About three years ago I became everyone's parents' worst nightmare: a humanities major. I say this as a joke to hide the amount of times I've heard some variation of "good luck finding a job!" Believe me, I know I'm going to be eating ramen for the rest of my life. You don't need to rub it in.
But what is it about the humanities that's been deemed so unimportant? Clearly, people are still interested in pursuing careers in the arts, in history, and in other studies. Of course these are majors where it's hard to find a job but haven't they always been?
I love to write. One day, I plan to write a book but I'm constantly hearing either, "it's impossible to get published" or, "they'll publish anything these days." It seems like an unintentional way to deter anyone from trying.
Every day it seems like there are new articles about how you're most likely to be employed with 'x' science-related job and you'll be paid the highest with 'y' math-related job. That makes everything look pretty gloomy when you're an English major. It's practically shoved down our throats that getting involved in a humanities-related field is a bad idea.
Not to imply that someone can't be good at both, but I know from experience I can't do math. However, I'm a pretty good writer. I know many people who say just the opposite; they can't write but they know their math. So if we're telling everyone to pursue a career in the maths and sciences, who's going to write your TV shows and movies? Who's going to fill our art museums? Who's going to write the unbiased history books? Look me in my computer eyes and tell me that we aren't going to be in desperate need for honest journalism (as if we aren't already).
It may not be easy to get in these positions but I wouldn't say being an engineer is easy. I definitely wouldn't say anything involving math is easy. It takes hard work. But everyone needs writers. Everyone needs graphic designers. So we should probably stop making the people who are eventually going to fill those positions like they don't matter.
