Emailed from a familiar source, there is this new data and opinion on humanities degrees. The writer is able to say " I made a wrong prediction, the data didn't bear me out," which is always the way to my heart. And it's got lots of graphs, which is my second language.
The comments mostly restate the same arguments I have been hearing since the 1970's. Some state them well, others not so much. Trust me, you will do better arguing the points in your own head.
From the link : actually, the small fraction of the humanities classed as "cultural, gender and ethnic studies" is one of the few fields *not* to shrink.
ReplyDeleteAnybody surprised by that? /s
What you reward you get more of...
ReplyDeletePeople have been pushing STEM for quite a while. I'm not sure that this resulted in a significant shift in majors. The skill set and interest set of an engineer differ somewhat from those of a language major. (FWIW I was never especially good at French.) Maybe some of the medical fields have more overlap that way with humanities.
Another wild notion--maybe men stick to fields where they can easily be better, and with the current majority of women in the humanities, the men drain away. I don't remember a plot breaking the distributions of majors down by sex.
Off topic, but as I was running errands today, I wondered when this area was going to hit peak private STEM academy for K-12 (based on billboard count).
ReplyDelete“Archaeology is the search for FACT — fact, not truth. If it’s truth you’re interested in, the philosophy class is right down the hall.”
ReplyDeleteSo said Indiana Jones. STEM is doing well, and the search for fact. But philosophy is not doing badly. It’s a shame to learn that gender studies and its ilk are also surviving, but at least Fact and Truth survive as interests.