Why are the humanities still competitive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:STEM majors have 40-50% of courses that are humanities.

It is the humanities majors who are having serious gaps in education.

Engineering is the liberal arts education of the 21st century.

Only at top privates/ivies/very top publics. At average places Engineering is more of a tech skills major and does not lead to the best jobs in Engineering or fully funded phD options out of undergrad. It is the school, not the major. Gone are the days when every CS or "engineering" kid from directional state could get an 80k job. Entry level coding-skills based jobs are already being replaced by AI not what top schools train for. Entry level hands on "engineering" jobs do not need college they need trade schools and are not really for engineering degree kids. DCUM does not understand what engineering really is. It is akin to those who think an nurse is really similar to an NP which is really similar to a physician. They are completely different careers that select from completely different undergrad backgrounds, and one of them does not need undergrad degree at all. Trade school tech jobs are not directional-state engineering jobs which are not engineering careers that come after a rigorous Ivy/MIT/UCB/GT/UWash/CMU BSE degree

[Anonymous]

Responses on this thread make no sense and don’t address OPs question.

Humanities jobs are competitive because of simple supply and demand. Many people graduate with these majors but there are not many jobs in these fields so hence the competitiveness. No one is suggesting these fields are bad or worthless. Yes, all of society enjoys books, art, etc.

But to say going to be an actor or an artist- a tiny % will succeed in these areas. Some other fields have a higher % who can earn a living. Higher chance for financial success and overall satisfaction. Arts can still be pursued as a hobby. Also believe it or not. Many people’s passion is something in stem.

The PP who said they know high earners who majored in English or philosophy… in your example, they are high earners because they went to law school, not because of their undergraduate degree. You can major in anything and go to law school. Just like you can major in anything and go to medical school. Your earnings have nothing to do with your undergraduate degree.

Those who are already billionaires don’t need to earn a living so they can do whatever they want- humanities or otherwise. It’s irrelevant.

Stem folks are are just as creative if not more so. I don’t understand this debate if which is better humanities or stem- they are both good and both competitive. They are just different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:STEM majors have 40-50% of courses that are humanities.

It is the humanities majors who are having serious gaps in education.

Engineering is the liberal arts education of the 21st century.

No doubt STEM majors need to take humanities, but nowhere close to 40-50%. Usually 20% max for engineering at most places. Sometimes I feel like humanities departments are kept alive by forcing their classes on students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DD is applying this year to jobs in the humanities sphere (Public facing careers mostly, along with publishing, editing, and copywriting). She has grown up in a generation where STEM has been thrown down the throat of every child in the education system, and people find humanities education a complete joke. Year over year, humanities departments are seeing reduced enrollment, funding cuts, and less cultural significance; yet, to get a job or to practice the humanities is very elitist and gatekept. What's going on here and will we ever see a resurgence in a literate, culturally-aware society?

The reason STEM is pushed down throats is precisely because humanities jobs are so rare and thus elitist/competitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Majoring in and then pursuing a career in the fine arts, museums, English/writing, Classics, or the like has become again what those things originally were: elite niche fields for those rich enough to be unburdened by the need to prepare to work for money. These are not jobs for upper middle class privileged kids whose parents pay full-ride for them to study engineering or business, they are "passions" for people who will never have to think about money, ever.

When I was at Harvard, I met people like this and realized very quickly that there was a level of wealthy I had never imagined.

Most kids today can't afford to major in the humanities, and need a utilitarian business or STEM degree because they need a high-paying job to maintain the standard of living their parents hold. The trustfund kid who attended Rosey in Switzerland for boarding school and is a billionaire just for her name can afford to major in English or Latin or Art History and have a "passion." That is not a rational choice or option for the majority of college kids today, though. It's a big change from decades ago, when just getting a BA in anything was enough to ensure an upper middle class lifestyle.

This.

Publishing has always been a glamour career. Unlike OPs child, I grew up LMC but fortunately my parents had the common sense to steer me away from these jobs and into STEM. Now I make plenty of money while my peers who were raised UMC class and pursued humanities and arts majors are downwardly mobile. Many are funded by their boomer parents which was not an option for me, I knew to live a comfortable life I would need to make my own money.

Of course AI is changing this. Most of my tech company peers are encouraging their children to pursue trades or other non-digitized careers.

[Anonymous]

Good for all you STEM people. The superiority you all feel over humanities majors is priceless. Now you’re among the first to be pushed out of your high paying jobs by AI, even as you breathlessly hail it as revolutionary tech that will improve all of our lives. Maybe you should have read more, about ancient civilizations or philosophy, but then you would start to understand the moral conundrum we are all in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Threads like this make me sad.

A lot of lawyers I know were English or Philosophy majors, and they’re some of the highest paid people I know.

What’s scary is this—-people crap on education degrees, “soft” sciences like psychology and sociology, and they don’t want their kids to go into these roles. But they still want and need teachers to exist, they still want and need professors to exist so their grandkids can go to college and take a variety of classes that widen their thinking. Some of the most revered people in the world are music artists and actors. You want your kid to take piano lessons—from whom? A musician. You go to the theater several times a year and it brings you joy? Theater graduates. These professions wouldn’t exist if the arts and humanities were not funded. I go to the bookstore and it’s packed with people buying books—you know who writes these books? English majors! You know who edits them?? Also English majors!

We have a sad society when these important roles that bring a richness to our otherwise dull lives are seen as worthless or bad.

could not agree more!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good for all you STEM people. The superiority you all feel over humanities majors is priceless. Now you’re among the first to be pushed out of your high paying jobs by AI, even as you breathlessly hail it as revolutionary tech that will improve all of our lives. Maybe you should have read more, about ancient civilizations or philosophy, but then you would start to understand the moral conundrum we are all in.

A tiny group of STEM folks developed AI. Tiny. And even if these folks never existed, another group would have developed it years later. It's unavoidable. Neural networks and machine learning have been researched upon for decades. They just weren't very high performing until recently. As a STEM person I feel like we are all in this together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good for all you STEM people. The superiority you all feel over humanities majors is priceless. Now you’re among the first to be pushed out of your high paying jobs by AI, even as you breathlessly hail it as revolutionary tech that will improve all of our lives. Maybe you should have read more, about ancient civilizations or philosophy, but then you would start to understand the moral conundrum we are all in.

We are the ones building the AI that you are so scared of. Most people in tech know more about philosophy and ancient civilizations than the non-philosopher and non-historian humanities majors anyway.

Your saltiness about tech salaries aside, it doesn’t change the reality that most of these majors have always had low demand and are the jobs are held by a small coterie of privileged elites.

The problem is that more and more students have enrolled in college without bothering to research the numbers of jobs and pay available in their chosen fields.

Smart people who don’t come from privilege have always had to identify where they could put their skills to make money to earn an living and it is always changing as you point out. Nothing new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good for all you STEM people. The superiority you all feel over humanities majors is priceless. Now you’re among the first to be pushed out of your high paying jobs by AI, even as you breathlessly hail it as revolutionary tech that will improve all of our lives. Maybe you should have read more, about ancient civilizations or philosophy, but then you would start to understand the moral conundrum we are all in.

We are the ones building the AI that you are so scared of. Most people in tech know more about philosophy and ancient civilizations than the non-philosopher and non-historian humanities majors anyway.

Your saltiness about tech salaries aside, it doesn’t change the reality that most of these majors have always had low demand and are the jobs are held by a small coterie of privileged elites.

The problem is that more and more students have enrolled in college without bothering to research the numbers of jobs and pay available in their chosen fields.

Smart people who don’t come from privilege have always had to identify where they could put their skills to make money to earn a living and it is always changing as you point out. Nothing new.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Go back to posting on X, Elon.

[Anonymous]

There are very few "humanities" jobs, per se. Humanities education is rooted in reading, discussing, analyzing, communicating--basically, the fundamental skills for any high-level position anywhere. Sure, if your education at these things sucks a humanities degree will lead you very few places, but if it's good you're better prepared for the future, especially with AI popping up everywhere, than just about anyone. The tech guys who "know philosophy" are mainly depressing freaks whose humanities understanding is grounded in d-and-d fantasies...but sure, they're brilliant, whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Majoring in and then pursuing a career in the fine arts, museums, English/writing, Classics, or the like has become again what those things originally were: elite niche fields for those rich enough to be unburdened by the need to prepare to work for money. These are not jobs for upper middle class privileged kids whose parents pay full-ride for them to study engineering or business, they are "passions" for people who will never have to think about money, ever.

When I was at Harvard, I met people like this and realized very quickly that there was a level of wealthy I had never imagined.

Most kids today can't afford to major in the humanities, and need a utilitarian business or STEM degree because they need a high-paying job to maintain the standard of living their parents hold. The trustfund kid who attended Rosey in Switzerland for boarding school and is a billionaire just for her name can afford to major in English or Latin or Art History and have a "passion." That is not a rational choice or option for the majority of college kids today, though. It's a big change from decades ago, when just getting a BA in anything was enough to ensure an upper middle class lifestyle.

This.

Publishing has always been a glamour career. Unlike OPs child, I grew up LMC but fortunately my parents had the common sense to steer me away from these jobs and into STEM. Now I make plenty of money while my peers who were raised UMC class and pursued humanities and arts majors are downwardly mobile. Many are funded by their boomer parents which was not an option for me, I knew to live a comfortable life I would need to make my own money.

Of course AI is changing this. Most of my tech company peers are encouraging their children to pursue trades or other non-digitized careers.

Your highly educated peers are encouraging their children to become plumbers? really? just because the tech market is bursting with jobs, doesn't mean there aren't various other paths to consider. I wish STEM were cut to TE; most of the things people say about STEM don't apply to Math (yes im aware of the 5 math majors a year who become quant) and natural sciences.

[Anonymous]

The "writers" are usually working as servers or baristas or dog walkers while they write and try to get it published, let alone sell enough to live on royalties or proceeds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:STEM majors have 40-50% of courses that are humanities.

It is the humanities majors who are having serious gaps in education.

Engineering is the liberal arts education of the 21st century.

Only at top privates/ivies/very top publics. At average places Engineering is more of a tech skills major and does not lead to the best jobs in Engineering or fully funded phD options out of undergrad. It is the school, not the major. Gone are the days when every CS or "engineering" kid from directional state could get an 80k job. Entry level coding-skills based jobs are already being replaced by AI not what top schools train for. Entry level hands on "engineering" jobs do not need college they need trade schools and are not really for engineering degree kids. DCUM does not understand what engineering really is. It is akin to those who think an nurse is really similar to an NP which is really similar to a physician. They are completely different careers that select from completely different undergrad backgrounds, and one of them does not need undergrad degree at all. Trade school tech jobs are not directional-state engineering jobs which are not engineering careers that come after a rigorous Ivy/MIT/UCB/GT/UWash/CMU BSE degree

Students from UMD, UMich, GATech, UTX can do very well after graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Good for all you STEM people. The superiority you all feel over humanities majors is priceless. Now you’re among the first to be pushed out of your high paying jobs by AI, even as you breathlessly hail it as revolutionary tech that will improve all of our lives. Maybe you should have read more, about ancient civilizations or philosophy, but then you would start to understand the moral conundrum we are all in.

Sure, but AI is going to replace most jobs, not just STEM jobs.