Last week, President Higdon wrote an article for the Huffington Post emphasizing the strengths of a liberal arts education, in response to Florida Governor Rick Scott’s desire for public funding for more “practical” majors such as the physical sciences, mathematics and engineering.
The liberal arts have always been scrutinized. The irony is that a good deal of this scrutiny comes from liberal arts students themselves. I am often quick to jokingly describe my English/Film Studies double major as useless, but why is that? In today’s working world, even getting a “practical” job as an engineer or scientist has become frustratingly difficult. We’re living in an economy where getting hired as an investment banker is as difficult as finding an employer that is impressed by your dance degree. Do the humanities really need any more defending?
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I have never been able to take the criticism of the liberal arts seriously. To me, dissenters of liberal arts degrees have seemed incredibly narrow-minded. To dismiss an entire branch of academia as mere fluff is to reject an integral part of human intellectual accomplishment. People like Governor Scott have always struck me as being vaguely paranoid at the idea of a future in which everyone in the United States isn’t a nuclear physicist. The assumption seems to be that if too many students major in anthropology, the country will be taken over by more advanced nations made up entirely of math geniuses and super scientists. Nobody wants that to happen, but if it does, it’s not going to be because college students studied something “impractical.” There are no “impractical” majors; the merits of each field of study should, at this point, be self-evident.
The problem is that many students feel the need to be self-deprecating when it comes to the subject of their majors, because of a fear that their education will be spiritually fulfilling, but realistically ineffective. Even as we are studying we are often reinforcing the notion that the classes we are taking are useless– it’s hard to think of the everyday skills one can gain from courses like “Imaginary Gardens, Real Toads.” Students often complain about “gen eds” being a waste of time, but it never hurts to broaden your knowledge. My freshman year I learned how to read music and translate dense literary theory into plain English. Can I apply those skills directly to a future employment opportunity? No, but I can assure you that it has greatly augmented my ability to analyze information and think in ways that I am not used to thinking. In his article, President Higdon mentioned some familiar key words that I often hear regarding the benefits of a liberal arts education: critical thinking, problem-solving and communications. While I don’t think those skills alone are enough to ensure a lucrative career, I do think that they seek to make us as students more flexible in our ability to tackle situations, and in a job market that is constantly shifting that seems like a valuable set of skills to have. That, in the long run, isn’t just going to help me get a job; it’s helping me grow as a human being. I would like to think that the more “practical” majors strut across campus with complete confidence in themselves and their educational decisions, but they don’t. The truth is, we’re all a little unsure of what comes next.
I can’t speak for everyone. I’m only a sophomore, and I can’t say with any certainty what my post-graduation plans are, but that doesn’t mean I’m walking around campus petrified of tomorrow. The future might be frightening in some ways, but I think that people get too caught up in that fear. Governor Scott’s idea of “practical” majors completely discredits the value of a liberal arts education in the job market: education cannot be measured. I don’t think I’m deluding myself when I say I should be able to find some kind of a job after college. I’m not saying it will be easy, but I refuse to believe that what I’m doing is a waste of time.
-Jerell Mays
