Why are the humanities still competitive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 One can still make a better living from a STEM job than a humanities based job. Teachers who teach STEM subjects in colleges get paid more than teachers who teach humanities.

It's also harder for schools to find STEM teachers than humanities teachers.

Someone I know graduated with an English degree from a public ivy. I graduate with a BBA from a no name state u and then pivoted to IT. I have outearned this person since our 20s, by a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 One can still make a better living from a STEM job than a humanities based job. Teachers who teach STEM subjects in colleges get paid more than teachers who teach humanities.

It's also harder for schools to find STEM teachers than humanities teachers.

Someone I know graduated with an English degree from a public ivy. I graduate with a BBA from a no name state u and then pivoted to IT. I have outearned this person since our 20s, by a lot.

This is not true. Professors of disciplines are paid pretty consistently for tenure track lines at most institutions- exceptions actually tend to be in medical colleges and business programs, not STEM programs. If you go into a predatory position, where your salary is only determined by grant allocation-then sure, you will make more because your institution isn't paying you and the federal government likes the NSF more than the NHA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1 One can still make a better living from a STEM job than a humanities based job. Teachers who teach STEM subjects in colleges get paid more than teachers who teach humanities.

It's also harder for schools to find STEM teachers than humanities teachers.

Someone I know graduated with an English degree from a public ivy. I graduate with a BBA from a no name state u and then pivoted to IT. I have outearned this person since our 20s, by a lot.

This is not true. Professors of disciplines are paid pretty consistently for tenure track lines at most institutions- exceptions actually tend to be in medical colleges and business programs, not STEM programs. If you go into a predatory position, where your salary is only determined by grant allocation-then sure, you will make more because your institution isn't paying you and the federal government likes the NSF more than the NHA.

Apologies NEH!

[Anonymous]

Stem folks know plenty about philosophy and humanity.

I majored in engineering and took multiple philosophy classes, a religion class, studio art class, writing in classics, sociology, history, and more.

The writers are easily replaced by AI- whether they’re writing text or code. My stem job is human facing and will be one of the last replaced, if ever. You people have no idea what stem majors even do. Humans could survive without humanities majors but could not survive without stem majors.
In fact, some of the most unethical people are humanities majors you praise- the lawyers and politicians.

[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.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stem folks know plenty about philosophy and humanity.

I majored in engineering and took multiple philosophy classes, a religion class, studio art class, writing in classics, sociology, history, and more.

The writers are easily replaced by AI- whether they’re writing text or code. My stem job is human facing and will be one of the last replaced, if ever. You people have no idea what stem majors even do. Humans could survive without humanities majors but could not survive without stem majors.
In fact, some of the most unethical people are humanities majors you praise- the lawyers and politicians.

Did you take 5 years to do your degree. Sure, I took a couple courses outside STEM, but not that many.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stem folks know plenty about philosophy and humanity.

I majored in engineering and took multiple philosophy classes, a religion class, studio art class, writing in classics, sociology, history, and more.

The writers are easily replaced by AI- whether they’re writing text or code. My stem job is human facing and will be one of the last replaced, if ever. You people have no idea what stem majors even do. Humans could survive without humanities majors but could not survive without stem majors.
In fact, some of the most unethical people are humanities majors you praise- the lawyers and politicians.

Maybe we should strive for more than mere survival. I don't find our iPhones and ability to send a rocket to Gaza that interesting. It's great that we have people curing us from cancer, but what about...things worth living for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Stem folks know plenty about philosophy and humanity.

I majored in engineering and took multiple philosophy classes, a religion class, studio art class, writing in classics, sociology, history, and more.

The writers are easily replaced by AI- whether they’re writing text or code. My stem job is human facing and will be one of the last replaced, if ever. You people have no idea what stem majors even do. Humans could survive without humanities majors but could not survive without stem majors.
In fact, some of the most unethical people are humanities majors you praise- the lawyers and politicians.

Maybe we should strive for more than mere survival. I don't find our iPhones and ability to send a rocket to Gaza that interesting. It's great that we have people curing us from cancer, but what about...things worth living for?

+1, this is my issue with the stem bros who’s ideal society is none of us working. It’s great that we’ll have excessive free time, but if you devalue the humanities and find them useless, lord knows we’re gonna end up killing ourselves from exhaustive boredom. Maybe your dream is staring at a screen for hours at a time, but tech hasn’t liberated anything but our ability to become an asocial species.

Waiting for godot is lost amongst many of these types, and their leaders? Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, and Sam Altman, perhaps the least sympathetic humans to have graced innumerable wealth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stem folks know plenty about philosophy and humanity.

I majored in engineering and took multiple philosophy classes, a religion class, studio art class, writing in classics, sociology, history, and more.

The writers are easily replaced by AI- whether they’re writing text or code. My stem job is human facing and will be one of the last replaced, if ever. You people have no idea what stem majors even do. Humans could survive without humanities majors but could not survive without stem majors.
In fact, some of the most unethical people are humanities majors you praise- the lawyers and politicians.

Look- I get that you feel superior because you took a few intro courses and found your bachelors degree difficult, but I really don’t know why you feel so certain about these things. I did STEM too- electrical engineering, if you find that “respectable” enough.

The tyrannical mess that comes from societies organized by engineers (china) is not something I desire. I’m happy that we’ll have people who seriously consider human rights, civil rights, and ethics around, even if they aren’t always the most powerful.

[Anonymous]

I’m a C-suite exec in a creative field. I’ve been in the workforce for 25 years but have only a humanities BA as do most of my peers. We hire numerous humanities grads every year but the scale is just vastly different from finance, tech, etc hiring. And the money isn’t great to start out—currently entry level pay for us is low 50s—so you choose it because you want your work to be interesting and you want to play a role in shaping the culture. That said, you can certainly make good money eventually and without taking on grad school debt, if that’s what you’re aiming for (I was).

[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.

Love it when STEM proponents resort to numbers that are complete crap.

[Anonymous]

In my anecdotal experience, the engineering students tend to be much more curious about the world and better read than the humanities students.

[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.

I majored in classics and history. It was really interesting and I became a really strong writer. I went to law school and never had any difficulty finding a job. Came to college from a lower middle class family via catholic school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I majored in classics and history. It was really interesting and I became a really strong writer. I went to law school and never had any difficulty finding a job. Came to college from a lower middle class family via catholic school.

Because you went to law school. No one is critiquing law schools, it’s the futility of the humanities to lead directly to a career.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stem folks know plenty about philosophy and humanity.

I majored in engineering and took multiple philosophy classes, a religion class, studio art class, writing in classics, sociology, history, and more.

The writers are easily replaced by AI- whether they’re writing text or code. My stem job is human facing and will be one of the last replaced, if ever. You people have no idea what stem majors even do. Humans could survive without humanities majors but could not survive without stem majors.
In fact, some of the most unethical people are humanities majors you praise- the lawyers and politicians.

Here’s the difference between STEM folks and humanities folks: STEM folks take a hodgepodge of humanities classes and “think they know plenty.” Humanities folks double major in humanities and know they have a lot to learn. STEM folks look at things…simply. It is how they are trained.