Is it low brow to criticize humanities majors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:From my experience, the people who criticize humanities majors, saying things like “have fun working at Starbucks” and “that’s a waste of time,” are from lower social classes and are overall less polished. On the other hand, those who are accepting of humanities majors tent to be more educated, wealthy, and well spoken.

Yes, that's right: nepo baby heiresses can get humanities degrees and then coast on daddy's money and then hubby's money. What's your point?

Most people getting humanities degrees are not, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can only major in these sorts of things if you are at at "good" school...bc the career services/alumni/name help with that consulting/PR/comms/advisory job.....

- T10 humanities major who makes a healthy 7 figures a year

Agree. We are full pay at the Ivies for my kids. If they were stem we would have just done a state school. To get into an Ivy- you also excelled in AP calc/physics/chem, etc in addition to AP foreign language/histories/eng lang lit. You have to have it all to get in anyways.

Harvard's remedial calculus class says this isn't true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From my experience, the people who criticize humanities majors, saying things like “have fun working at Starbucks” and “that’s a waste of time,” are from lower social classes and are overall less polished. On the other hand, those who are accepting of humanities majors tent to be more educated, wealthy, and well spoken.

I mean, those people are just projecting their insecurities. The joke’s on them because humanities majors are best positioned to thrive in an AI-disrupted economy. Human creativity is going to command a premium in the workplace. It is already true.

Humanities majors aren't human creativity. They are spectators to human creativity.

But enjoy coping. While English majors get replaced by ChatGPT writing marketing copy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s a luxury to be able to study whatever you are passionate about for learnings sake without having to care about employment outcomes.

My daughter is in NYC with thousands of kids studying dance, acting, musical theatre at places like NYU, Juilliard, Fordham with Alvin Ailey, all the schools at the top ballet companies. That’s just a few of the schools.

It’s not that unusual for these kids to study something without knowing what kind on income they might have.

Cool, those are performing artists, not humanities majors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m wondering if criticizing humanities majors is a more cultural thing. I’m an immigrant, and humanities majors are definitely looked down upon as there aren’t much career prospects in my home country for them as there would be for an engineer or a doctor for instance.
Also, as a high school student in my home country, it’s almost unheard of to go into a humanities major if you’re good at Math/ STEM.
It’s awesome to see kids in the US who are good at STEM, deliberately choose humanities majors and thrive.

I think that’s only immigrants from Asian countries. How could everybody be an engineer or doctor? That would be weird.

Not everyone is an engineer or a doctor. Most people are poor. Other people are business people who don't need a college education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So what are these great jobs the ivy humanities majors are doing?

Well my DH earns nearly $1 million/yr working in TV & filim
so there's that.

Arts, not humanities. And if we're picking extreme outliers, my cousin's DH makes $1B/year in tech

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, people who don’t understand the value of humanities majors are less educated/low brow in my experience

People who who don't understand that most humanities majors are majoring in what well-educated people do in their free time are less educated and low brow in my experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I had an employee once deride ‘liberal arts’ in general. She thought one majored in, and received a degree in, ‘liberal arts.’ She didn’t understand the difference, nor did she care to understand. She was so low-brow it wasn’t worth my time to try to explain.

Most DCUM posters think that. They don't understand that a major is part of a liberal arts education

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why stop at Humanities? We (CS/EE majors) made fun of the Math and Physics majors on our floor - we kept joking what are you qualified to do? We'd probably go after biology as well but only had one.

One math grad joked after getting his first job that UPS truck drivers were making slightly more - this was in the 90s just before the Internet explosion.

Working at NASA - Physics/Math majors looked down on everyone else. Think Sheldon and Wolowitz. They ran the place. They even listed on open positions "hard science" they didn't care which one. That was for something that required hard coding.

The Business majors keep telling use we're the "smart guys" while significantly making more than us. Off course they only hired Humanities as they moved up. One even told me Humanities start low and finish high. Tech start high and level off. Yes. I understand the comp plan for FANG and the ludicrous salaries are not the norm.

Difference is that tech majors have nice paying jobs doing comfortable work. Business majors generally have to burn out their soul and be miserable people to succeed. Look at the ghoul in the oval office.

[Anonymous]

I studied Classics, focusing on Latin, at Harvard. Nobody from my course is working at Starbucks. Not even close.

Some of them aren't working at all, nor did they ever plan to work. All are living the kinds of lives most people would envy. IYKYK, I guess.

In a way, studying a field in the humanities as "upper class" (a favorite DCUM obsession) as you can get.

But for you plebs who have to work for your bread, I suppose the MBA slog or engineering drudgery is OK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From my experience, the people who criticize humanities majors, saying things like “have fun working at Starbucks” and “that’s a waste of time,” are from lower social classes and are overall less polished. On the other hand, those who are accepting of humanities majors tent to be more educated, wealthy, and well spoken.

I mean, those people are just projecting their insecurities. The joke’s on them because humanities majors are best positioned to thrive in an AI-disrupted economy. Human creativity is going to command a premium in the workplace. It is already true.

Humanities majors aren't human creativity. They are spectators to human creativity.

But enjoy coping. While English majors get replaced by ChatGPT writing marketing copy.

Humanities majors learn to think. That's what reading, analyzing, and presenting and defending your analyses in discussions, presentations and in writing does. You get a broad based education and learn to think deeply and communicate.

English majors don't just write. They think. That's why their skills are so valuable in so many fields.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a luxury to be able to study whatever you are passionate about for learnings sake without having to care about employment outcomes.

What exactly do you mean when you say employment outcomes? Income at: One year out? Ten years out? Long-term?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:From my experience, the people who criticize humanities majors, saying things like “have fun working at Starbucks” and “that’s a waste of time,” are from lower social classes and are overall less polished. On the other hand, those who are accepting of humanities majors tent to be more educated, wealthy, and well spoken.

I mean, those people are just projecting their insecurities. The joke’s on them because humanities majors are best positioned to thrive in an AI-disrupted economy. Human creativity is going to command a premium in the workplace. It is already true.

Humanities majors aren't human creativity. They are spectators to human creativity.

But enjoy coping. While English majors get replaced by ChatGPT writing marketing copy.

Humanities majors learn to think. That's what reading, analyzing, and presenting and defending your analyses in discussions, presentations and in writing does. You get a broad based education and learn to think deeply and communicate.

English majors don't just write. They think. That's why their skills are so valuable in so many fields.

My literature major did a great job of preparing me for law school and life. Happily making $3M/year as a big law partner. Prefer to hire associates who have a liberal arts background.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I studied Classics, focusing on Latin, at Harvard. Nobody from my course is working at Starbucks. Not even close.

Some of them aren't working at all, nor did they ever plan to work. All are living the kinds of lives most people would envy. IYKYK, I guess.

In a way, studying a field in the humanities as "upper class" (a favorite DCUM obsession) as you can get.

But for you plebs who have to work for your bread, I suppose the MBA slog or engineering drudgery is OK.

Well yes, that is exactly the point that OP is making, congrats on your Harvard education for reading comprehension 101.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m wondering if criticizing humanities majors is a more cultural thing. I’m an immigrant, and humanities majors are definitely looked down upon as there aren’t much career prospects in my home country for them as there would be for an engineer or a doctor for instance.
Also, as a high school student in my home country, it’s almost unheard of to go into a humanities major if you’re good at Math/ STEM.
It’s awesome to see kids in the US who are good at STEM, deliberately choose humanities majors and thrive.

I think that’s only immigrants from Asian countries. How could everybody be an engineer or doctor? That would be weird.

Not everyone is an engineer or a doctor. Most people are poor. Other people are business people who don't need a college education.

NP here. Wow this thread is something.

As a 2nd gen Indian American, I don’t want my kids to be engineers or doctors. Those are vocational careers (yes, half my family did that and they all regret not studying other things).

I want them to have the freedom to study whatever they want. To read as much as they want. And they are at their Ivies as humanities majors. Older one has a IB internship lined up as a history/comparative lit major.