February 25, 2009

The end of the Humanities?

As if being an English Lit/French double major didn't have enough of a you'll-never-get-a-job-with-that-degree stigma, it seems the current economic state has made it even worse. According to this article in the NY Times, the humanities are suffering a slow and painful death in the face of economic doom. It seems that education for the sake of education is becoming less and less a viable option in an economy that requires specific and technical job skills in order to avoid the unemployment lines.

I LOVED my humanities education, and don't regret for a second studying what I did - but I can't help but wonder if I would have chosen a different path had I started college this year, in the midst of this massive recession.

1 comment:

Sunny Days said...

Another friend of mine saw this same article this morning ... this is what he had to say about it:

"Soon we'll learn only WHAT to think not HOW to think... There is a certain validity to the argument on how practical the studies of humanities is in relations to a viable technical outputs but if we lose the thinkers, we may lose the reason for all the innovation".

Some serious food for thought, not to mention consolation for all of us humanities types ;-)