“What is your major?”
Why! It is the age-old question of time and space regarding your time at a four-year college! It is the age-old question that brings up a huge mounting anxiety about job markets, of course. It brings up a cherished piece of your identity. Most of all, fellow students, it brings up the academic passions and determinations that are just as present as the impending future that hangs before us.
“What is your major?”
English. History. Language. Religious Studies. Film. Women and Gender Studies. Music. Global and International Studies. Art. Linguistics. Theater. And everything in between.
Humanities majors, we’ve heard it before. It’s been pointed out as clearly as it could be. It’s as clear as can be pictured in some shifting eyes with a faltered “Oh” and a “What are you going to do with that?”
Well, metaphorically speaking, we’re going to conquer the world. Plain and simple. You and I both know this. With the creative aspirations we use to grasp our dreams with, we are simply unstoppable
Jokes aside, the Humanities are important. And the humanities major is a force to be reckoned with.
If you do not believe me, here are five reasons why you should.
1. The broke, unemployed humanities major stereotype might be just as mythical as Hercules
You see, the humanities major is incredibly competitive to the job market in theory. Consider the skills we gain from understanding and interpreting the human experience through language, history, and culture through the content of our courses. Evidence proves that employers actively seek candidates
- With effective oral and written communication
- Who practice and excel in critical thinking, analytical reasoning, and investigation
- With the ability to be able to solve complex problems
- Who connect choices to ethical decisions
Boom. We do this stuff every day.
Plus, your college degree alone makes you twice as employable. Just FYI.
According to researchers affiliated with the UCL Centre for the Digital Humanities and 4humanities, over two-thirds of humanities majors after college enter professions in the private, business, and financial sectors, followed by wholesaling and retailing. These are some of the fastest growing areas within the economy.
Cheers to not being homeless!
2. Critical thinking on steroids: honey, our skepticism is fierce (and useful)
There’s a reason why all your professors made you write persuasive papers. There’s a reason why they made you take a side you didn’t want to take maybe once or twice. There’s a reason why we visit all historical content and classes were littered with devil’s advocates. An individual’s skepticism is a gift. It is what happens after curiosity.
Before you retrieve your tin foil hats, skepticism, as a tool, seeks to grasp information. It is the representation of active thinking to venture new ideas. Well, this is useful in employment and life in general. In the workplace and beyond, skepticism beckons critiques, creative ideas, invention, and positive progression.
The observation, the details, and actions we take to pursue skepticism help us notice flaws and problems so we can shape the world.
We are trained thinkers. This is employable. This is incredible. It is a gift to be purposeful and motivated.
3. Your impact as a human being
Because of the way professors provide the tools and means to create, foster and impact the world with your words. Or with the way that your skills deepen and progress in sculpture, speaking another language, writing books, film, acting, creating commentary, skepticism, humor, or entertainment. You have the opportunities to shape the world with your presence and your ideas that you develop. It is powerful.
4. Content: cultural understandings
The humanities major gains copious amounts of knowledge that cover so many different cultures and peoples. While this may in some way be beneficial to your team on trivia nights, it deepens you as a person. It deepens conversations, strikes up new ideas.
You don’t have to look farther than the news to know that understanding culture and practicing effective communication is vital to how the world functions on a daily basis. Being able to appreciate and learn about cultures develops the universal understandings and communication, building connection and community among one another. Your understandings not only shape you, but the world as is.
Honing these skills, your goals and aspirations have no boundaries.
5. We are here to clarify and understand the future
We are studying humans. We are studying behaviors, opinions; we take into consideration historical ramifications. The humanities have created cunning creative problem solvers. Vibrant thoughts and investigations color our world. The inventions, the ideas we have, do this. Maybe food for thought feeds the world that hungers for understanding. We must take the steps toward the future and leave behind discouragement.
In conclusion, your humanities major is quite simply dope. It is cunning. It is difficult, yet entirely rewarding in the future and the present.
Unleash your passion. Unlock insights and confront obstacles that you might have never dreamed of. While you might not be doing calculus, your major offers cunning skills that will make you fierce in the competitive job market and as a human being. You are competition. But most of all, you have a purpose in the world.
And you are living it.
