to seriously undervalue the importance of the humanities. Technocratic optimization has no room for introspection. If you aren’t working to become a member of the owning class, we seem to be told, there is no reason to pursue a degree. However, higher education is much more than a begrudging step toward personal enrichment. It is a pursuit for knowledge, civic engagement as well as personal and communal development. There is much more to be learned at university than numbers or business.
An English degree, for instance, equips you with valuable life skills that may not necessarily be taught in other classroom settings. Literature courses provide deep insight into other historical moments through a lens of empathy and rich analysis. Classes on ethics are essential to building a healthier relationship to the world and other humans. Composition courses equip students with the tools to more effectively communicate ideas. Many humanities classes teach media literacy and research skills as well, tools severely lacking throughout much of the country.
Ignoring these skills, while blindly embracing a world driven by profit and “objectivity” rooted in colonial ideologies, creates a fundamentally broken society. We need to invest cultural capital in a wide array of skills and occupations, not only those that drive profit margins for pharmaceutical companies and multinational corporations. All labor has dignity. It is time we begin to recognize it.
