On the Depreciation of the Arts & Humanities
By Luca Cavallo (Arts & Lit Editor)
The New York Times recently published an article on the debate of the significance of University degrees in the Arts & Humanities. The article states that for years, economists have “argued over whether a liberal arts degree is worth the price”, but “The debate now seems to be over, and the answer is ‘no.’”
Luckily, the college fees in Ireland are not nearly as bad as they are in the States, but there is still something to be said about the evaluation of one degree programme over another. The “value” of an Arts degree seems to be dropping every year. An Irish website listed Arts & Humanities within the lowest tier in popularity of degrees, below healthcare, engineering, computer science, and business.
It would seem that the obvious answer to why Arts degrees aren’t popular is because they simply aren’t straightforward. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) degrees, for example, are designed to allocate a student according to the exact criteria for a specific kind of job. If a student studies biomedical engineering, then they are mostly going to work with medical equipment in their future workplace. That’s perfectly fine, too. With an Arts degree, there is a great deal of flexibility that is developed in the student throughout their study. There is no one job to fall into after you finish your Arts degree. Rather than spend a few years shaping yourself to fit into the mould of a specific job, you spend those years learning how to reshape yourself quickly and effectively to adapt to a work environment.
I remember a conversation I once had with a student in Business Information Systems (BIS). He asked me how I liked the “Personal Development” modules in my degree (English).
“Personal Development?” I asked. “What is that?”
He told me his class underwent sessions for communication / social skills. I was intrigued as to why I had never had such modules in my degree. But then I realised that perhaps there was no worry surrounding Arts students’ involvement with wider society. Every day, we are constantly learning about people on a deep level, through art, history, culture, etc.
Of course, I’m not saying that BIS students don’t know how to engage in society, but I do find it fascinating that there is concern for students who spend most of their time with computers and / or machinery.
The Philosophy Society held excellent debates in the previous academic year. Students were welcome to sit in and watch. But the debates were, in a sense, open-mic debates, so anyone could hop up with a fresh idea from time to time. I remember one evening, there was a debate of Arts vs STEM. The prompt was that Arts and STEM students were stranded at sea, and there was only one lifeboat to take them home. Should Arts or STEM take the lifeboat? There were one or two STEM students saying, “well, Arts students don’t know how to fix a boat engine, so obviously STEM!” but most of the debate was a little less harsh.
One student, in favour of STEM, claimed that they would much rather “do boring maths” in a laboratory than count up a customer’s change in McDonald’s. This is where the understanding of the importance of the Humanities goes head-first out the window. The belief that an Arts degree is “useless” comes in two strands. The first strand is regarding job opportunities. Some students are, I assume, told by their anxious parents that if they don’t undertake a “serious” career path, they will end up working at McDonald’s (side note: What’s with the Moaning Michaels harping on about working in fast food like it’s a prison sentence?). The job opportunities of an Arts degree seem few because there are no exact positions listed. People often ask, because I study English, if I’m going to be a teacher. To put them at ease, I always say yes. They then tell me I’d be eaten alive in a secondary school, but that doesn’t matter to me (it’s true). It would seem that the only possibility for Arts students is to go into the Civil Service, which John McGahern himself called “an Irish Purgatory”. This is the extent of the job opportunities.
The second strand of “uselessness” in Arts is a lack of skills. Those focused on entrepreneurship, engineering, medicine, or even trades will dismiss the Humanities as “a load of reading”. This is true. There are also quite limited practical elements in most Arts degrees. A dear friend of mine currently studies Archaeology, and they do a bit of fieldwork, but I suppose that’s the extent of labour in the Arts. However, there are fundamental skills for Arts students. These skills don’t incorporate the operation of any important equipment, or train one to work in dynamic team settings. They are mostly internalised skills, focused on the self through reading and writing. All of my classes surround literature; that’s not surprising. But the subjects that we delve into are crucial to the understanding of our modern society. We study feminism, from its roots to contemporary writers. Studying the patriarchal contexts of feminist authors as early as 1800 allows for a deeper understanding of how the patriarchy has deterred change throughout the course of history. Of course, historical context is crucial in almost every text we study. Topics of colonialism and race are essential to our understanding of today’s society. Writers respond to these topics, and it allows students to learn from their experience, taking in a vast knowledge of the human condition. Of course, more direct Arts subjects such as history, sociology and philosophy will deal with these social contexts on a deeper level, but literature is a key into the minds of individual thinkers and their unique interpretations of the world around them.
There exists the stigma that a college degree should cater to one’s bank account, and that an Arts degree will not do this. For many people, however, this is a reality. A degree in the Arts & Humanities offer a wide range of career opportunities, and it should grant you an understanding of contemporary history, culture, and politics. Those who consider the stigma about Arts & Humanities to be an undeniable truth may consider the lack of “direct” career training frightening. It simply goes to show that undertaking an Arts degree, or taking a “risk”, may result in you being told you have ‘notions’.
“Notions” are a peculiar, Irish trait. They involve the mockery and disapproval of someone becoming “too big for their boots”, or “snobbish”. It’s an old bit of classic Irish shaming, most likely linked to the “uppity” behaviour of the British throughout history. Personally, I can understand why you would say someone has “notions” if they claim to prefer silent cinema over Shrek 2. What I can’t understand is why the concept of “having notions” has somehow been firmly linked to studying degrees in the Arts & Humanities. There really isn’t anything overly complicated or “uppity” about studying the Arts. In English, there’s a bit of Shakespeare from time to time, but everything is broken down and simplified, rather than inflated as “elite”. My sister studies Chemistry & Forensic Science. Now that is far more esoteric than studying Geography & Sociology. And yet my sister doesn’t get the treatment of “Oh, Forensics? Going to be a detective, are we?” that Arts students receive for studying subjects far more simplified and outside of cold laboratories.
Social opinion of the Arts is highly contradictory. It is often considered “the easy option” for a degree, as the CAO minimum points never go too far above 300. Once the degree is undertaken, however, there is immediate pressure on the Arts student to perform exceptionally and secure employment in the way a STEM student would. There may not be a way to combat the stigma surrounding Arts & Humanities as of yet, but a good start is to support the Arts and remain conscious of the significance of the Humanities. Listen to a podcast, read a new book, or go to a show. It doesn’t have to be fancy, even I’m A Celebrity is deeply cultural, though it does seem a little eco-unfriendly. Go in peace!
