Yes, I’m a Liberal Arts major. What’s it to you?
If I had a dollar for every single time that another student or adult has given me an “off” look when I answer their “So, what are you majoring in?” question, I’d be rich. I mean, honestly, my whole family beat them to it before they did. I had that question asked plenty of times at Thanksgiving and Christmas and Easter for two years leading up until I actually got to college. They still ask it. I had a spoonful of odd looks then, and I would prefer it if I didn’t get anymore.
I understand that everyone has their own “knack.” I’m not bashing on the mathematically gifted. Math is cool. Science is cool. Do you want to know what else is cool? History. English. Psychology.
Don’t just take my word for it.
Billionaire investor Mark Cuban offered a bleak prediction on the future of jobs in an interview with Bloomberg’s Cory Johnson. The interviewer touched upon the subject of the evolving nature of jobs due to automation. To this, Cuban commented that across a broad array of industries, robots will replace human workers.
Johnson: So essentially what you’re making the case for is education and job training for grown ups.
Cuban: No, no. I think that won’t matter. What are you going to go back and learn to do?
Johnson: What it takes, right? Whether it’s finance, whether it’s software programming.
Cuban: No finance. That’s the easiest thing—you just take the data, have it spit out whatever you need. I personally think there’s going to be a greater demand in 10 years for liberal arts majors than there were for programming majors and maybe even engineering, because when the data is all being spit out for you, options are being spit out for you, you need a different perspective in order to have a different view of the data. [You need] someone who is more of a freer thinker.
A STEM program is not superior to a Liberal Arts program and vice versa. There is a chance for success no matter the route any student takes, so don’t mock the path you find inferior.
Now, someone send the link to this article to my family, so they can stop shunning me for being an English major. I’m going to go educate myself with the works of Chaucer.